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Announcing Rheinsberg: Frederick the Great discussion post 10
So for anyone who is reading this and would like to learn more about Frederick the Great and his contemporaries, but who doesn't want to wade through 500k (600k?) words worth of comments and an increasingly sprawling comment section:
We now have a community,![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
rheinsberg, that has quite a lot of the interesting historical content (and more coming regularly), organized nicely with lots of lovely tags so if there's any subject you are interested in it is easy to find :D
We now have a community,
rheinsberg, that has quite a lot of the interesting historical content (and more coming regularly), organized nicely with lots of lovely tags so if there's any subject you are interested in it is easy to find :D
Re: A Katte Related Correspondance, or: No Mercy Like Hohenzollern Mercy
Preuss Addendum: lots of FW letters re: Fritz in Küstrin, for starters, and also, twice, in September the orders to have poor Doris whipped and "eternally" put in the workhouse. Of interest for fanfiction details: Fritz this early does get a servant, but that guy, not named, is supposed to sleep in town, not in the fortress with Fritz. Given the order is also saying Fritz isn't allowed to correspond yet, or to leave the chamber that serves as his cell, and gets his food the already described way, I wonder what the servant is supposed to do for him? Shave him and cut his hair? *reads further, reaches the Manual FW gives to Lepell* Oh, and clean him & carry his waste products out of the room, right.
There is an extra letter saying "no flutes!" (as in, not the one Fritz had, nor any new ones allowed to be given to him), dated September 8th.
Lepell asks whether Fritz is allowed to get a fork and knives for his food. He isn't. It's supposed to be cut for him before being given to him.
Several letters because FW wants to know exactly where Fritz got his money from and how much debts, since ever new ones are coming to light.
The physical description in the letter to Deggendorff of Peter Keith, which you already know. (Cahn, medium height, pale, thin body, bown hair, cross-eyed. Our Lehndorff also notes the cross eyedness, but adds Peter is good looking, which FW for some reason does not Mention. The reason being only medium height.)
FW seems to be getting the impression Lepell feels somewhat sorry for his prisoner and writes that what Fritz had been attempting was no spontanous "tour de Jeunesse" (he uses the French expression) but a premeditated Enterprise he's evidently been planning for years.
The order to give Fritz a crash course in Prussian economics is from August 1731.
The first letter Preuss has from Fritz to FW from Küstrin is May 1731 (thanks for the Prayer books, I'll be good), FW dictates reply saying essentially "Got your letter, must point out that I tried to make you into a good Christian all my life, but you didn't listen, and even when caught, you still kept lying, you are a false liar to the core and I can only hope that your false heart is now cleansed. We'll see.
Undated letter from FW to MT's Dad, saying, paraphrased,
Dear Emperor,
thanks for dissuading me from killing my son. Woe is me. I tried and tried and tried, and that's what I got. I'm sure you relate. May our families be bffs forever more, your loyal subject, FW.
In August 1731, Wolden - I think one of the FW installed household guys, yes? - assures FW Fritz is absolutely docile now and has learned his lesson. He's sending the "Puncta", uses the Latin word, which "unfortunate Katte" has left (to Fritz? That's the implication I get) via Pastor Müller before his execution and is sure FW will approve of them, and may Fritz never forget them, but he's good now, it's all good now. Can we possibly get some wine for dinner again?
Fritz writes a letter making a suggestion of building and re-foresting something that has been destroyed by fire in Küstrin, and some other matter of factual things, along with expressions of submission and devotion. This impresses FW, who now adresses him as "my dear son" in the replying letter, and adds some useful agrarian tips. At this point, Fritz has the expressed permission to go hunting, and make town visits, but must always be back at night and must not stay overnight anywhere else.
Fritz, sure that he's found the winning formula, in subsequent letters adds more economic and infra structure ideas and reports he's used his new (still limited, but far less so) freedom of movement to go hunting, and also he hopes his father will allow him to wear "the blue cloth" (i.e. the Prussian uniform) again.
