And don't even get him started on the whole beer-drinking, sausage-eating, German-speaking, Protestant prince the Nazis made him into!
Here I have to protest on behalf on what little honor Nazi propaganda movie makers have, because their Fritz as played by Otto Gebühr does not consume a single sausage, nor does he drink beer. The reason is obvious and has nothing to do with historical authenticity. Hitler was a vegetarian and officially didn't drink alcohol, either. (Unofficially, I think he did when the Nazis were still a rising party and consuming beer was the done thing to be one with the people, etc., but not after, as far as propaganda was concerned.) And since the whole point of those movies was to tell the population AH was Fridericus Redivivus: no sausage for Gebühr!Fritzi. (Don't forget, Hitler fancied himself a patron of the arts and stiffled artist, too, with the academy in Vienna who wouldn't have him standing in for FW in his mind.)
All of which goes to say: one thing I'm missing in your rant-by-Fritz is that he would suspect this whole Nazi appropriation of him is one last Austrian revenge act, because Hitler was Austrian, after all, and didn't the Austrians manage to put the blame for the Nazis entirely on Prussia/Germany while styling themselves "the first victim of Nazi aggression", complete with Hollywood movie?
All kidding aside, if you want a flavor of the full vileness of their version of Fritz, YouTube has the clip from Der große König where Friedrich is arguing with Heinrich after Kunersdorf. Heinrich wants to sue for peace. Friedrich says never and then goes on into a rant on how the Habsburgs have lost all claim to lead Germans because in "their many blooded empire" they treat people of "foreign blood" the same as their German subjects. Etc. I.e. Nazi racism literally put into the mouth of a historical figure who had his own -isms, sure, but never that one.
no subject
Here I have to protest on behalf on what little honor Nazi propaganda movie makers have, because their Fritz as played by Otto Gebühr does not consume a single sausage, nor does he drink beer. The reason is obvious and has nothing to do with historical authenticity. Hitler was a vegetarian and officially didn't drink alcohol, either. (Unofficially, I think he did when the Nazis were still a rising party and consuming beer was the done thing to be one with the people, etc., but not after, as far as propaganda was concerned.) And since the whole point of those movies was to tell the population AH was Fridericus Redivivus: no sausage for Gebühr!Fritzi. (Don't forget, Hitler fancied himself a patron of the arts and stiffled artist, too, with the academy in Vienna who wouldn't have him standing in for FW in his mind.)
All of which goes to say: one thing I'm missing in your rant-by-Fritz is that he would suspect this whole Nazi appropriation of him is one last Austrian revenge act, because Hitler was Austrian, after all, and didn't the Austrians manage to put the blame for the Nazis entirely on Prussia/Germany while styling themselves "the first victim of Nazi aggression", complete with Hollywood movie?
All kidding aside, if you want a flavor of the full vileness of their version of Fritz, YouTube has the clip from Der große König where Friedrich is arguing with Heinrich after Kunersdorf. Heinrich wants to sue for peace. Friedrich says never and then goes on into a rant on how the Habsburgs have lost all claim to lead Germans because in "their many blooded empire" they treat people of "foreign blood" the same as their German subjects. Etc. I.e. Nazi racism literally put into the mouth of a historical figure who had his own -isms, sure, but never that one.