Frederick the Great discussion post 9

[cahn]

...I leave you guys alone for one weekend and it's time for a new Fritz post, lol!

I'm gonna reply to the previous post comments but I guess new letter-reading, etc. should go in this one :)

Frederick the Great links

Comments

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

[mildred_of_midgard]

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.