cahn | Frederick the Great discussion post 9

(Mildred, explain Mantteuffel).

I don't have tiiiiime! You explain Manteuffel.

Sheesh, I'm putting together the Heinrich correspondence, and in comes new comments about Fritz/Katte, combined with all the wonderfulness about Peter Keith that you provided, that I can't just ignore and add to my really long backlog. :PP

Okay, so, Fritz and Katte. I obviously don't know what Fritz has in mind, but I have always suspected Fritz resented Katte trying to talk him out of the escape plan and having to be dragged into it. My headcanon is that at that age, Fritz was going around telling everyone that he needed to get the hell out of there, and consciously or subconsciously, waiting for someone to go "YES, GOD YES, let me get you out of here." And when he didn't get that, he came up with an increasingly emotional and poorly thought out escape plan that everyone knew about, *and* he developed an increasing sense that when it comes down to it, he's on his own. He's got to come up with all the ideas, and at best people might go along with them if he pushes enough, but no one is looking out for him.

Now, god knows, I don't *blame* Katte. Especially since Fritz got into a terrible feedback loop of

Fritz: *proposes bad idea*
Everyone else: *tries to talk him out of it*
Fritz: *hears "Just suck up the abuse for the next however many years or decades"*
Fritz: *comes up with worse idea and is MORE insistent that everyone go along with it*
Everyone else: *panics*

So, no, no one was morally obliged to risk their neck to get him out of a bad situation on their own initiative. But the fact that it was all his idea, I think fed into his control issues and paranoia later in life, and his difficulty getting his needs for emotional topping met.

And then, let's remember that Katte wrote that, "You know, I *did* try to talk you out of it, and also I suggest you be nice to your abusive dad and do everything he says," last letter. Now, even if it's realistically too late for a pardon, Katte might still be hoping against hope; plus I think he's genuinely realized there is no other option that results in Fritz living to see age 19, so I don't blame Katte for that letter. It's quite possible that he was hoping he'd get that pardon, and then he could sit down with Fritz and talk to him and be more supportive and reassuring. But there was no way to be supportive in that letter other than to say "I don't blame you, BUT..."

And whether or not Fritz got, intellectually, that the letter was for public consumption, emotionally, it was his last communication from Katte, and more importantly, he *would* remember Katte trying to prevent him from escaping an abusive hell. Privately. Genuinely.

I don't think he'd be human if he *didn't* have some resentment, along with all the other conflicting and strong emotions he bottled up.

Also, this entire passage strikes me as protesting a lot: it reads like the words of a man who is carrying a horrible, horrible guilt inside and trying to live with himself. For once, it *doesn't* strike me as gratuitous self-pity, though I'm sure he also draws on his self-pitying tendencies to try to cope.

Because on the one hand, it's liar writing to a liar

Which is why "If an honorable man like yourself disapproved, I'd be sad" made me snort.

Edited 2020-01-24 18:45 (UTC)

Oh, and if Fritz actually did complain about Katte out loud, would these be the reasons he gave? No, and certainly not while FW was alive, he couldn't. But if you ask me what resentment he's carrying deep inside, it's the resentment of the people who supposedly most loved him, Wilhelmine and Katte, trying to talk him into staying in an abusive situation.

Also, happy birthday, Fritz. I'm sorry about every time you got hurt and every time you ended up hurting someone else. Speaking of which, your brother is calling me back...

See, I knew I just had to include the magic K word in the title for you to reply. ;)

Your explanation as to what goes on inside Fritz work really well for me, as per usual. Love and resentment mix so often in trauma, and if someone dies as tragically as Katte, there's no obvious way to express the resentment without hating yourself for it, and thus it gets repressed and rarely boils over. Mind you, I do find it fascinating he picks Grumbkow of all the people for this outburst. I mean, he could have written the rest of the letter entirely without the paragraph about Katte, and could have left it as "poor old Mantteuffel, too bad, but you know me, totally learned my lesson, am Fritz the Superobedient Son now, isn't that what you all wanted?"

Perhaps because he doesn't care what Grumbkow thinks of him? That is, beyond Grumbkow being a political ally right now, with a mutual undestanding of being useful to each other, but it's not like he wants the man's affection or high opinion.

