Frederick the Great, discussion post 6

[cahn]

...I think we need another one (seriously, you guys, this is THE BEST) and I'd better make it now before I disappear into the wilds of music performance.

(also, as of this week there are two Frederician fics in the yuletide archive and eeeeeeeeeee)
(huh, only one of them is actually tagged with Frederick the Great even though two with Maria Theresia and Wilhelmine, eeeeeee this is awesome I CAN'T WAIT)

Frederick the Great masterpost

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Katte's Death: The Documentary Hypothesis

[mildred_of_midgard]

I decided to move this to its own thread, because it's kind of dense, and the old thread was getting kind of vertical on my screen.

My money is on the later. Though you mentioned diaries - do they still exist?

Yes, and I tracked them down online, and just glancing at them, it's pretty standard diary-to-memoir conversion in my own experience reading same: 3 lines of diary corresponds to 3 pages of memoirs. So, no, I didn't see any of the stuff about Katte or anything when I looked at the diaries.

Anyway, when famous celebrity X tells someone "only you know this/you're my only confidant" in their memoirs, I tend to be sceptical unless there's contemporary back up material. Everyone likes to feel special.

Ditto, I have always raised an eyebrow at Catt's claims. And while googling, I found one historian saying he was not above changing things for dramatic effect--which, let's be realistic, who is?

Still, as far as I know no other memoirist claims Fritz talked to him about Katte's death and Küstrin - or is there one?

Well! That's a very interesting question that I've had on my list of things to talk about for some days now, but I'll do it now since you ask. :D

---

There's one memoirist I've found who does not explicitly claim Fritz talked to him about Katte's death and Küstrin, but whose account lines up with Catt's almost word-for-word, and whom it's plausible Fritz might have confided in. That memoirist? Voltaire.

Voltaire's account of Katte's death is shorter than Catt's, and uses indirect discourse rather than direct quotes, but functionally, the content is the same. Voltaire's account reads like a summary of Catt's.

Now, it can't be literally that, because Voltaire's memoirs were published in 1784, and Catt's in 1885. But Catt, who became estranged from Fritz in 1782 and died in 1795, might well have been reading *Voltaire's* memoirs and expanding on them, either creatively or from memory. (I don't actually know when Catt sat down and composed them--they cover the years 1758-1760, so any time 1760-1795 is possible. Well, Wikipedia says Catt was blind in his later years, but they don't say when or give a source.)

Also, I'm reasonably convinced Voltaire got *his* account orally, as he uses phonetic spelling for a lot of German names, including being the only author I know who uses "Kat" instead of "Katt" or "Katte." So maybe Voltaire wrote down his summary of what he'd heard floating around, and Catt took it, fixed the spelling, and expanded on it.

Alternatively, Fritz might really have had a standard account that he ran through when he wanted to make sure someone had *his* version of events. It's possible Catt did get his account from Fritz, as did Voltaire, and possibly select others. Fritz definitely does not seem to have talked a great *deal* or casually about Katte, so Catt might have been special, if not unique, in that respect. (He doesn't actually claim to have been unique or even special in hearing about Katte, only about other confidences, but him getting a Katte account from Fritz within a month of starting his new job is striking to me, because Fritz really *doesn't* talk about Katte often that we can see.)

So anyway, the Catt/Voltaire similarities led me to wonder about the third account that comes from someone Fritz might well have confided in about Küstrin: Wilhelmine.

And that led me to the amazing discovery that the accounts of Wilhelmine, Thiébault, and Pöllnitz are line-for-line and sometimes word-for-word the same, and they are much much longer and more detailed than Voltaire's and Catt's. As in, I see no way that Wilhelmine, Thiébault, and Pöllnitz are independent accounts of the same event as they all heard it happen. Back in my days grading student papers, if three of my students handed in these three essays, I'd have had them in front of the dean for academic dishonesty in five minutes flat.

So then I had to look up the dates of publication.

- 1734: Pöllnitz's memoirs published
- 1740-1745: Wilhelmine's memoirs composed
- 1804: Thiébault's memoirs published
- 1810: Wilhelmine's memoirs published

Critically, Pöllnitz's memoirs were published before Wilhelmine started writing her own memoirs. Plus he actually hung out with the Hohenzollerns, so it would not have been hard for her to get her hands on his memoirs. So it's most likely W and T working from P, rather than P, T, and W all working from the same textual source.

