Fritz would totally have made the Holocaust all about him. How DARE you suggest he had anything in common with the Nazis! As any examination of his actual track record will show, he was an ENLIGHTENMENT monarch! Even when he conquered new territory, it was because he was setting out to improve the inhabitants' living conditions, and they were happy to have him!1
People emigrated to his country so they could have more freedoms than anywhere else in Europe! He wanted to institute even more reforms than he did, but the nobility would have revolted. But he always did his best to protect the peasants, to the point where sometimes unscrupulous peasants took advantage of him this way!
If you're going to get all high-and-mighty about his "legacy" and the "precedents" he set, you need to look at the reforms other monarchs made during and shortly after his lifetime in imitation of him. People like Joseph II, Peter III, Catherine II, Leopold II2, and their reforms, which improved the lot of subjects outside of Prussia. You know what happened to French monarchs that *didn't* follow his example, huh?
And don't even get him started on the whole beer-drinking, sausage-eating, German-speaking, Protestant prince the Nazis made him into! He drank champagne (watered because he was opposed to getting drunk34), ate spicy French food, and was totally a deist/atheist like those godless commies the Russians that the Nazis hated so much (not that in any universe he would be a commie). Most importantly, he spoke French and wrote in French and studied French literature and wanted nothing to do with German culture, *gag*.
What, you said something about Jews? Sorry, you say they were the main victims of the Nazis? He's pretty sure the biggest victim of the Nazis was HIS REPUTATION, which took DECADES to rehabilitate, omfg. So uncalled for.
Oh, and IF he ever said anything anti-Semitic, that was totally different in the 18th century when everyone he knew was anti-Semitic, and he actually gave Jews more rights than a lot of people did5, and if *you*'d lived in the eighteenth century, you would have been brainwashed into a lot of opinions you'd cringe at today too, so don't go getting all holier-than-thou on him.
Also, Napoleon? Paid his respects at Fritz's tomb after defeating Prussia and said, "Hats off, gentlemen; if this man were alive, we wouldn't be here today"6, remember that part? Well, if Fritz had been alive in France during WWII, there would have been no fucking Vichy Regime, you better believe that.
<-- I haven't written this AU rant, but something like that, only in the first person.
1. Sometimes true.
2. First European monarch to abolish the death penalty altogether, in Tuscany, the year Fritz died.
3. Poor guy, the only time I know of that he got drunk was when he was about 16/17, and his father forced him to drink (FW did like to drink and smoke with his officers and they all got a bit rowdy at times) until he became intoxicated and started crying that he loved his father, and kissed him, and his father patted him on the head approvingly, like this is all FW ever wanted and is that too much to ask? and finally someone said, "Go home, Fritz, you're drunk," and put him to bed. On AO3, we would tag this "Forced Intoxication".
This story is extremely telling, btw, because alcohol doesn't *make* you aggressive or weepy or rambunctious, it just disinhibits you from whatever you've been exercising self-control over when sober. This anecdote tells you that, quite predictably, young Fritz spent a lot of time REFUSING to break down and cry that he loved his father and why didn't his father love him???
Of course, so does this one nightmare he reported having when he was 48 years old, in which he was arrested, and when he asked why, his sister said it was because he didn't love their father enough. He protested that it wasn't true, but he was carted off to prison anyway. ("Dream interprets self," as my wife likes to say about some of our dreams.)
And also that dream where Fritz asked his father what he thought of what he'd done with the kingdom he inherited, and FW said "Well done, Son", and Fritz told his father that his approval meant more to him than anything in the universe, UGH, Fritz, please get a therapist that hasn't been invented yet. Also *hug*.
Stockholm Syndrome, sigh. I know of very few child abuse survivors who don't have it. P.S. Fritz said a lot of nice things about his father after the latter's death, some of which were objectively true and some of which were pure Stockholm.
4 When Fritz was stressed, he once said, "I'd like to get drunk, but that's not an option, so I write French poetry instead." His reaction, later in life as king, to visiting the prison where he'd been kept and where he'd watched Katte get executed, was to go hole himself off for a while in a bleak mood and write poetry that I assume was emo.
5 I've seen the decree he promulgated regarding the Jews in his kingdom described as "a curious mixture of the medieval and the modern," which describes a lot of Fritz's policies in general. One biographer writes, "In an ocean heaving with irrational cruelty, a sovereign who was merely severe stood out as an island of humanity."
I like to say that Fritz managed to rise above his century in many ways, kept pace with it most of the time, and occasionally dropped the ball vis-a-vis his contemporaries.
I also like to argue, in general, that while cultural relativism is not a thing and I believe in an objective right and wrong, most humans are influenced by what their society is telling them in most respects. Some people manage to be pro-Semitic in a world where anti-Semitism is the default, some manage to be neo-Nazis in a post-Holocaust world, and the majority of people do what their society is doing. I have every reason to believe Fritz's anti-Semitism falls into the third category.
I do also believe that I myself would have some really abysmal beliefs I don't currently have if I had been born in the past, and that even if better ideas were floating around in the ether, I would not necessarily latch onto them in 100% of the cases. This forces me to realize that my hypothetical 23rd century self is probably looking at real me and WTFing on at least a couple of things.
