Announcing Rheinsberg: Frederick the Great discussion post 10

[cahn]

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We now have a community, rheinsberg, that has quite a lot of the interesting historical content (and more coming regularly), organized nicely with lots of lovely tags so if there's any subject you are interested in it is easy to find :D

Comments

Re: A Katte Related Correspondance, or: No Mercy Like Hohenzollern Mercy

[mildred_of_midgard]

Well, I'm not sure Lehndorff wants an erastes exactly, but between him definitely coming across as having a slight crush on Peter (true hero of 1730 and all that)

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 cahn, here goes:

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, cahn, remember when we were emailing back and forth about Fritz wearing the coat in prison, and I said it was all he had left of Katte, that and a letter that might not be the most comforting thing in the world? This is what I meant by "possibly not the most comforting thing ever."

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, selenak?) Especially since they say that Fritz received this document immediately.

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

[mildred_of_midgard]

Found a few more Katte-related items today.

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 selenak told us that FW was making Absalom comparisons during the lead-up to Katte's execution.

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.