Alexander von Gleichen-Rußwurm, a great-grandson of the writer Friedrich Schiller, was born at Greifenstein Castle in Unterfranken on November 6, 1865. After attending the military school in Metz, Gleichen-Rußwurm served from 1883 until 1895 as lieutenant and adjutant to the Grand Duke of Darmstadt. Beginning in 1895, he worked as a writer and lived at Greifenstein Castle and in Munich. Familiar with the legacy of German Classicism, Gleichen-Rußwurm composed numerous dramas, poems, novels, and novellas as well as cultural-philosophical and cultural-historical essays. As the memory of his famous ancestor Schiller was held in such high esteem, he also wrote a biography of his great-grandfather. His grandmother Emilie, the youngest daughter of Friedrich Schiller, published Schiller's correspondence and also built a museum in his honor in the Greifenstein Castle. From this collection, Gleichen-Rußwurm and his father donated many documents in 1880, making possible the establishment of the Goethe and Schiller Archive in Weimar. After the National Socialist Party expropriated the family's ancestral property in 1938, Gleichen-Rußwurm moved to Baden-Baden. Only with the help of a letter of honorary citizenship of the Republic of France, which had once been given to Friedrich Schiller, was he able to prevent the expropriation of his villa in Baden-Baden by France in 1945. Gleichen-Rußwurm died on October 25, 1947, in Baden-Baden.