cahn | 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,

rheinsberg, that has quite a lot of the interesting historical content (and more coming regularly), organized nicely with lots of lovely tags so if there's any subject you are interested in it is easy to find :D

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

mildred_of_midgard

If Seckendorff knows, Grumbkow knows, so Fritz has reason to write to Grumbkow „you know how I tried“ etc.

Exactly what I was thinking.

it does make me conclude Fritz not only did not really expect anything worse than prison - not that prison, FW style, isn't awful, - for himself and for Katte

Yeah, every summary I had seen of the lead-up to November 6 has Fritz unhappy but defiant in a way that makes it seem like he wasn't too worried about making things worse. Which is why I was surprised that he was offering his own head so early, but here we have it, documentary evidence! I do think it was largely rhetorical at this date, in that he wasn't expecting them to take him up on the offer literally. But he did want Katte saved and did refuse to blame him.

Mind you, taunting the comission (if he did and that wasn’t just FW’s impression, remember, Seckendorff is repeating to Eugene what he’s learned from FW) and simultanously asking for Katte‘s life is a better surefire method to get Katte killed, if you ask me...

Your caveat about FW as the source is noted, but yeah. I don't blame him for Katte's death, but he was definitely thinking emotionally throughout this whole thing, and I'm not surprised that afterward, he felt the need to insist that he wasn't responsible for Katte's death, to drown out the little voice that must have been telling him about all the things he could have done differently.

Katte staying: yeah. I mean, fiction can‘t do footnotes, so „Der Thronfolger“ had him stay as a gambit to make Fritz give up his plan (since in this version Fritz knows he‘s still in Berlin), and in my own „Fiat Justicia“, I let him stay to save Wilhelmine, but then that‘s meant to be an AU anyway.

Oh, sure, fiction absolutely has to pick something! It's the job of fiction to tell a story. It's categorically asserting in nonfiction that such-and-such was the reason that I side-eye.

I would say it comes down the difference between "the character Katte in my story didn't flee because X," which is called characterization, and "the historical figure Katte didn't flee because X," when X is unknowable. And of course, which reason one chooses for Katte's failure to flee in time to save his life has major implications for characterization. Which is one reason it's so objectionable to pick one in nonfiction and assert it as truth without evidence.

Besides, there's a difference between why he didn't desert per the original escape plan, and why he didn't flee in time when he knew his arrest was imminent. I think the first part is less controversial: he couldn't get leave, it would have been dangerous and complicated, and he was waiting for either a better opportunity to arise, or the whole thing to blow over. But once Fritz was arrested, Peter had fled, and FW had given the order for Katte's arrest, that's when Natzmer gave Katte permission to leave Berlin and gave him a several hour head start, and no one knows why Katte was still there to be arrested. And that's when people start asserting they know why and I side-eye them.

"a Prussian nobleman named von Wolden and two Cavaliers, Rowedel and Nazmer, as well as two pages and four footmen for which a "splendid uniform" is already being made.

Useful little details, thank you!

And, something I already knew because Ziebura has quoted in her AW biography, Seckendorff also reports on October 9th that FW tries to make Fritz renounce his place in the succession, which Fritz, as we all know, refuses to do, which makes FW even more furious.

If you want to see the protocol containing (at least as selection of?) the questions and answers to the original interrogation, from September 16, if it's not in Förster, it's in YouthDocuments in the library, starting on page 50. The question and reply where Fritz refuses to give up the succession are on page 53.

ETA: oh, and Seckendorff also writes to Vienna that when Katte gets executed, „the Queen does not pray for him“.

You mean pray for his soul after he's been beheaded?

Son of ETA: also wanted to mention that Seckendorff reports Katte to have been executed "under the Crown Prince's window" while he was forced to watch. Again, his main source is FW himself, so I bet Münchow & Lepel left FW with that impression due to careful wording of their report.

I just bet they did!

I‘m not surprised Fritz didn‘t feel obliged to Seckendorff despite all that Austrian money later.

Ha, yes, the editor who wrote the preface to one of the English translations of Wilhelmine's memoirs included this gem: "The reader of the Margravine's autobiography will probably feel that when Seckendorff saved Frederick's life the account between them was about even, and that Frederick might proceed to new injuries with a clear conscience."

From:

selenak

Oh, sure, fiction absolutely has to pick something! It's the job of fiction to tell a story. It's categorically asserting in nonfiction that such-and-such was the reason that I side-eye.

Same here! Hence my quick disillusionment with Burgdorf the GAY GAY GAY biographer.

that's when Natzmer gave Katte permission to leave Berlin and gave him a several hour head start

Presumably the same guy who spelled "Nazmer" is mentioned as a cavalier in Fritz' new household in Küstrin and who will write reports on him to the King? Or more likely a younger relation, if Natzmer the headstart giver was Katte's superior?

You mean pray for his soul after he's been beheaded?

Yes, that's how I understand Seckendorff's remark.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Same here! Hence my quick disillusionment with Burgdorf the GAY GAY GAY biographer.

You mean in general he asserted unknowable things, or did he have a specific explanation for Katte's failure to avoid getting arrested?

Presumably the same guy who spelled "Nazmer" is mentioned as a cavalier in Fritz' new household in Küstrin and who will write reports on him to the King? Or more likely a younger relation, if Natzmer the headstart giver was Katte's superior?

Yes, Natzmer is a field marshal at this point, has better things to do than live with Fritz. ;) MacDonogh to the rescue: the Natzmer who arrested Katte and helped convert FW to Pietism (apparently a brand that wasn't incompatible with passive resistance to authority) is Dubislav Gneomar. Fritz's cavalier is Karl Dubislav, whom Wikipedia tells me is the son of the former.

From:

selenak

You mean in general he asserted unknowable things, or did he have a specific explanation for Katte's failure to avoid getting arrested?

The former, with the "never ever had Fritz the slightest sexual contact to a woman, he and Orzelska were platonic pen pals" and the "Wilhelmine wanted Katte for herself!" being the most glaring examples I recall.

Re: Natzmer(s) - thank you for detecting again! Incidentally, I do wonder how those assignments were pitched. "Surprise! You get to be cavalier to the Crown Prince! Could mean closeness to the future King, could also mean losing your head if you get too close, and did I mention, he's currently residing as a sort of prisoner in Küstrin? Off to the Polish border, and whatever you do, keep away from flutes of any kinds!"

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Hahaha. It's the kind of tightrope walking Heinrich would later thrive on, much to his annoyance.

whatever you do, keep away from flutes of any kinds!"

Lol. Did you say there were multiple "no flutes" letters?

FW: Look, guys. I know you're letting smuggled flutes in. I SAID, no flutes! No handsome flutists, either.
Hille: Easy for you to say. You're not the one who has to listen to the poetry!

You get to be cavalier to the Crown Prince!

I've been meaning to ask, what is the job description of a "cavalier" in this context? Because Peter Keith's son was one for about a week to Amalia (iirc), and I keep seeing it crop up here and there.