Introduction

Biography

Patzke was the son of an ex­cise of­fi­cer in Frank­furt an der Od­er.

He stu­died theo­lo­gy at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Frankfurt (1748–51), in Hal­le.

After com­plet­ing his stu­dies, he re­turned to Frank­furt and tried to keep him­self afloat with li­ter­ary work and trans­la­tions, as he was un­able to get a pas­tor’s po­si­tion.

Through the me­dia­tion of Berl­in court preach­er Au­gust Fried­rich Sack, he was en­trust­ed with the par­ish in Stolz­en­burg (now Sto­lec, Do­bra, Po­land) by the Mar­grave of Schwedt in Sep­tem­ber 1755.

There he mar­ried a Miss Gross, May 3, 1758. They moved to Liez­en, Aus­tria, in 1759.

In August 1761, Patzke be­came the se­cond preach­er at the Heil­ig­geist­kirche in Mag­de­burg (build­ing was de­mol­ished in 1959).

Attempts to get a preach­ing po­si­tion in Co­pen­ha­gen or to suc­ceed the late Pro­vost Rein­hard Bake at the mon­as­te­ry of Un­ser Lieb­en Frau­en failed.

In ad­di­tion to his church du­ties, Patzke de­vot­ed him­self in­creas­ing­ly to li­ter­ary work in the fol­low­ing years, and de­vel­oped an ac­quaint­ance with book­sell­er and pub­lish­er Fried­rich Ni­co­lai.

Another fo­cus of his work was jour­nal­ism, which be­gan with the foun­da­tion of the mor­al week­ly Der Greis (1763–65).

In 1771, he found­ed the ma­ga­zine Der Wohl­tä­ter (1772–73), and an­oth­er ti­tled Wöch­ent­liche Un­ter­halt­ung­en (1777–79). Both were pub­lished by Fa­ber-Verlag in Mag­de­burg.

Patzke was an important ly­ri­cist for Mag­de­burg mu­sician and com­pos­er Jo­hann Hein­rich Rolle, and pro­vid­ed ma­ny tem­plates for his com­po­si­tions. The two en­joyed a close friend­ship for ma­ny years.

Patzke was a co-found­er of the Ge­lehr­ten Club, al­so known as the Mag­de­burg­er Mitt­wochs Gge­sell­schaft, where ci­ti­zens in­ter­est­ed in li­te­ra­ture met with po­ets such as Fried­rich Klop­stock, Jo­hann Wil­helm Lud­wig Gleim, and oth­ers.

Patzke had a good re­pu­ta­tion as a preach­er in Mag­de­burg. The Heil­ig­geist­kirche was al­ways well at­tend­ed on Sun­days, and his friends wrote on his tomb­stone: War wirk­sam für Re­li­gion, Auf­klär­ung und Mensch­en­wohl (Was ef­fect­ive for re­li­gion, en­light­en­ment and hu­man wel­fare).

Works

His ser­mons were print­ed in se­ver­al vol­umes. His oth­er works in­clude a trans­la­tion of Ta­ci­tus, co-ed­it­ed with ca­thed­ral school rec­tor Jo­hann Eu­sta­chi­us Gold­ha­gen.