Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Kroeger, Adolph Ernst

KROEGER, Adolph Ernst, author, b. in Schwabstedt, duchy of Schleswig, 28 Dec., 1837; d. in St. Louis, 8 March, 1882. He was the son of a clergyman who came to this country with his family in 1848 and settled at Davenport, Iowa. Young Kroeger first went into a banking-house, but in 1857 removed to New York city and was connected with one of the daily papers as translator for three years. During the civil war he served on the staff of Gen. Frémont, and at its close settled in St. Louis. Both by translations of the works of Fichte, Kant, and Leibnitz, and by numerous essays in different periodicals, he largely contributed to a better understanding of German literature in this country, and increased the number of those that are interested in it. He wrote regularly for the St. Louis “Journal of Speculative Philosophy.” He published Fichte's “Science of Knowledge” (Philadelphia, 1868), the same author's “Science of Rights” (1869), and translated his “Science of Morals,” but his translation still remains in manuscript. He also issued “The Minnesingers of Germany,” containing translations of Walter von der Vogelweide and others (New York, 1873), and “Our Forms of Government and the Problems of the Future” (1862).