By December 1731, it's not only "my dear son" but "your father who loves you from all his heart" (and is delighted as the success of his reforming Fritz project).
The last letter refers to EC as Fritz' bride. I note that the 1732 letters are mostly on things future King Fritz is proving himself with, whereas Förster also has FW-Fritz correspondance from that year but not the same. Förster has a FW to Fritz letter from February 1732, and the tone sounds eeerily familiar if you've read Fritz' letters to his brothers. Also, FW keeps switching between "Du" and "Ihr" in this one, too. (And yes, FW writes "Fritz", not "Friedrich").
My dear son Fritz,
I am very happy that you don't need medicine anymore. But you must still take care of yourself in this great cold which has inconvencienced me and so many others with the flu, so be cautious. You know, my dear son, that I love my children dearly when they are obedient, as you all were in Berlin, that I have forgiven you everything with all my heart, and that I have thought of little else in Berlin than of your welfare, to establish you with the army and to provide you with a decent daughter-in-law, as I seek to marry you within my lifetime. You may well be persuaded, for I have investigated all the princesses of the land in regards of their education and behaviour, and have found a princess, the oldest from Bevern, who has been well raised, modest and humble, as women should be. (...) The princess isn't ugly, nor is she beautiful; you're not to tell anyone, but you may write to your Mama - FW does not write "mother", i.e. Mutter, he writes "Mama" - that I have written to you, and if you get a son, I will let you travel abroad. The wedding can't happen before the coming winter, but there will be multiple times during which you can meet her in all honor and get to know her somewhat. She is a pious person, and this is all very well with you and with the parents-in-law, and may God give you his blessing, and to your successor, and keep you as a good Christian, and always look to God, and do not follow the cursed predestination doctrine, but be obedient and loyal, and then you will fare well here on earth and eternally there, and he who wishes this should say amen. Your faithful father until his death, Fr. Wilhelm.
If the Duke of Lorraine visits, I will let you come here. I believe your bride will come here then, too.
Re: A Katte Related Correspondance, or: No Mercy Like Hohenzollern Mercy
In August 1731, Wolden - I think one of the FW installed household guys, yes?
Yep, per your list and also MacDonogh, who agrees with your list.
He's sending the "Puncta", uses the Latin word, which "unfortunate Katte" has left (to Fritz? That's the implication I get) via Pastor Müller before his execution and is sure FW will approve of them, and may Fritz never forget them, but he's good now, it's all good now.
That's really interesting. I know of Katte writing a letter to Fritz about obeying FW, which I'm sure FW would approve of, and also a last will that, according to Lavisse, ended up in Fritz's hands, but in November. I'd also be surprised if they left Katte's "please obey your father" letter nine months before passing it onto Fritz. You'd think that'd be the first thing they'd want him to see. I wonder if they got Fritz a copy of the letter Katte wrote to *his* father.
Anyway, I'm curious what the "Puncta" represents. I just checked Fontane, and I can't tell.
Of interest for fanfiction details: Fritz this early does get a servant, but that guy, not named, is supposed to sleep in town, not in the fortress with Fritz.
That is of interest! All I knew, which I passed on to
Our Lehndorff also notes the cross eyedness, but adds Peter is good looking, which FW for some reason does not Mention. The reason being only medium height.)
ROFL. See, my background with Peter's appearance went like this:
Biographer (Asprey?): *quotes FW's description, concludes he wasn't good-looking, gives no source*
Me: None of that tells me he wasn't good-looking. I wonder what your source is.
Lehndorff: Cross-eyed, but so good-looking you barely noticed.
Me: See?! Also, aha, Lehndorff's our source for the squint, like so many other things.
FW: The full Asprey description in the "Wanted" poster.
Me: Oh, thaaaat's where that came from. Also, I notice FW doesn't think he's good-looking.