So Wilhelmine, estranged from Fritz and lacking access to the Berlin archives, must be relying heavily on the Pöllnitz, to the point of what we'd call plagiarism today. Now, she, who has the longest and most detailed 18th century account I'm aware of, does supplement Pöllnitz with a lot of other material that is nowhere else I can find, some of which sounds like it may well have come from Fritz. But I'm convinced she's following Pöllnitz closely for a good chunk of her account. As is Thiébault, who's writing about things that happened before he came along. And he doesn't have Wilhelmine, so he sticks pretty close to Pöllnitz.

Now Pöllnitz, interestingly, is described by 19th, 20th, and 21st century historians as an incredibly error-ridden source. Fontane disdains to use him or the sources derived from him, and relies instead on the eyewitness accounts of Major Schack (the one who executed Katte) writing to Natzmer (Katte's former CO, who arrested him), and Besser, who was garrison preacher at Küstrin and wrote to Katte's dad.

And so Fontane, working from different sources, comes up with slightly different details. One really obvious one is that "Schack" seems to be the correct spelling of the name; Pöllnitz, Wilhelmine, and Thiébault all use "Schenk." I've long known Fontane's Schack was preferable to Wilhelmine's Schenk, but now that I know Wilhelmine was almost certainly copying Pöllnitz, I've decided I will no longer trust any biographer who uses Schenk.

Fontane (bless him) actually talks about how many errors have been propagated by excessive reliance on Wilhelmine and Pöllnitz, and how Wilhelmine is usually wrong about details but indispensable when it comes to the overall picture of what was going on at the time.

Lehndorff, of course, missed his chance to be an third independent (albeit non-eyewitness) source: he gives us the bit about Fritz's candles and not much else.

So then I started systematically tracking down something that I had only half-heartedly looked into before: Katte's last words. (I'm not kidding, all you need to do is find a hint that Katte had an affair with a Marwitz before he died, and Detective Mildred will be on the case. :P)

1) "If I had a thousand lives, I would sacrifice them for you": Pöllnitz, Wilhelmine, Thiébault.

2) "I die with a thousand joys for you": Fontane in a footnote to Besser's account. It's not 100% clear to me whether Fontane's source is Besser or something else.

3) "Death is sweet for so lovable a prince": The earliest source for this I can find is volume one of JDE Preuss's Friedrich der Grosse: Eine lebensgeschichte, published in 1832, and praised by Fontane for using somewhat more reliable sources than Wilhelmine and Pöllnitz. (Preuss is also the guy who edited Fritz's correspondence for publication.)

Unfortunately, I can't quite tell what his source is. He footnotes the sentence immediately before Katte is led out, which says the place of execution was *not* visible from Fritz's room, and gives as his citation "Munchow an Nicolai S. 530," to wit, a letter from President von Munchow (who was chamber president of Küstrin at the time of Fritz's stay there, and I believe after Fritz was pardoned and released from the fortress, it was in his house that he stayed during the rehabilitation process). Preuss says that Munchow is considered an excellent source, since he was an eyewitness. But I can't actually tell whether the "death is sweet" is taken from that source or not, and I can't find that source.

It's not page 530 of the current volume, because that volume only has 487 pages. You'd think it would be in the 5 volume Urkundenbuch (source documents--I love you, Preuss) that Preuss wrote as a companion to this biography, but that starts with Fritz's accession in 1740.

And if there's a collection of Munchow's correspondence at all, much less one that runs to 530 pages, I can't find it. Perhaps a more fluent German speaker would be able to flip through volume one of the Lebensgeschichte and see what on earth the Munchow reference is to? The page I'm looking at is this one.

4) "I die for you with joy in my heart": Wikipedia. Plus AO3, Tumblr, DW, and other sources clearly derived from Wikipedia. I *cannot* find any source for this quote besides Wikipedia.

---

So that's interesting.

At some point, I might do a proper detail-by-detail breakdown, with letters like P, T, W, V, C, F, just like Wellhausen (he of the Pentateuch documentary hypothesis). :-P But meanwhile, this is a good start.

Re: Katte's Death: The Documentary Hypothesis

[selenak]

To start with the end, Münchow is Christian Ernst von Münchow, and his wiki entry says Fritz did indeed stay with him near the end of the Küstrin days, and also that a grateful Fritz gave him the Erbtruchseßamt of Kurmark. (Sorry, can't exactly translate, it's an income-heavy office without much duties, at any rate.) So Münchow has good credentials.

