August Ludwig von Rochau (20 August 1810 inWolfenbüttel – 15 October 1873 inHeidelberg) was a German journalist and politician. He engaged in theFrankfurter Wachensturm of 1833 and subsequently spent ten years of exile in France. He published the famousGrundsätze der Realpolitik, angewendet auf die staatlichen Zustände Deutschlands ("Practical Politics: an Application of its Principles to the Situation of the German States") in 1853.
Rochau was born out of wedlock in northern Germany in 1810.[1] Rochau studied law, history, andpolitical science inJena andGöttingen. He was among the fifty students who stormed theHauptwache (guard house or police headquarters) inFrankfurt. After the failure of the uprising, Rochau was arrested and condemned to prison for life. However, his friends helped him escape to France, where he lived in exile for the next ten years and wrote essays forliberal German newspapers. He operated as a political journalist during theRevolutions of 1848. With the restoration of power byOtto von Bismarck and KingFrederick William IV of Prussia in Berlin, Rochau fled to Italy. FromHeidelberg in 1853, he wrote his most famous essay, thePrinciples of Realpolitik.
In 1869 he became a deputy to the North German Reichstag following aby-election, and was elected to the first German Reichstag in 1871, as a member of theNational Liberal Party.[1]
Rochau wrote eleven books, his most celebrated of those beingGrundsätze der Realpolitik (1853).[1] An expanded version of the book was re-published in 1869.
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