Her father was Balthasar Münter, a writer and theologian, and the family moved to Denmark shortly after Friederike 's birth when he assumed a position as priest at St. Peter's Church in Copenhagen, the church of the city's German congregation. She was a bright child and acquired a thorough knowledge of literature and other cultural subjects in the intellectual home although never receiving any formal schooling. Her family enjoyed frequent visits from German and Danish literary figures such as Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock, Johann Andreas Cramer, and the brothers Christian and Friedrich Leopold zu Stolberg-Stolberg,[2] and Johannes Ewald.