Nicolai I first thought might be Friedrich Nicolai, central figure of the German Enlightenment, in which case we'd have been in luck, but alas the birthdates are wrong - Nicolai the writer was born 1733, and von Münchow died in 1749. While it's not impossible a teenage Nicolai could have written to him, I rather doubt it. Nicolai's dad, otoh, was a bookstore owner in Berlin; again, not impossible that von Münchow knew him, but they wouldn't have been in the same class to socialize. Outside possibility: Nicolai père was the bookstore owner from whom Crown Prince Friedrich and associates bought their books? (But methinks Der Thronfolger is right in having Fritz' old teacher do that for him.)

Anyway: The Stabi (= Bayrische Staatsbibliothek, which you linked the Preuß from and I linked the Thiébaut from) doesn't have any Münchow correspondance, alas. It probably has lots of Nicolai, but honestly, that's a very long shot.

Back to the beginning: Voltaire's account being based at least somewhat on what he heard from Fritz sounds plausible, though I seem to recall at least one major distortion (and not in a satiric way) in Voltaire's account - doesn't he claim FW was present in Küstrin to sadistically watch the execution? Which he definitely was not, he was in Berlin busy terrorizing the rest of his family, but it's the kind of thing a dramatist probably couldn't resist letting happen. (I mean, at least one fanfic writer went there as well.) Trufax: When Schiller directed his buddy Goethe's play Egmont, he couldn't resist letting the Duke of Alva sadistically (though silently, since this does not happen in the actual play as written) show up in Egmont's dungeon to delect himself at the misery of his prisoner. When Goethe went "WTF?", Schiller replied "Drama! Stagecraft!"

Pöllnitz as Wilhelmine's source: on the one hand, very likely, both because of what was accessible to her in the early 40s and what wasn't, and because despite or because of his proto-Trenck like adventurer personality, several of the Hohenzollern siblings (if not all) seem to have liked him a lot and used him as the go-to oral history source. He went along on the trip to Wusterhausen by invitation for just that reason. (They didn't go there to argue, after all; Pöllnitz was supposed to recount F1 and young FW2 stories, and did, according to a letter from Heinrich to Fritz.) AW when reopening Oranienburg after getting it from Fritz (and remember, that palace had been shut down by FW2 for money reasons) invited Pöllnitz along with Mom to Oranienburg for SD's big birthday party and gave him F1's nightcap and slippers as a present to thank him for the F1 stories he told on that occasion. (This was more of a sign of royal favour than it might come across today.) And despite having quipped "entertaining dinner guest, should be locked up afterwards" when still crown prince, Fritz as King kept him around, paid his debts and heightened the salary he'd received under FW2 by six times that much right at the start of his reign. (Lehndorff wasn't a fan of the old Pöllnitz, mostly because Pöllnitz like many old people before and after him couldn't keep control of his bladder in his old age, and thus stank and made the cushions very went whenever you had to sit near him.) So anyway: Pöllnitz would have been a logical choice for Wilhelmine to consult.

However: there's one problem. German wiki says the 1735 memoirs cover only the time until 1723. Pöllnitz then published a memoirs sequel/prequel in 1737 which covers the time between 1688 bis 1710. In between, he wrote bestsellers about August the Strong's love life (La Saxe Galante) and George I's love life. The memoirs that cover the time from 1723 onwards, Mémoires pour servir a l’histoire de quatre dernier souverains de la maison de Brandenbourg, didn't appear until after his death in 1791, again according to German wiki. So: if German wiki is correct as to what the various Pöllnitz memoirs cover and when they appeared, Wilhelmine can't have used Pöllnitz' written account. Otoh, she might very well have used Pöllnitz himself. Like I said, evidently the Hohenzollern siblings enjoyed his company; he could have visited her in Bayreuth. Maybe he even had already started to write his own account but wouldn't publish it yet since Fritz paid his salary, and he let her read it?

Re: Katte's Death: The Documentary Hypothesis

[mildred_of_midgard]

I seem to recall at least one major distortion (and not in a satiric way) in Voltaire's account - doesn't he claim FW was present in Küstrin to sadistically watch the execution?

Yes, he does, that's in my Voltaire write-up notes. It's the one part where he doesn't read like a summary of Catt. That said, I found a lot of these little details going wrong in Voltaire, and as you said, not just because of the satire. I was more struck that he actually matches another source so closely here, because he's so often doing his own thing as an outsider, and a hostile one at that.

Which he definitely was not, he was in Berlin busy terrorizing the rest of his family, but it's the kind of thing a dramatist probably couldn't resist letting happen. (I mean, at least one fanfic writer went there as well.)