Selenak: Obviously, Mildred, he's of *medium* height!
Me: Oh, duh!
So what we've learned about Lehndorff's taste is that he doesn't mind men of average or below-average height, and he doesn't mind a squint. He also calls Peter "liebenswürdig" a couple of times, just like Heinrich. Hmm. Lehndorff/Peter FWB? :D (Obviously nothing more than that, since Lehndorff lets us know in no uncertain terms when he has feelings for someone.)
Re: A Katte Related Correspondance, or: No Mercy Like Hohenzollern Mercy
Incidentally, since you're as baffled about what the "Puncta" could be - did we ever go over suspects for who on earth leaked Katte's letters to his Father, grandfather and to FW? Because if according to Klosterhuis they were making the rounds in November in Berlin already, and in 1731 ended up in a pamphlet printed in the decidedly anti Prussian Rhineland, without ever a denial saying "nope, not what Katte wrote at all", someone must have.
So: Katte Family: obvious suspects, but would have infuriated FW by doing so. And Hans Heinrich still had more kids to lose.
Anyone from the Küstrin staff, who were in charge of going through all outgoing and incoming mail and sympathized with Katte, thus made copies? Mayyyybe, but again, very risky, and they just watched a guy losing his head at the King's displeasure.
Eichel, who presumably got copies of all three letters for the Archive? Hmmm. Does the most loyal bureaucrat and workoholic of the state have a sneaking "this was not cool, boss!" resister inside? Knowing himself to be the least suspected person ever and getting away with it?
Re: A Katte Related Correspondance, or: No Mercy Like Hohenzollern Mercy
Yeah, that's why I said FWB, not boyfriend. ;)
I'm with you on the slight crush, though! Serious question: does Lehndorff normally comment on the attractiveness of random courtiers and officers whose death he reports?
Now, we know Heinrich was "as beautiful as an angel," so we have to take Peter's handsomeness with a grain of salt, but what it tells us about is Lehndorff's opinion.
I bet all the Potsdam giants who deserted were "strikingly handsome" in their Wanted dispatches, though!
Incidentally, since you're as baffled about what the "Puncta" could be
Baffled no longer! I dug up Katte's last letter to Fritz, and while I remembered the content, I had forgotten that it was in numbered bullet points. Since I don't think we've shared it with
1. The prince royal may, perhaps, think that I consider him as the cause of my death, and that I die in anger with him, but that is not the case. I acknowledge that, for wise reasons, Divine Providence has decreed that these misfortunes should fall upon me, to bring me to true repentance, and to enable me to work out my salvation.
2. The causes to which I attribute this chastisement of Heaven are, first, my ambition; and secondly, my neglect of the Almighty.
3. I promise the prince royal to pray for him before the throne of God.
4. I beseech the prince royal to banish from his heart any anger that he may feel against the king, his father, on account of my punishment; for he is not the cause of my death, since in this he is only the instrument of divine justice.
5. The prince royal ought not to think that this calamity has befallen me for want of prudence, but rather to recognise in it the hand of God, who confounds the wisdom of the wise.
6. I entreat the prince royal to submit to the will of his majesty; in the first place, because he is his father, and in the second, because he is his king.
7. The prince royal must remember what I said to him one day in Brandenburg on the submission which he owes to his father, refering to the examples of Absalom.
8. The prince royal must remember that I remonstrated with him, in the strongest manner, first at the camp in Saxony, where we originally had the idea of absconding, and where I foretold what has now happened; and secondly, more recently, one night when I called upon him in Potsdam.
9. I again implore the prince royal most solemnly, by the sufferings of Jesus Christ, to submit to his father's will; both on account of the promises contained in the fifth commandment, and also for fear of the law of retaliation, which might some day cause him to suffer the like vexations with his own children.
10. I beseech the prince royal to consider the vanity of human projects planned without God. The prince royal's wish was to serve me and to raise me to dignities and honours; see how these schemes are frustrated! I therefore beseech the prince royal to take the law of God for the rule of his actions, and to try them by the test of His sacred will.