Mantteuffel: Saxon Diplomat, secret Habsburg Agent, but also writer and major major patron of Wolff the philosopher, which was how he and Fritz got into corresponding for a while, and why FW was against him (before FW's own pro Wolff turn). He was also a Free Mason, and he had build himself a nice country estate by the name of Kummerfrey. Kummerfrei (modern German spelling) means, of course… free of sorrow. Or, in other words: Sans Souci. (Plagiarism, Sire? Tsk.)

Mantteufel got officially banished by Fritz from Berlin a few days before the Invasion of Silesia began. He moved to Leipzig and continued to be a major patron of intellectual circles. He also pushed Leipniz' cause, and in 1746 managed to argue the Berlin Academy under Maupertuis into a partial reverse of their judgment against Leipniz' Monadenlehre.

See, I knew I just had to include the magic K word in the title for you to reply. ;)

I, uh, laughed really hard. It's funny because it's true!

I know, right? :D

I'm sorry your Emilie write-ups weren't magic! I loved them! I just didn't have an essay I could write off the top of my head, but lots of little things I wanted to say in reply to each part!

Catching up on comments now... (The translate script is running and will take a while.)

Oh, no, no, don't be sorry about it at all! I just thought it was hilarious that selenak trolled you with Katte and it totally worked :D And, I mean, I have this problem all the time! I am like "oh gosh I have to reply to comments... but argh busy with real life..." and then one of you writes crackfic and I'm like "ok, I know I owe like 100 other comments but HEE"

Mostly I was happy to know it was because you were working on Heinrich and not because your body was being extremely contrary, which it was the last time :(

Haha, yes, I just KNEW you were going to have to reply to that crackfic, no matter what else was going on. :D

I just thought it was hilarious that selenak trolled you with Katte and it totally worked

It was hilarious! I have buttons, you know what they are, and you can push them at will. ;)

Mostly I was happy to know it was because you were working on Heinrich and not because your body was being extremely contrary, which it was the last time :(

You and me both.

See, I knew I just had to include the magic K word in the title for you to reply. ;)

Yes, curse you. :D You know me far too well.

You may have noticed that the other K-word also has some magical power, but it's my own fault for trying to multitask and underestimating the amount of Peter Keith discussion that would result. ;)

Love and resentment mix so often in trauma, and if someone dies as tragically as Katte, there's no obvious way to express the resentment without hating yourself for it, and thus it gets repressed and rarely boils over.

Yesss. If you asked Fritz what his complaints about Katte were, and he were willing to tell you, I suspect they might be along the lines of things that went wrong during the escape plan that were TOTALLY not Fritz's fault, can NEVER be Fritz's fault, and maybe random things from the past like not getting along with Wilhelmine, etc.

But emotionally, I think it's the lack of initiative he resents the most. While at the same time, feeling horrible that Katte went along with the escape *despite* not wanting to, meaning Fritz drove his bff to his death*, but then Fritz would have to live with that, so maybe what really happened was that bff made mistakes, but Fritz still loved him and stood by him--which is a narrative that Fritz can live with. (Like, literally, as opposed to commit suicide over, which, if you believe Wilhelmine, was his initial reaction.)

Ugh.

* In an ideal world where everyone is perfectly rational and no one gets traumatized, obviously 100% of the blame goes to FW, but in a world full of human emotions, there was an escape plan and it went terribly wrong, and so that must be the fault of someone involved in the plan.

Mind you, I do find it fascinating he picks Grumbkow of all the people for this outburst.

What I find fascinating is that I don't remember this letter at all, despite more than once searching through the Trier archive for Katte's name and clicking on all the hits. But that was long ago, so I might have dismissed this as not what I was looking for and moved on, then forgotten about it completely. (Which seems weird, because normally I remember even things I reject, at least when reminded.) Anyway, thank you for turning it up!

[ETA: Oh, wow. It's on Trier in German translation but not in French, where the selected correspondence stops in 1733. Okay, THAT's why I don't remember it! Phew, my memory is redeemed.]

Perhaps because he doesn't care what Grumbkow thinks of him? That is, beyond Grumbkow being a political ally right now, with a mutual undestanding of being useful to each other, but it's not like he wants the man's affection or high opinion.