Yep, I was going to mention the fanfic writer in my Voltaire write-up. ;)

The memoirs that cover the time from 1723 onwards, Mémoires pour servir a l’histoire de quatre dernier souverains de la maison de Brandenbourg, didn't appear until after his death in 1791, again according to German wiki. So: if German wiki is correct as to what the various Pöllnitz memoirs cover and when they appeared, Wilhelmine can't have used Pöllnitz' written account.

Ooooh. That is some good attention to detail there, thank you. But yes, because they knew each other, there's a good chance he let her read them or read them to her. Or that by talking together they converged on an account that was very recent in both their minds when they wrote. (There's too much detail they agree on that I can't believe could be them independently remembering what they heard back in 1730.) But if they were chatting or even engaging in extensive correspondence around the time they were writing, they could have both have written accounts that follow each other that closely.

And if Pöllnitz came out in 1791, and Thiébault in 1804 (and he died in 1807, so this at least wasn't posthumous), Thiébault could still have been relying on Pöllnitz, although that narrows the window in which he could have done so.

Thank you for looking for Münchow correspondence and trying to figure out who Nicolai is. Can you tell from anywhere in the Preuss volume itself what he might be referring to? Surely you can't just write "Siehe Münchow an Nicolai S. 530" and expect your readers to know what that is? Surely that's that an abbreviated reference you can put on page 45 because you've already spelled out the full reference earlier in your book?

Re: Katte's Death: The Documentary Hypothesis

[selenak]

Okay, subdetective selenak reporting:

1.) Browsed through the first 54 pages of Preuß hunting for the source reference. Good lord. It's mid 19th century and onwards German nationalism time, so our author has to explain to the Fritz adoring German readership why their hero, defender of the fatherland(s), didn't like their language. He explains about the universal French education of German nobility, Prussia full of Hugenots etcs., but assures his readers that Old Fritz had "a true German mentality" (whatever that is, and he spells it "teutsch" not "deutsch", which is what ultra 19th century nationalists loved doing - Heinrich Heine often spoofed that habit hilariously") despising anything "welsch". (This German term does not mean Welsh people from Great Britain, thoiugh the origin of the word is actually related; in the 19th century, it's generally used as a derogatory term for anyone of Latin descent, primarily, though not exclusively, the French and Italians.

(Also, Preuß uses the expression "der einzige König" right in his first sentence which cracked me up.)

He's also very faithful to the 19th century historian interpretation: i.e. yes, FW was really harsh, but Küstrin Made Frederick Great, and FW was being a deutscher Hausvater - dude, not that I want to defend German patriarchy in the 18th century in general, but most German fathers at the time went "WTF???" at FW. (Even fellow dysfunctional monarch fathers like George II.) I also would like to point out that near contemporary and Ultimate Stage Dad Leopold Mozart (born in Augsburg and keeping Augsburg citizenship even when moving to Salzburg) would not have dreamt of hitting his offsprings and was able to combine discipline with affection and even humor. Then we have Goethe Senior who was majorly into letting his children learn a lot and definitely was not thrilled when JWG saw studying law primarily as an excuse to skip lessons, write poetry and hang out with his friends, but who didn't put a hand on his son (or let a servant do that for him), either. Seriously, FW was not typical for his time.

The footnotes include quite a lot Pöllnitz and Wilhelmine (without doubting either). But I finally got somewhere on the hunt for Nicolai. Fritz, I apologize, seems you did your own book shoping, for verily, one footnote tells me: Friedrich said as King once to Fr. Nicolai: "As a young man, I have often visited His father's bookshop., F. Goedicke Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Literatur, Bd. 1, Berlin 1824, S.241. So: Nicolai Senior, bookstore owner, was a indeed his source! If that alone didn't provide incentive to check out Nicolai Fils, Enlightnenment writer, there's also the constanct referencing of "Nicolais Anedcoten", in which the von Münchow letter might be included, and look what I found at Gutenberg Germany! Before I check out the Anekdoten for useful stuff, have an anecdote from Preuss about FW and G2 continuing the relationship they struck up as boys thusly:

"If George called his brother-in-law "my dear brother the subaltern" and "the arch sander of the Holy Roman Empire", Friedrich Wilhelm avenged hiimself by referring to George as "my dear brother the comedian"."

(cahn, this last one is not a compliment. FW is using "Komödiant" in the sense of "actor", and actors are the lowest of the low, if you're Ultra Protestant Prussian FW.)

Re: Katte's Death: The Documentary Hypothesis

[mildred_of_midgard]

We make such a good team! Thank you for your subdetective work through the first 54 pages. It seems he does expect you to know what he's talking about? WTF, Preuss?

