Jobst von Scholten

Jobst von Scholten (c. 1647 – 7 November 1721) was a Royal Dano-Norwegian Army officer and engineer.

Jobst von Scholten's family hailed from the County of Tecklenburg in Westphalia, but Scholten's father, Heinrich Scholten, had emigrated to Holland. Heinrich Scholten became a public official in Amsterdam and joined the ranks of the city's patricians. Scholten's exact birth year has been disputed, but historians often cite the year 1647. A lot of evidence points to Heinrich Scholten being an acquaintance of Henrik Rüse, perhaps being tied to him through family. Rüse would be called to Denmark at the behest of Frederick III in 1661 in order to improve and expand the kingdom's fortifications after the destructive Second Northern War. It is likely that Scholten was in Rüse's cortege of officers and followed him to Denmark. He is said to have served in the Danish Army since the age of 14, which, if he was born in 1647, would correspond with him going into the King of Denmark's service in the same year as Rüse.

Scholten was enlisted as fähnrich in Rüses Regiment prior to 1670. In 1672, he was promoted to lieutenant in that same regiment, and in 1673 he made captain.

Despite these infantry commissions, Scholten's profession and speciality was and remained as a military engineer. He was trained by Ruse, and he had sought further education in his native Netherlands as well as in Brandenburg. After his homecoming to Denmark he first received a post as konduktør. This was the equivalent of the rank of lieutenant amongst the small throng of engineers then employed in Danish service. There was no unified corps of engineers at this time in Denmark, nor any corps that consolidated the engineers in the King's service. A young engineer like Scholten instead conducted himself in a system where engineers fell directly under the general staff's control. The engineers usually sorted under the command of either the Quartermaster General of Denmark or the Quartermaster General of Holstein, who also held jurisdiction over the Duchy of Schleswig and the Duchy of Holstein, and also over the County of Oldenburg and the County of Delmenhorst. Yet Rüse had been appointed to the position of quartermaster general of all the realm's fortifications, and over-inspector of the same. Scholten would therefore serve directly under his mentor at the construction, repairment, remodelling and improvement of fortifications in Schleswig, Holstein and Denmark proper. In 1673 he became the leading engineer at Rüse's remodelling of the most important fortification in the duchies: the fortress city of Rendsburg in Schleswig.

In the Scanian War, he also served both as an engineer and as an infantry officer. Scholten's career can only be followed with complete certainty after his transfer to the Royal Life Guard in 1676, but it is likely that the officer at Wismar by the name of Captain Schultz is indeed identical with Scholten.

The campaign of the Danish Army in that war opened with an attack on the Swedish enclave of Wismar in 1675. Christian V's front prepared for this main event by sapping its way towards the fortress walls under the guidance of the engineers, Scholten included - if we assume Captain Schultz to be Scholten. Wismar was assaulted on 13 December, and the Swedish garrison forced forced to capitulate, but Scholten was injured because of a fall.

He spent that year 1676 back in the country of his birth, where he had been sent in order to hire more engineers for the army. He is listed as having the rank of major in the Royal Life Guard on 14 February 1677. He was wounded again during the Siege of Malmö in 1677. He was very soon after promoted to lieutenant colonel. In October of 1677, he led the fortifying efforts at Landskrona, a Danish strongpoint in Scania as well as the base of operation for the Danish guerillas known as snaphaner by the Swedes. In December he travelled to Holland again with orders to recruit more engineers. In 1678 Scholten received command of the Life Guard. As the leader of this elite regiment he was included in the Danish expeditionary force consisting of 6,000 men, which was sent to Norway in order to support the Norwegian regiments in the up-coming invasion of Bohuslen. Scholten was under the immediate command of a lieutenant general by the name of Giese, while the commander-in-chief of the whole invasion force was Ulrik Frederik Gyldenløve. Later that year he partook in the relief of Helsingborg from a Swedish siege.

In 1679, the war ended with the Treaty of Lund. Scholten was promoted to colonel and became commandant of Rendsburg. In 1680, he drew up the street-plan for a fortress town in the County of Oldenburg, the ancestral land of the House of Oldenburg, which the senior Danish branch had inherited in 1667. This fortress, named Christiansburg, would be completed in 1682. Scholten was also likely the man who had chosen its location at Varel near the Jade. The fortress was said to be well-made, but already in 1693 it was decreed that it was to be demolished.