Johannes Rietmann

Johannes Rietmann (Neunkirch, March 1679 – Schaffhausen, 23 February 1765) was a Swiss nobleman and general. Having reached the highest levels of the military hierarchy in the Kingdom of Sardinia as a Field Marshal (Maréchal de camp), he is considered one of the most successful and prestigious mercenaries from Schaffhausen in modern history. He belonged to the patrician Rietmann family.

Biography

Origins and family A member of a distinguished patrician family from Schaffhausen originally from Bischofszell, Johannes was born in Neunkirch in March 1679 (his baptism is recorded on 16 March). He was the son of Heinrich Rietmann (1648–1722), a Reformed pastor and teacher who worked in Germany and several Swiss cantons, and Anna Dorothea Magirus († 1733), the daughter of a professor of mathematics and medicine from Marburg.

Honours Ennobled in the Kingdom of Sardinia (1734).