Seriously, FW was not typical for his time.

Seriously. Even the harsh disciplinarians of the upper classes had *different priorities*. I feel like there were more 18C kids, or at least boys, beaten for not learning Latin than for trying to learn Latin.

Looking forward to the anecdotes! The first couple look comedic in the modern complimentary sense.

Re: Katte's Death: The Documentary Hypothesis

[mildred_of_midgard]

Have possibly figured out the source for the letter: G. Tr. Gallus, Geschichte der Mark Brandenburg. Hopefully one of us can track that down.

Oh, look, it's on archive.org! In that ridiculous font. selenak will you do the honors of telling us what might be of interest in this letter? I can, but it'll be slower and involve more cursing.

I definitely see the "la Mort est douce pour un si aimable Prince" quote, though! Found it!

Re: Katte's Death: The Documentary Hypothesis

[mildred_of_midgard]

Also, are you aware of any sources for Wikipedia's "I die for you with joy in my heart"? I'd even take a 20th century source at this point.

Re: Katte's Death: The Documentary Hypothesis

[selenak]

Okay, the page you just linked sounds as if it's written by either the son of the clergyman or von Münchow's son, though in either case, the last name of the author indicated doesn't fit - Gallus? Anyway, it's in first person, containing the sentence "I who is writing this did watch Katte's blood spray upwards from the so called "Weißkopf" (= part of the castle) which my parents allowed me to use as a garden and playground". So: son of Münchow, a child at the time, as eyewitness?

Will translate larger passage when I can.

ETA: Okay, finished the letter, definitely written by von Münchow Jr. in a "here's all you got wrong in your Collection of anecdotes" manner. Will translate.

Re: Katte's Death: The Documentary Hypothesis

[mildred_of_midgard]

Thank you! My search results were giving me hints via my very poor German that it might be the son of Münchow.

Gottfried Traugott Gallus is the guy writing the Geschichte der Mark Brandenburg in 1803, quoting the letter from Münchow. He's like an earlier Fontane.

Per Carlyle, Münchow had a 7-yo son who--okay, Carlyle is quotable in brief as always, although unreadable in full:

"Many things, books among others, are, under cunning contrivance, smuggled in by the judicious Munchow, willing to risk himself in such a service. For example, Munchow has a son, a clever boy of seven years old; who, to the wonder of neighbors, goes into child's-petticoats again; and testifies the liveliest desire to be admitted to the Prince, and bear him company a little! Surely the law of No-company does not extend to that of an innocent child? The innocent child has a row of pockets all round the inside of his long gown; and goes laden, miscellaneously, like a ship of the desert, or cockboat not forbidden to cross the line. Then there are stools, one stool at least indispensable to human nature; and the inside of this, once you open it, is a chest-of-drawers, containing paper, ink, new literature and much else. No end to Munchow'a good-will, and his ingenuity is great."

Oh, look, his source is Preuss, volume i, page 46.

So, okay, eyewitness, but seven-year-old eyewitness.

On the other hand, I feel like that story got told around the dinner table in future years...

Re: Katte's Death: The Documentary Hypothesis

[mildred_of_midgard]

This is some first-rate detective teaming. *high fives*

Re: Katte's Death: The Documentary Hypothesis

[mildred_of_midgard]

ETA: Okay, finished the letter, definitely written by von Münchow Jr. in a "here's all you got wrong in your Collection of anecdotes" manner. Will translate.

Münchow fils to Nicolai: You like anecdotes? How about my interesting childhood! Now *that*'s an anecdote.

Re: Katte's Death: The Documentary Hypothesis - The V. Münchow Version

[selenak]

The claim in the collection of anecdotes that the crown prince was forced to watch Lieutenant v. Katte's beheading is wrong. He did not leave my father's room in the fortress which my father had given to him at that point. From my father's room, you couldn't see the place of execution; a wall which separated the ditch which then was surrounding the keep from the outer wall blocked the view. Katte was led by a military guard to the execution place on the walls. Note by self "auf den Wall", i.e. on the walls, not in front of the walls is what Münchow Jr. writes.) The progress went past the keep, and thus past the windows of the Prince; the Prince, in whose room Commandant Köpel and my father were at this moment, I don't know whether due to an order from above or due to their own concern, pushed to the window, opened it when the sad train arrived, and called out loud these words: "pardonnez-moi, mon cher Katte!" The later answered: "La mort est douce pur un si aimable Prince." Then the Prince, crying, stepped back from the window and sat down on an arm chair. He was about to faint, my father had equipped himself with spirits for such an occasion and made him drink them, and before this was over, Katte's head was already separated from the body and lying on the sand heap which was 30 to 50 paces away from the chamber that served as the Prince's arrest room, but through the old wall so separted that it could not be overlooked. The commandant left the Prince; my father let himself be locked up with the Prince, and my mother kept a doctor and a Feldscher - that's a military doctor travelling with army - on alert through the whole day; my father only left the Prince deep into the night when the Prince had finally fallen asleep. If there had been an order that the Prince was to see the beheading, the Kommandant who was very conscious in following his orders would have obeyed it to the letter, which would have been very easy, since there was a door and stairs leading from the arrest room to a higher platform commonly called the Weisskopf - "White head" - and which had been earlier used as an execution spot for treason against the state under the Margrave Hans. I, who am writing these lines, have watched Katte's blood spray high from this same Weißkopf which my parents allowed me to use as garden and playground.

