bavarikon4UHeinrich von Reder
Heinrich von Reder (1824-1909), son of a royal court physician from Mellrichstadt, went to school in Schweinfurt and Aschaffenburg before studying at the forestry school Aschaffenburg and at the University of Munich. In 1848, Reder became an officer in the first artillery regiment and took part in the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 and the Franco-Prussian War of 1870/71. In Munich, Lindau, Ingolstadt, Germersheim, Landau, Würzburg and in other German cities he moved into garrison. For his merits he was awarded the military Max Joseph Order and he was ennobled and knighted. In 1881, he retired as colonel from active military service. From then he lived in Munich. In 1906, he was promoted to Major General.
Reder was a member of the associations "Von der Isar" (1851) and of the "crocodiles" (secretary from 1864); from 1882, he belonged to the naturalist circle around Michael Georg Conrad (1846-1927). Artistically, Reder stood out as a poet and landscape painter. His well-known motifs include the Dachau Moos, the alpine mountains, Italy, Spain and Dalmatia.
Of his poetic works, his "Soldatenlieder von zwei" or "drei deutschen Offizieren" need to be mentioned (1854, together with Carl Woldemar Neumann [1830-1888]; 1893 together with Carl Woldemar Neumann and Georg Betzel [1823-1858]). He also published "Gedichte" (1859), the volume of poems "Federzeichnungen aus Wald und Hochland" (1887), the Odenwald fable "Wotans Heer" (1892) as well as "Rotes und blaues Blut" (1893), the "Lyrische Skizzenbuch" (1893) and "Mein Wanderbuch" (1895).
Together with the Regensburg publicist Adalbert von Müller (1802-1879), Reder was one of the discoverers of the Bayerischen Waldes (Bavarian Forest) in the nineteenth century (cf. his illustrated description "Der Bayerwald" of 1861). His "Antwort auf Maximilian Schmidts 'Jämmerlichkeiten in der Münchner Schriftstellerwelt'" (1891) was a polemic against the well-known folk poet and Bayerwald writer Maximilian Schmidt, called Waldschmidt (1832-1919).