6. Napoleon helped himself to a few of Old Fritz's belongings as memorabilia, including his alarm clock, lol. Told you Fritz was a celebrity!
no subject
People emigrated to his country so they could have more freedoms than anywhere else in Europe! He wanted to institute even more reforms than he did, but the nobility would have revolted. But he always did his best to protect the peasants, to the point where sometimes unscrupulous peasants took advantage of him this way!
If you're going to get all high-and-mighty about his "legacy" and the "precedents" he set, you need to look at the reforms other monarchs made during and shortly after his lifetime in imitation of him. People like Joseph II, Peter III, Catherine II, Leopold II2, and their reforms, which improved the lot of subjects outside of Prussia. You know what happened to French monarchs that *didn't* follow his example, huh?
And don't even get him started on the whole beer-drinking, sausage-eating, German-speaking, Protestant prince the Nazis made him into! He drank champagne (watered because he was opposed to getting drunk3 4), ate spicy French food, and was totally a deist/atheist like those godless commies the Russians that the Nazis hated so much (not that in any universe he would be a commie). Most importantly, he spoke French and wrote in French and studied French literature and wanted nothing to do with German culture, *gag*.
What, you said something about Jews? Sorry, you say they were the main victims of the Nazis? He's pretty sure the biggest victim of the Nazis was HIS REPUTATION, which took DECADES to rehabilitate, omfg. So uncalled for.
Oh, and IF he ever said anything anti-Semitic, that was totally different in the 18th century when everyone he knew was anti-Semitic, and he actually gave Jews more rights than a lot of people did5, and if *you*'d lived in the eighteenth century, you would have been brainwashed into a lot of opinions you'd cringe at today too, so don't go getting all holier-than-thou on him.
Also, Napoleon? Paid his respects at Fritz's tomb after defeating Prussia and said, "Hats off, gentlemen; if this man were alive, we wouldn't be here today"6, remember that part? Well, if Fritz had been alive in France during WWII, there would have been no fucking Vichy Regime, you better believe that.
<-- I haven't written this AU rant, but something like that, only in the first person.
1. Sometimes true.
2. First European monarch to abolish the death penalty altogether, in Tuscany, the year Fritz died.
3. Poor guy, the only time I know of that he got drunk was when he was about 16/17, and his father forced him to drink (FW did like to drink and smoke with his officers and they all got a bit rowdy at times) until he became intoxicated and started crying that he loved his father, and kissed him, and his father patted him on the head approvingly, like this is all FW ever wanted and is that too much to ask? and finally someone said, "Go home, Fritz, you're drunk," and put him to bed. On AO3, we would tag this "Forced Intoxication".
This story is extremely telling, btw, because alcohol doesn't *make* you aggressive or weepy or rambunctious, it just disinhibits you from whatever you've been exercising self-control over when sober. This anecdote tells you that, quite predictably, young Fritz spent a lot of time REFUSING to break down and cry that he loved his father and why didn't his father love him???
Of course, so does this one nightmare he reported having when he was 48 years old, in which he was arrested, and when he asked why, his sister said it was because he didn't love their father enough. He protested that it wasn't true, but he was carted off to prison anyway. ("Dream interprets self," as my wife likes to say about some of our dreams.)
And also that dream where Fritz asked his father what he thought of what he'd done with the kingdom he inherited, and FW said "Well done, Son", and Fritz told his father that his approval meant more to him than anything in the universe, UGH, Fritz, please get a therapist that hasn't been invented yet. Also *hug*.
Stockholm Syndrome, sigh. I know of very few child abuse survivors who don't have it. P.S. Fritz said a lot of nice things about his father after the latter's death, some of which were objectively true and some of which were pure Stockholm.
4 When Fritz was stressed, he once said, "I'd like to get drunk, but that's not an option, so I write French poetry instead." His reaction, later in life as king, to visiting the prison where he'd been kept and where he'd watched Katte get executed, was to go hole himself off for a while in a bleak mood and write poetry
that I assume was emo.5 I've seen the decree he promulgated regarding the Jews in his kingdom described as "a curious mixture of the medieval and the modern," which describes a lot of Fritz's policies in general. One biographer writes, "In an ocean heaving with irrational cruelty, a sovereign who was merely severe stood out as an island of humanity."
I like to say that Fritz managed to rise above his century in many ways, kept pace with it most of the time, and occasionally dropped the ball vis-a-vis his contemporaries.
I also like to argue, in general, that while cultural relativism is not a thing and I believe in an objective right and wrong, most humans are influenced by what their society is telling them in most respects. Some people manage to be pro-Semitic in a world where anti-Semitism is the default, some manage to be neo-Nazis in a post-Holocaust world, and the majority of people do what their society is doing. I have every reason to believe Fritz's anti-Semitism falls into the third category.
I do also believe that I myself would have some really abysmal beliefs I don't currently have if I had been born in the past, and that even if better ideas were floating around in the ether, I would not necessarily latch onto them in 100% of the cases. This forces me to realize that my hypothetical 23rd century self is probably looking at real me and WTFing on at least a couple of things.
6. Napoleon helped himself to a few of Old Fritz's belongings as memorabilia, including his alarm clock, lol. Told you Fritz was a celebrity!