It was just by accident that the Prince saw the sad procession at all. For it only depended on my father whether he'd give this or another of his living rooms to the prince. The true goal cells for arrested personnel weren't located on this level but on the third floor of the fortress. My father did not just offer his room but he had to persuade the Kommandant not to put the Prince into one of these cells. From said cells, he wouldn't have been able to watch Katte's train at all. However, my father would not have done that if he had reason to suspect that the place of execution would be chosen in this area. This close confinement had lasted for six weeks; afterwards, the Prince was moved into town quarters, and attended as Ansculator (?) the war chamber sessions. He had to do reports, had to travel with my father to royal offices, and ha dto make suggestions. We kept some of his suggestions for the office in Himmelstadt by his hand, but it was burned during the Küstrin bombardment. The entire stay of the Prince in Küstrin only lasted one year, if that. As far as I recall, it lasted only eight to nine months.

Only long after I had left the court, I pondered a lot of what I had observed of him and found wisdom and caution in actions which I had earlier regarded as games and jokes.

The anecdote collection reports the coffee poisoning which the late man supposedly discovered through the shap look of the officer as a miracle. It was certainly nothing but the natural consequence of his caution, which he had introduced as a joke and as a game. There were always a selection of footmen destined to brew his coffee for him. When I served as his personal page, Herr Haase, the current supply commissioner who lives here, held this office. I call him as a witness. The late King had the habit of putting a spoon full of coffee into the mouth of whoever served the coffee to him; and if the man serving the coffee wouldn't open his mouth immediately for the spoon, he poured the spoon full of coffee into that man's shirt or on his arm. This didn't happen every day and not always, but it did happen, sometimes to pages, sometimes to footmen. It happened to me as well, but mostly it happened to the coffee brewers. We thought he was pranking us; when putting on his wardrobe he often was in a playful mood. It is far more likely, though, that he connected a serious intent with this game. And thus it is very likely that he wanted to pour that spoon full of coffee for the officer after the later had been unusually hesitant and hence had made him suspicious.
V. Münchow

Soooooo... do we believe now FW didn't order his son had to watch his boyfriend's execution?

Re: Katte's Death: The Documentary Hypothesis - The V. Münchow Version

[mildred_of_midgard]

First of all: thank you so much for the translation! This was a key source missing from our understanding of the evidence for the execution.

Soooooo... do we believe now FW didn't order his son had to watch his boyfriend's execution?

Interesting. I've seen an abundance of claims presenting evidence that Fritz was spared from watching Katte's death by the layout of the palace; this is the first one I've seen claim that Fritz was never ordered to watch in the first place.

If there had been an order that the Prince was to see the beheading, the Kommandant who was very conscious in following his orders would have obeyed it to the letter

Who is the Kommandant referenced here? Lepel? I don't know much about him, but I feel like Küstrin, like most of Fritz's youth, is one long story of "FW said to do X; we did enough X to not get in trouble, but tried to make Fritz's life easier to the best of our abilities."

The fact that von Münchow was seven, and the following line, don't make me especially confident in his memories:

The entire stay of the Prince in Küstrin only lasted one year, if that. As far as I recall, it lasted only eight to nine months.

The documentary evidence is September 1730 - February 1732, which I trust more than his "as far as I recall [from back when I was seven]."

Still, he did actually live at Küstrin, unlike almost any of our other sources, and he did presumably talk to his father.

As I think on this, I have some faint memory of FW's command actually being: "In sight of Fritz, or if that's not possible given the layout of the fortress, nearby." To which I assume everyone immediately went, "Oh, that's totally not possible!" But of course I cannot remember where I read it. I have a vague memory of it being in German and Google translated, but I can't find it in Fontane. Oh well, I'm sure it'll turn up, since I feel like I've run across it more than once, and I do go over the Katte source material repeatedly.

