Here's hoping for linguistic and summary assistance from Beginning_Returner!
OMG, I noticed this, and I noticed the "Fritz wants to talk to me first about his siblings' deaths!"
Seems Catt couldn't resist the embellishment there. I'm assuming the actual content of what he records Fritz saying about his dead siblings isn't too different in the diary vs the memoirs, or German editor of the diary would have remarked on that as well. But the change in circumstance - one conversation four days after the news in AW's case vs immediate soul-spilling, regular conversation at the usual hour after a condolence letter vs being woken up in the middle of the night and dragged for soulspilling again and again - does make for, if not falsification, and a significantly altered perspective on what the relationship was like.
German editor also says that when in the memoirs Fritz asks Catt to tell him what he, Catt, has heard about his fallout with AW, Catt replies with an almost exact summary of an anonymous pamphlet/ short book about AW which presumably he'd looked up for the memoirs when writing them, since there is no equivalent statement of his in the diary. This, I'd ascribe most to the need for exposition to the intended reader who decades after Fritz' own death and even more decades since AW's might not even remember anymore how many brothers Fritz had, if any, let alone what happened with AW.
What I really want someone to check is how complimentary Fritz is about young future FW2 in the diary versus the memoirs, because all that praise for his future successor he gives to Catt is very much in contrast to all I've seen quoted and reported otherwise. Granted, this is really young FW2 - he was born in 1744, so in 1760 when Catt has Fritz gush over him he's 16 - , and he might still have a guilty conscience because of AW, but still, it does not sound like the uncle who told everyone to tease kid and teenage FW so the later should get over his shyness, and complains about young FW not doing enough of his scholarly homework in his letters.
Conversely: all those dreams Catt reports must be a psychonalyst's catnip. Iin addition to all the dreams you already mentioned, the late in the 7 Years War one where he dreams about his father and the late old Dessau and asks "did I do well?", telling old Dessau their approval means the world to him is sooo telling. Fritz in 1760: still hoping for a "well done, son" from dead FW1 and busy traumatizing the next generation as part of his personal therapy.
On a lighter note, all those instances of "Voltaire is the worst! Did I tell you how Voltaire is the lowest of the low characters yet today, Catt? OMG A LETTER FROM VOLTAIRE!!!!" are awesome. (Am not surprised Catt backs up what I already read in the actual correspondance, i.e. Fritz feeling let down by the first ode to Wilhelmine as not being immortal poetry to make all of Europe weep.)
Catt
OMG, I noticed this, and I noticed the "Fritz wants to talk to me first about his siblings' deaths!"
Seems Catt couldn't resist the embellishment there. I'm assuming the actual content of what he records Fritz saying about his dead siblings isn't too different in the diary vs the memoirs, or German editor of the diary would have remarked on that as well. But the change in circumstance - one conversation four days after the news in AW's case vs immediate soul-spilling, regular conversation at the usual hour after a condolence letter vs being woken up in the middle of the night and dragged for soulspilling again and again - does make for, if not falsification, and a significantly altered perspective on what the relationship was like.
German editor also says that when in the memoirs Fritz asks Catt to tell him what he, Catt, has heard about his fallout with AW, Catt replies with an almost exact summary of an anonymous pamphlet/ short book about AW which presumably he'd looked up for the memoirs when writing them, since there is no equivalent statement of his in the diary. This, I'd ascribe most to the need for exposition to the intended reader who decades after Fritz' own death and even more decades since AW's might not even remember anymore how many brothers Fritz had, if any, let alone what happened with AW.
What I really want someone to check is how complimentary Fritz is about young future FW2 in the diary versus the memoirs, because all that praise for his future successor he gives to Catt is very much in contrast to all I've seen quoted and reported otherwise. Granted, this is really young FW2 - he was born in 1744, so in 1760 when Catt has Fritz gush over him he's 16 - , and he might still have a guilty conscience because of AW, but still, it does not sound like the uncle who told everyone to tease kid and teenage FW so the later should get over his shyness, and complains about young FW not doing enough of his scholarly homework in his letters.
Conversely: all those dreams Catt reports must be a psychonalyst's catnip. Iin addition to all the dreams you already mentioned, the late in the 7 Years War one where he dreams about his father and the late old Dessau and asks "did I do well?", telling old Dessau their approval means the world to him is sooo telling. Fritz in 1760: still hoping for a "well done, son" from dead FW1 and busy traumatizing the next generation as part of his personal therapy.
On a lighter note, all those instances of "Voltaire is the worst! Did I tell you how Voltaire is the lowest of the low characters yet today, Catt? OMG A LETTER FROM VOLTAIRE!!!!" are awesome. (Am not surprised Catt backs up what I already read in the actual correspondance, i.e. Fritz feeling let down by the first ode to Wilhelmine as not being immortal poetry to make all of Europe weep.)