11. The prince royal ought to be certain that he is deceived by those who flatter his passions, for they have in view their own interests only, not his; and he ought, on the other hand, to consider as his true friends those who tell him the truth and oppose his inclinations.
12. I implore the prince royal to repent, and to submit his heart to God.
13. Lastly, I implore the prince royal not to believe in fatalism; but to acknowledge the providence and the hand of God in the minutest circumstances.
If you think this reads like it was dictated by FW, yeah. Down to the rejection of predestination. Remember, FW has a preacher standing by to step into Fritz's cell the moment Katte's head falls, to lead him back to the true faith, and most specifically, the lack of predestination.
It reads like such a perfect and instant conformity to FW's will that I'm not the only one who thinks that it's a performance. He rejects atheism when staring death in the face and reverts to the religion of his childhood? Sure, maybe. He's been raised in a world where fathers and kings have absolute power and perfect obedience is owed to them, and he buys into that? Sure.
He really, really cares, of his own accord, that Fritz not believe in predestination, so much that it's his second-to-last words to Fritz?
Riiiight.
Katte: Fritz, just do what he says or he'll chop off your head too!!!1!!11! #MyInterpretation
By the way,
My source for this document, btw, is page 155 of Waldie's Select Circulating Library in the Fritzian library. I wish I knew what their source was. (Do you happen to know of a better source for this letter,
It still surprises me that he didn't. August 1731? Really? For something that reads like it was dictated by FW, in the hand of the guy who previously supported Fritz's plan, whose execution is meant to inspire a change of heart in Fritz?
Rereading your post, could it be that Wolden is sending to *FW* a copy of the Puncta in August? And Fritz has had it since November? Lavisse also says Fritz has had since the first moment Müller talked to him after Katte's execution. So unless you tell me the German can't possibly mean that, that's what I think is going on here. FW is getting a copy for the first time.
Thoughts on why I think Katte is lying through his teeth up until the moment of his death:
- Either he believes everything in this letter, or he's writing with an eye to FW.
- It seems highly unlikely that he's spontaneously become a carbon copy of FW with no ulterior motives.
- If Katte's getting killed, either it's Fritz's fault, FW's fault, or the will of God to teach Katte a lesson.
- Based not so much on the letter, but on his final words, the way he goes out of his way to comfort Fritz and say he would die for him a thousand times (however that last exchange went exactly), Katte really doesn't seem to be holding anything against Fritz. He really does still seem to love him, enough to be thinking about making him feel better after he, Katte, is gone.
- So either what he and Fritz did was wrong because it was against the will of God, or this is all FW's fault and it's too bad the escape didn't succeed. Saying one of these things leads to Fritz possibly not getting executed too, the only outcome Katte can be working for on that last day. (Even Lavisse reads that letter and thinks he's hoping against hope, maybe even not aware of it, for a last-minute pardon before the sword falls.)
- Atheists don't generally make good martyrs. They're fond of saying, under pain of death, that they never meant it in the first place.
- We have that quote from Katte's teacher, all the way back when he was at school, saying that he didn't try out of a "proper" (religious) motivation, but to please his father. That's at least a good decade of a lackluster attitude toward religion. Atheism/Deism/whatever wasn't a recent discovery after a lifetime of piety.
- His father is going to be pretty pleased to hear that he repented and accepted Christ in his last days, as opposed to the alternative.
- It's hard to be more obstinate than Fritz, and even Fritz gave in and said things he didn't mean in order to stay alive. In Katte's case, first he wanted a pardon (we know he asked for one); then, when that was a lost cause, we know he wanted to increase the chances of his beloved Fritz surviving, at whatever cost.
So I'm just highly suspicious about that whole sudden repentance. That last letter reads just way too good to be true.