ETA: Ha, no, I give FW too much credit. The source I was remembering (Lavisse) goes like this: "The execution should take place under the windows of the prince. 'If this place is not large enough, another must be chosen, where the prince can see it well.'"

Citation: "Koser, in the Appendix, pp. 236-37."

Tracking Koser down...Okay, actual letter from FW to Lepel quoted: "Den Montag, als den 6. d. früh um 7 Uhr sollet Ihr von der Garnison 150 Mann commandieren lassen, die den Kreis schließen sollen, vor die Fenster des Cronprinzen, oder woferne ja daselbst nicht Platz genug dazu wäre, müsset Ihr einen andern Platz nehmen, sodaß der Cronprinz aus dem Fenster selbigen gut übersehen kann." [emphasis mine]

Yeah, FW. Never give him the benefit of the doubt. I absolutely believe the Commandant did it around the corner to spare Fritz. Sorry, kid.

Re: Katte's Death: The Documentary Hypothesis

[mildred_of_midgard]

He explains about the universal French education of German nobility, Prussia full of Hugenots etcs., but assures his readers that Old Fritz had "a true German mentality" (whatever that is, and he spells it "teutsch" not "deutsch", which is what ultra 19th century nationalists loved doing - Heinrich Heine often spoofed that habit hilariously") despising anything "welsch". (This German term does not mean Welsh people from Great Britain, thoiugh the origin of the word is actually related; in the 19th century, it's generally used as a derogatory term for anyone of Latin descent, primarily, though not exclusively, the French and Italians.

This was super interesting to me: the only part I was familiar with was that "Welsh" is a derogatory term meaning "foreigners"; a large number of ethnonyms either mean "all the people that count as people" or "those awful foreigners", depending on whether you get to name yourself or your neighbors you.

(Also, Preuß uses the expression "der einzige König" right in his first sentence which cracked me up.)

...One king to rule them all, one king to find them, one king to bring them all, and in the--Enlightenment?--bind them. :P

Re: Katte's Death: The Documentary Hypothesis

[selenak]

Wels(c)h: Yes, it's Saxon for "foreigner", which the Saxons invading England used for the local Celts, while the Saxons staying at home thought it was just the term for all those Romans and Roman-descendants next door.

...One king to rule them all, one king to find them, one king to bring them all, and in the--Enlightenment?--bind them.

In the land of Prussia, where the soldiers are.

Re: Katte's Death: The Documentary Hypothesis

[mildred_of_midgard]

aLOL

(And where the soldiers are not allowed to go to England, and yea, the musicians are also considered as soldiers.

ETA: And also the lame chamberlains.)

Re: Katte's Death: The Documentary Hypothesis

[selenak]

But Mildred, "diminish and go to the West" is just not a choice for anyone The One King wants to keep around! Also, one does not simply walk into Mordor away from Prussia.

Re: Katte's Death: The Documentary Hypothesis

[mildred_of_midgard]

Maybe he even had already started to write his own account but wouldn't publish it yet since Fritz paid his salary, and he let her read it?

Read the preface to the 1791 version. The publisher says these memoirs were apparently written in 1754, or at least that's the date on the frontispiece of the two manuscripts he compared before publishing. He's not sure why they haven't been published yet but have been languishing in libraries, but thinks it may be because people assumed they were just duplicates of the already published memoirs. Or some other reason. Who knows.

So, you know, it's possible Wilhelmine is Pollnitz's source. If she didn't show him her memoirs directly, he may have consulted her when he was starting work on his project, and she may have written him a letter, or they may have chatted in person or something. Or vice versa: she was writing her and consulted him while he happened to be working on his. A manuscript in 1754 doesn't mean the research wasn't already begun in 1745, when the topic is as broad as "The history of the last four kings" and runs to two volumes.

I feel like W & P are definitely consulting, though, and not just orally but in writing. Like, if they were chatting in person, one or both went back to their desks in the evenings and wrote down what they had talked about while it was still fresh.

And then T got ahold of something and decided to summarize it. Iirc, he follows P more closely than W (who has a bunch of material that neither of them do), which is consistent with P being published. Or just with W caring a whole lot more about what her brother went through emotionally.

Omg, you know what? T is like P in being shorter than W and far less interested in recounting every single detail, but in the material they all three cover...well, I haven't gone through all three systematically, line by line, but in everything I've checked so far, *textually*, T is much closer to W than P. Like, W and P might have talked about it and taken notes that night. A lot of times it's the same content, slightly different phrasing. But where W and P diverge, I keep seeing T follow W.

