Wilhelm von Rath

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Wilhelm von Rath (* 158? in Klein Wülknitz, Anhalt, Saxony; † 27 April 1641 in Wieskau, Saxony) was a German soldier and scholar. His name is sometimes rendered as Wilhelm von Rathen auf Klein-Wulcknitz.

Rath came from an old Saxon noble family. His parents were Hans von Rath and and Anna Voigt Rath. Rath enjoyed a Protestant education and was registered at the University of Leipzig starting the summer of 1601. But he eventually left academia for a career in the military. The high point of which was Rath’s appointment as the war commissioner (Kriegskommissar, the officer appointed to handle financial matters) under Prince Ludwig I of Anhalt-Köthen. Rath was married to Dorothea von Hackeborn, who born him a son, Balthasar Wilhelm von Rath, in 1629.

In the service of Ludwig I, he was knighted and appointed commander of the cavalry (January 10, 1627). Although Ludwig gave him the epithets “the rough” and “the unpolished”, that same year, he was admitted to the Palmenorden (Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft), a literary society dedicated to the standardization of German.

Rath distinguished himself at the Battle of Breitenfeld (1631) despite the route of the Saxon cavalry, and was well-known for his battle cry, which was an earlier, and more poetic version of “When things get tough, the tough get going.”

Wan das rauhe ist dahin

So die iugent mit sich bringet:

Endert sich der gantze sinn,

Und dan nach dem himmel ringet.

Rath was killed by bandits near Wieskau on April 27, 1641.