But when you report that Wolden writes that he "is sure FW will approve of them"...yeah. I bet!
Re: A Katte Related Correspondance, or: No Mercy Like Hohenzollern Mercy
The last letter from Katte to Fritz is in Preuss, volume 1, page 50.
Preuss (vol 1 p 65), thinks Hans Heinrich's two younger sons died in 1745 and 1748, which would rule out both of them killing each other in 1748. But I kind of trust the Wust people more?
I figured out where all the birth and death dates in Wikipedia come from that contradict the Wust people and Fontane and whatnot: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie. It seems to be a major source for Wikipedia biographical entries.
From Preuss, it sounds like Fritz handed the Field Marshal promotion (document or insignia or whatever) to Hans Heinrich in person. I've been wondering about that for months. Also, Hans Heinrich accompanied him on the trip to Königsberg. I wonder how awkward that was. o.O Good thing Algarotti was there!
Finally, from Katte's last letter:
The prince royal must remember what I said to him one day in Brandenburg on the submission which he owes to his father, refering to the examples of Absalom.
It occurred to me that
Now, everyone is very steeped in the Bible, so, are two people going to come up with this independently? Yes, of course.
And Katte was raised in the 18th century, so did he tell Fritz that it was natural for fathers to be strict and you still had to obey them? I've always thought so. I worked it into fic before I'd even seen this letter.
But how plausible is it that irreligious Katte used the Absalom argument with irreligious Fritz in the pre-escape days? I.e. before Katte decided to go outspokenly 100% religious after apparently a lifetime of not caring?
And what are the odds that Grumbkow, or someone, came and had a talk with condemned Katte? "Look, kid, you're toast. You want to help save your prince? This is what the King wants to hear. 'It's not his fault, check. He's just an instrument of God, check. Don't listen to friends who support you, and only listen to friends who oppose you, because those are the ones who have your best interests in mind, check. Absalom comparison, check. Reject predestination, check.'"
Like, is there anything that FW cares about that isn't on this list? If Katte isn't getting outside hints, he's doing an A+ job of getting inside FW's head.
And if Katte really cares that much about predestination and the fifth commandment and all that...why wait this many months to say it to Fritz? Surely he could have gotten permission to send this exact letter in September or October, if his values and priorities aligned so thoroughly with FW's. But no, in late September he's still going, "Yes, I'd've gone with Fritz if he'd left, I just didn't think he would."
If I were an Agatha Christie character, I'd be suspicious that that November 1 about-face was a little bit calculated.
Re: A Katte Related Correspondance, or: No Mercy Like Hohenzollern Mercy
No, but here are two points I want to introduce into the discussion.
1) Katte specifically asked Pastor Müller if he could make a clean copy of the letter to his father, and Müller said no, there wasn't time. So Katte asked Schack if he would have a copy made after Katte was gone.
So there was not only incoming and outgoing mail that the Küstrin staff had access to, but there was an actual copy of the letter lying around waiting to be copied! That would have been the easiest letter to leak.
2) The letters to FW and his grandfather were written in captivity in Berlin, so I don't see how they ever could have passed through Küstrin staff hands. I don't know when/where the Fritz letter was written--do you? It reads extremely like a Berlin letter to me (i.e. still hoping for a pardon), but maybe not. Okay, Lavisse doesn't know when it was written, but thinks it might have been that last night in Küstrin. If he doesn't know, probably no one knows.
Okay, so he does give a citation showing where he got the letter from (he summarizes but doesn't quote it): "This sort of testament destined for the prince is inserted in a report of Pastor Müller to the King, Beitrag zur Lebensgeschichte Friedrichs des Grossen, welcher einen merkwürdigen Briefwechsel über den ehemaligen Aufenthalt des gedachten Königs zu Custrin enthält."
I haven't turned up that report (published 1788), but you'd think it would date to before August 1731.