Did he have access to her memoirs? I know you said Heinrich and FW2 got a hold of them, and that's during T's lifetime. What year is that? Okay, Wikipedia says that "On 16 January 1791, Alexander sold his Margraviate to Prussia." Which means Wilhelmine's memoirs became available to the immediate family the same year Pöllnitz's became available to the general public.

T's entry says he was living in Paris at the time. Not exactly leaning over Heinrich's shoulder while he read W.

WTF?

I need to sit down and go over these three sources systematically, before I start drawing conclusions about who's copying whom. Otherwise, I'm going to joke that like your anonymous manuscript by Voltaire suggesting having affairs with the family and then with Fritz is a path to success, there was a top-secret manuscript passed around explaining all the things you need to know if you're going to live with Fritz that you're not allowed to talk about. :P

Re: Katte's Death: The Documentary Hypothesis

[selenak]

I know you said Heinrich and FW2 got a hold of them, and that's during T's lifetime. What year is that?

Sorry, I returned my Heinrich bio by Ziebura along with the other books to the library and can't look it up. But I don't think it was as early as that (1791), though; consider that the memoirs had to be found first, and brought to the attention of FW2, who in turn forwarded them to Heinrich. I assume whoever was in charge of going through the Bayreuth heritage first looked for valuables.

As Heinrich did not know Wilhelmine had written her memoirs before that, though - nor did, it seems, anyone else of the Hohenzollern family - I assume she didn't share them even with a private select circle. Which is the one thing that makes me hesitate to assume she showed them to Pöllnitz. Like Trenck, he was a blabbermouth. I mean, he was probably her source for the number of illegitimate kids August had, courtesy of his trashy tell all La Saxe Galante. Not the guy you want to confide in that you're writing "Our Insane Family" type of memoirs yourself. Especially since things are so tense with Brother Fritz right then anyway.

This being said: can see her ask him to correspond with her about the sad events just because. Pöllnitz rarely needed an invitation to chat about history.

Re: Katte's Death: The Documentary Hypothesis

[mildred_of_midgard]

Yeah, that's why I was trying to come up with alternatives to her showing him her memoirs, in the form of them chatting about things that happened, or exchanging letters, which they then both used as material for their respective memoirs. I agree that he likely didn't get his hands on a manuscript or even know there was one.

Re: Katte's Death: The Documentary Hypothesis

[selenak]

The more I think about it the more likely it is. It's the early 1740s, Wilhelmine needs a non-Fritz source about how things went down in Küstrin, but she can't exactly ask the officers who served there (if she knew their names or them) without potentially alerting Fritz. Otoh, Pöllnitz doesn't even need an invitation to talk about the past, just give him a cue and he spills the stories. And he's the go-to guy for stories for her family anyway, so: no one, including him, will consider this unusual behavior on her part.

(Liselotte who knew him when she was old and he was young and at the French court while her son was Regent for kid Louis XV. said about him, according to German wiki, "he can talk, and he talks a great deal"; German wiki adds he had the same opinion about her.)

Re: Katte's Death: The Documentary Hypothesis

[mildred_of_midgard]

Yes, this all makes perfect sense to me, especially Pöllnitz as go-to guy.

Now we just need to figure out what Thiébault's doing, but that'll have to wait for my close reading of the three texts.

Re: Katte's Death: The Documentary Hypothesis

[mildred_of_midgard]

I did the close reading! Aaaand, it's about 10,000 words and needs to be spread across about a dozen comments for the sake of organization. I guess I should wait for the next Frederick post in 5 days, when the YT collection opens? This one is already getting overloaded, and I don't want to start a new meaty discussion at 358 comments.

Anyway, it was a very instructive exercise, and I got some interesting ideas out of it.

Re: Katte's Death: The Documentary Hypothesis

[cahn]

This is ALL AMAZING and I look forward to the deep dive on the next post :D I am also dying that you are starting to use letters like the Pentateuch documentary hypothesis guy, lol (whose name I did not remember, but of course I'm familiar with the general idea).

Re: Katte's Death: The Documentary Hypothesis

[mildred_of_midgard]

I did not do it on purpose! It was the natural thing to do, and when I found myself doing it, my mind immediately went straight to Wellhausen and JEDP. And then I thought, "Of course, because we're doing essentially the same thing!" And then I thought, "OMG I am such a gossipy sensationalist with scholarly instincts. :-PPP"