ARNIM-BOYTZENBURG, HANS GEORG VON German general and diplomatist, was born in 1581 at Boytzenburg in Brandenburg. He served in the Swedish army under Gustavus Adolphus, took part in the Russian war, and afterwards fought against the Turks in the service of the king of Poland. In 1626, though a Protestant, he was induced by Wallenstein to join the new imperial army. He quickly rose to the rank of field marshal, and became Wallenstein's close friend and faithful ally. This attachment to Wallenstein, and a spirit of religious toleration, were the leading motives of a strange career of military and political inconstancy. After the dismissal of Wallenstein, Arnim left the imperial service for that of the elector of Saxony, and commanded the Saxon army which fought by the side of the Swedes at Breitenfeld (1631), and indeed the alliance of these two Protestant powers in the cause of their common religion was largely his work. During the Liitzen campaign, Arnim was operating with success at the head of an allied army in Silesia. In the following year he was under the hard necessity of opposing Wallenstein in the field, but little was done by either. In 1634 Wallenstein was assassinated, and Arnim began at once more active operations. He won an im portant victory at Liegnitz in May 1634, but from this time he became more and more estranged from the Swedes. The peace of Prague followed. Soon after this event he refused an offer of high command in the French army and retired from active life. From 1637 to 1638 he was imprisoned in Stockholm, having been seized at Boytzenburg by the Swedes on suspicion of being con cerned in various intrigues. He made his escape ultimately, and died suddenly at Dresden in 1641, whilst engaged in raising an army to free German soil from foreign armies of all kinds (see THIRTY YEARS' WAR).
See K. G. Helbig, "Wallenstein and Arnim" (1850) and "Der Prager Friede," in Raumer's Historisches Taschenbuch (1858) ; also E. D. M. Kirchner, Das Schloss Boytzenburg, etc. (186o) ; and Archiv fur die sachsische Geschichte, vol. viii. (187o) .