Background
Schrötter was born in Wohnsdorf near Friedland (today Kurortnoye, Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia) and served in a dragoon regiment during the Seven Years" War.
Schrötter was born in Wohnsdorf near Friedland (today Kurortnoye, Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia) and served in a dragoon regiment during the Seven Years" War.
Appointed as minister in charge of East Prussia after the death of King Frederick the Great, he followed the free trade economic policies then coming into vogue, loosening restrictions on the grain trade in that province. He died in Berlin. Schrötter is perhaps most famous for having quipped of the Prussian army during the reign of Frederick the Great that "Prussia was not a country with an army, but an army with a country."
The Polish city of Płock, which was annexed to the Province of East Prussia after the German invasion of Poland in 1939, was renamed Schröttersburg after von Schrötter in 1941.