Friedrich von der Trenck’s escape from the fortress of Glatz in 1746 became one of the most famous episodes in a life he later turned into a bestselling autobiography. The version he published decades afterward is full of dramatic detail: alarm guns, injuries, winter flight, river crossings, disguises, stolen horses, and near captures.
An earlier documentary trail tells a simpler—and in one important respect different—story. A nineteenth-century study compiled from the former Glatz government archive reproduces an official report stating that Trenck escaped on November 26, 1746, not December 24 as he later claimed. The same report confirms the essential mechanism: Lieutenant Ludwig Alexander von Schell was on guard, Trenck’s doors were left unsecured, Schell removed him from confinement at about 5:30 in the evening, and the two jumped down from an outer work of the fortress before the alarm could stop them.
Imprisoned at Glatz
Trenck was a young Prussian cavalry officer serving Frederick II when the king ordered him into fortress arrest in 1745. The precise motives have been obscured by Trenck’s later storytelling. He famously linked his fall to a relationship with Frederick’s sister, Princess Amalie, while other accounts emphasize his correspondence with his cousin Franz von der Trenck, an officer fighting for Austria.
The strongest administrative evidence does not settle the king’s private motive. It does establish the custody itself. A royal order dated June 28, 1745 instructed the commandant at Glatz to receive Trenck into fortress arrest, keep him closely guarded, and prevent correspondence. He arrived at the fortress in mid-July.
Glatz—today Kłodzko in Poland—had only recently come under Prussian rule. Frederick’s government was expanding the already formidable hilltop fortifications while Trenck was confined there. His status was military and political rather than that of an ordinary criminal prisoner.
Failed Plans Before the Successful Escape
Trenck later described several spectacular attempts to get free. In his memoir he claimed, among other things, to have cut through iron bars, lowered himself from a window, become trapped in a cesspit, seized an officer’s sword on another occasion, fought past guards, and nearly cleared the outer defenses.
The archival reconstruction is much more skeptical. It documents escape conspiracies involving members of the garrison, but its surviving official material does not confirm Trenck’s most cinematic versions of the earlier attempts.
One 1746 plot involved officers and soldiers who were supposed to desert with him. Another centered on an under-officer named Nicolai and Nicolai’s wife. According to the investigation, Trenck sought a sleeping drug for a sentry, wax with which to take an impression of a lock, and a way through a thin section of wall. The scheme never developed into a successful breakout.
These records matter because they show that Trenck really was repeatedly trying to escape, while also demonstrating why his autobiography cannot be treated as a literal transcript of every exploit he later described.
Lieutenant Schell
The successful operation centered on Lieutenant Ludwig Alexander von Schell of the Knobelsdorff regiment. Trenck’s memoir says another officer introduced the two and that Schell agreed to desert with him. Whatever the exact origin of their partnership, the official post-escape report independently establishes Schell’s decisive role.
On November 26, 1746, Schell had the main guard at the old fortress. The report says the double doors of Trenck’s place of confinement were not relocked after food had been brought in, despite explicit orders. At about half past five that evening, Schell himself took Trenck out.
The two then jumped down from a defensive work identified in the report as “Enveloppe No. 10.” An alarm was raised and pursuit began, but neither man was recaptured.
That is the most secure reconstruction of the breakout itself. The sources do not require a complicated mechanical explanation: the officer responsible for the guard became the escapee’s accomplice and deliberately turned a controlled exit into a joint desertion.
The Date Problem
Most older biographies give December 24, 1746 for the Glatz escape. That date ultimately tracks Trenck’s own published account, in which he says Schell was on guard on December 24 and that circumstances forced them to flee sooner than planned.
The archival study published in 1836 explicitly challenges him. Its author, working from original files then held in the former Glatz government archive, states that the escape occurred not on December 24 but on November 26. The reproduced official report begins with that date and describes Schell’s guard duty and the escape that evening.
That evidence is substantially closer to the event than Trenck’s memoir, which appeared in 1787, more than forty years later. November 26 is therefore the stronger canonical date, while December 24 remains important as Trenck’s own later claim and the source of the traditional chronology.
What Happened After the Walls
Once outside the fortress, the evidentiary balance changes. Trenck’s memoir gives an extended adventure narrative: Schell injures his foot, Trenck helps carry him, the fugitives negotiate rivers and villages, use deception to obtain assistance, acquire horses, and eventually reach Bohemian territory.
The broad outcome is secure. Trenck and Schell escaped Prussian custody and made their way toward Braunau in Bohemia. Later biographical works agree that the Glatz breakout succeeded and that Trenck remained outside Prussian control afterward.
The detailed pursuit sequence is harder to verify independently. It is best read as Trenck’s retrospective testimony about what he and Schell experienced after the official record lost direct control of their movements.
The Prussian response was severe. The archival record says Trenck and Schell were stripped of honor and rank in absentia, their property was ordered confiscated, and images bearing their names and offenses were to be hung at the gallows. Frederick later relaxed part of the confiscation affecting Trenck’s property.
Glatz was not the end of Trenck’s history with Prussian imprisonment. He was arrested again years later and spent a far longer period confined at Magdeburg, the episode that came to dominate his public legend. For the 1746 case, however, the important event is narrower: a guard officer chose to desert with a closely watched prisoner, and an official record shows that on November 26 they got beyond the fortress before the alarm could bring them back.
Evidence discipline
What the record supports
Status labels distinguish secure conclusions from uncertainty and rejected claims. Color is never the only signal.
DISPUTED
The Glatz escape occurred on December 24, 1746.
December 24 comes from Trenck’s memoir and is repeated by older biographies. A study based on original Glatz government files reproduces the official report and dates the escape to November 26.
Sources: SRC-001, SRC-002, SRC-003WELL-SUPPORTED
Lieutenant Schell deliberately enabled Trenck’s successful escape and deserted with him.
The official report records Schell’s guard duty, the unsecured doors, his removal of Trenck, and their joint flight. Trenck’s memoir independently identifies Schell as his accomplice.
Sources: SRC-001, SRC-002DISPUTED
Trenck’s spectacular earlier Glatz escape attempts happened exactly as described in his memoir.
The archival study confirms repeated escape conspiracies but explicitly rejects several of Trenck’s dramatic autobiographical claims as inventions or exaggerations.
Sources: SRC-001, SRC-002UNKNOWN
A love affair with Princess Amalie was the established reason Frederick II imprisoned Trenck.
The romance became central to Trenck’s legend, but the documentary record does not securely establish it as the cause of the 1745 imprisonment; contacts with his Austrian cousin Franz were also treated as suspicious.
Sources: SRC-002, SRC-003