Yeah, I suspect if he wants to grieve about Katte, he has to open up and be emotionally vulnerable, which in this case would be even more painful than usual--say, with Rothenburg dying--but if he wants to go on the attack, that comes naturally. It's clear just from what you quoted that Fritz goes into the letter feeling defensive already, so I think he's just in fight mode (as in fight-or-flight), which means he starts defending himself. And with Fritz, the best defense is always a good offense, so if he wants to defend his behavior re Manteuffel with his behavior re Katte, and then he feels defensive about his behavior re Katte, his defense naturally has to include an attack on Katte.

I mean, he could have written the rest of the letter entirely without the paragraph about Katte

He could have, but when Fritz gets in fight mode, watch out. He's rarely known to kill a fly with a flyswatter when a cannonball is at hand.

Also, maybe I'm just chronology obsessed, but I wonder about the date of that letter. October 29. November 6. Maybe he has Katte on the brain this time of year. If not because he's consciously thinking about dates, then maybe because maybe as the weather changes, it brings strong flashbacks.

(Plagiarism, Sire? Tsk.)

Per MacDonogh, "Sans Souci" was a childhood nickname of sister Charlotte, but for all I know, he's thinking of some other Charlotte. Would you happen to know, O Knowledgeable About the Siblings?

Speaking of the siblings, having you read Pangels' Königskinder im Rokoko? He cites it a lot, but I have no idea if it's outdated (1976) or a good resource or what.

Fritz: *proposes bad idea*
Everyone else: *tries to talk him out of it*
Fritz: *hears "Just suck up the abuse for the next however many years or decades"*
Fritz: *comes up with worse idea and is MORE insistent that everyone go along with it*
Everyone else: *panics*

...This was totally my takeaway from the Wilhelmine memoirs.

This makes a lot of sense. </3

Yeah. :/ And I think it's easy to get caught up in "Katte died for him, ergo romantic hero sans reproche" and miss the "Just suck up the abuse for the next however many years or decades" message that an abused teenager, little more than an abused child, was getting on all sides.

However sound everyone's reasons, and however much they might have been willing to help out if presented with a better plan, and however much Katte went along with it against his better judgment, Fritz resenting being on his own is not something I will hold against him. Besides, realizing that other people were wrong and he was right to try to get out of there saved him from a whole host of other problems he could have had. (There are trade-offs: this personality trait of his led directly to failed escape attempts, Hochkirch, and Kunersdorf, as well as playing music in secret until FW died, and holding out long enough to win a three-front war. Miracles or no, Fritz earned his miracles.)

And while I do think if Katte--or *someone*--had taken more initiative with rescuing Fritz, it might have worked out much better for Fritz, and also Katte, do I think it's reasonable to expect anyone to do that? Not any more than I think it's reasonable for an abused teenager to come up with a better escape plan than Fritz did, although if he had, obviously it could have turned out much better for him and Katte.

And of course, if they had a better plan and it still failed, and Katte was the one driving it, we could be looking at Katte being torn with those red-hot pincers FW threatened him with, and at Fritz having to live with *that*. And Fritz still coming away with the idea that if you let other people take the initiative, they screw it up, and so you have to do everything yourself.

...Do you wonder why I have so many AUs for these two? Katte's lack of initiative is at the core of at least three of them, which is why I had an answer ready at my fingertips as to what Fritz might be resenting Katte for.

HUGS FOR EVERYONE.

If I hadn't run out of time to reply to comments while doing my Heinrich work, I would have added that January 24 is also the birthday of nephew Gustav, of Verdi opera fame.

Frederick the Great discussion post 9

Re: Happy Birthday, Fritz! You bastard. (Even towards Katte?)

Re: Happy Birthday, Fritz! You bastard. (Even towards Katte?)

Re: Happy Birthday, Fritz! You bastard. (Even towards Katte?)

Re: Happy Birthday, Fritz! You bastard. (Even towards Katte?)

Re: Happy Birthday, Fritz! You bastard. (Even towards Katte?)

Re: Happy Birthday, Fritz! You bastard. (Even towards Katte?)

Re: Happy Birthday, Fritz! You bastard. (Even towards Katte?)

Re: Happy Birthday, Fritz! You bastard. (Even towards Katte?)

Re: Happy Birthday, Fritz! You bastard. (Even towards Katte?)

Re: Happy Birthday, Fritz! You bastard. (Even towards Katte?)

Re: Happy Birthday, Fritz! You bastard. (Even towards Katte?)

Re: Happy Birthday, Fritz! You bastard. (Even towards Katte?)