 From his period as a student in Jena onwards, von Hardenberg was well connected with the dominant intellectual circles of the time. He was acquainted with Goethe, Fichte, Hölderlin, Herder, and Jean Paul (Richter), and made close friends with Ludwig Tieck, the Schlegel brothers, Schelling, and Schiller (whose lectures he attended in 1790). Friedrich von Hardenberg died of tuberculosis in March 1801.