Anyway. It's weird that the letters to FW, the grandfather, and the father all leaked and ended up in the same pamphlet, when they were written in different towns. By the way, can you double check that it's all three of them and only those three in the pamphlet? Wilhelmine mentions a letter to the brother-in-law (i.e., Rochow) along with the letters to his father and grandfather, but none to FW. And if she's working from that pamphlet...
So what I'm getting at is that, unless they were all opened in transit, they must have been leaked when they were in the same place. Which is either the royal archives, or the Katte family home.
Now, mail did get opened a lot back then. And the Katte affair was a big scandal. If you were part of the mail delivery system and got your hands on a letter from the condemned, you might steam open that seal and make a copy too. But if they're all being sent from different places to different places, that seems like a hell of a coincidence.
Eichel seems like a super unlikely candidate to me. Blanning does say (no citation) that he would later disapprove of Finck's cashiering by Fritz for the Maxen fiasco, but it would really surprise me to see him leaking things. Not impossible! But very surprising. He's directly under the King's eye, and it's a huge risk, and keeping documents secret is his job at which he excels. You may be right about "least suspected person ever and getting away with it" for this very reason, and he may be laughing at me from beyond the grave. But I still suspect him least.
The Katte family, as you noted, has other children to lose, and even more significantly to my mind, they seem united in throwing Katte to the wolves rather than risk anyone else. They write letters asking for pardon, but that's not a real risk. That's permissible.
What I'm thinking, and this is wild speculation based on nothing whatsoever, is a shadowy figure, made safer by their very invisibility. Not having the protection of being from a noble family can go either way--you can be disposed of without consequences on the one hand, but on the other, you're not under the royal microscope so much.
So...Katte family servant? Maybe a governess or some loyal retainer who raised Katte as a child? Someone who was angry and rebelling in the only way they could: getting some visibility into this poor guy's fate?
Or possibly, it occurs to me, Katte kept copies, maybe drafts, of all the letters on him when he was taken from Berlin to Küstrin? And they all ended up there, hanging out on the same desk while the clean copy of Hans Heinrich's letter was being made before it was sent?
That actually strikes me as the least unlikely possibility, since before I realized two of the letters were written in Berlin, I always suspected the Küstrin staff, if not Schack himself.
And yes, they just watched Katte's head roll for incurring the King's displeasure. But they're farther away from the King than Eichel, are less under his microscope, and have more plausible deniability. "I left it on my desk to make a clean copy; a servant must have gotten to it." If Eichel tries that excuse, even if FW believes it, he'll have Eichel sacked if not worse in a day, because if three letters got leaked on Eichel's watch, who knows what more sensitive info is going to get leaked, with that kind of security.
And Münchow, Lepel, and/or Schack were sympathetic enough to both Fritz and Katte that they arranged the execution so that Fritz didn't have to watch, while still letting Fritz and Katte have their final exchange, and that was way more risky than leaking the letters, because it had 150 witnesses and couldn't be blamed on the servants. (I suspect the 150 witnesses on the ground weren't aware that Fritz couldn't see it from where he was, and nobody both put 2 and 2 together and talked.)
So I'm still leaning toward Küstrin staff, after considering all the options. Katte family servant would make good fanfic, though. ;) Too bad Fontane didn't think of that, when he was writing the loyal servant bringing Katte's body home for burial.
Re: A Katte Related Correspondance, or: No Mercy Like Hohenzollern Mercy
thanks for dissuading me from killing my son. Woe is me. I tried and tried and tried, and that's what I got. I'm sure you relate. May our families be bffs forever more, your loyal subject, FW.
OMG. gaaaah FW!
You know, my dear son, that I love my children dearly when they are obedient, as you all were in Berlin
*headdesk*
and do not follow the cursed predestination doctrine
Okay, I have to admit I sniggered here, finding that in the middle of all that other stuff which wasn't, I guess, horribly offensive if you didn't know the context. LOL FW, you do rather have a one-track mind sometimes. All the time.