Yes, the Fritz biographies I've read tend to skip from the chasheering to AW's death in terms of relating his story, and I thought this might be the case with the ones you've read as well. When the more I think about it, the more it's the year long aftermath which makes it so horrendous. If AW had died shortly after the public disgrace, it still would have been tragic, but you could say Fritz acted on impulse and mid-war didn't have time to take an emotional step back and reconsider. But that he kept up the unrelenting verbal (well, written) abuse for a year and absolutely refused to let AW see him or to visit AW which would have been possible until AW leaves Leipzig in December 1757 makes so particularly devastating. (BTW, I think this is also why Fritz takes Ferdinand's various illnesses that show up after AW's death very seriously indeed, immediately sends Cothenius et al, and allows Ferdinand to go to Berlin without accusing him of cowardice or faking it even once.)
Now, when you read the letters to Amalie, where Fritz sounds extremely complimentary, proud and affectionate about Heinrich, and Heinrich's letters to Ferdinand at the same time, where he's absolutely sure that Fritz is just waiting for the opportunity to destroy him and will do it without batting an eyelash if Heinrich gives him the slightest opening for that, you'd think Heinrich is overly paranoid, especially with the hindsight that Fritz never does to Heinrich what he did to AW, and that he did, in fact, turn out to need this younger brother not just as a military backup. But it's not paranoia at all if one keeps in mind that what Heinrich had to go on was this: Fritz had given every sign of being fond of AW pre-Seven Years War, from those early letters to kid AW from Rheinsberg onward. They'd never had a stormy relationship, unlike Fritz and Heinrich, and Fritz still had been capable of systematically destroying his brother for a year. "If he did it to AW, he will do it to me" from Heinrich's pov is just a natural assumption.
Sidenote: your take? Would he have, if Heinrich had made a mistake?
Re: Brotherly Conduct III: The Aftermath
Yes, the Fritz biographies I've read tend to skip from the chasheering to AW's death in terms of relating his story, and I thought this might be the case with the ones you've read as well. When the more I think about it, the more it's the year long aftermath which makes it so horrendous. If AW had died shortly after the public disgrace, it still would have been tragic, but you could say Fritz acted on impulse and mid-war didn't have time to take an emotional step back and reconsider. But that he kept up the unrelenting verbal (well, written) abuse for a year and absolutely refused to let AW see him or to visit AW which would have been possible until AW leaves Leipzig in December 1757 makes so particularly devastating. (BTW, I think this is also why Fritz takes Ferdinand's various illnesses that show up after AW's death very seriously indeed, immediately sends Cothenius et al, and allows Ferdinand to go to Berlin without accusing him of cowardice or faking it even once.)
Now, when you read the letters to Amalie, where Fritz sounds extremely complimentary, proud and affectionate about Heinrich, and Heinrich's letters to Ferdinand at the same time, where he's absolutely sure that Fritz is just waiting for the opportunity to destroy him and will do it without batting an eyelash if Heinrich gives him the slightest opening for that, you'd think Heinrich is overly paranoid, especially with the hindsight that Fritz never does to Heinrich what he did to AW, and that he did, in fact, turn out to need this younger brother not just as a military backup. But it's not paranoia at all if one keeps in mind that what Heinrich had to go on was this: Fritz had given every sign of being fond of AW pre-Seven Years War, from those early letters to kid AW from Rheinsberg onward. They'd never had a stormy relationship, unlike Fritz and Heinrich, and Fritz still had been capable of systematically destroying his brother for a year. "If he did it to AW, he will do it to me" from Heinrich's pov is just a natural assumption.
Sidenote: your take? Would he have, if Heinrich had made a mistake?