Okay, with Darth Real Life in hot pursuit - though I will answer all the other comments, I swear - here's my quick assessment of the Burchardt edition of the Fredersdorf letters which Mildred found and uploaded.
1.) This edition has a very humble dedication to the current Czar - Nicholas - dedicating this book which shows the great, the one, the adored and feared as "a friend and a human being". Dedications of books to sovereigns were in fact on their way out about this time - 1833 is just a bit of a decade more before it's revolution time all over Europe again, including Germany - so that marks our editor as an old fashioned kind of guy.
2.) Burchardt, the editor, then gives us a biographical sketch of Fredersdorf. Said sketch starts with a massive departure from everything else we know about Fredersdorf. In this version, he's the son of a respectable merchant from Franconia, who was also trained to be a merchant when "because of his size he fell into the hands of Prussian recruiters who tricked him into changing the pen for the sword".
Now, seriously, this is all rubbish. Firstly, everyone else, including Lehndorff who actually talked with the man, says Fredersdorff hails from Pomerania, and from the back of Pomerania at that. (And from a poor background.) This is an utterly different province from Franconia. Franconia is where I come from, it's in the south of Germany, and back then it was partly owned by small scale princes like the Margrave of Bayreuth, partly by the church (like my hometown, Bamberg), and partly consisting of free imperial cities, like Nuremberg. It wasn't even under Prussian rule when Fredersdorff was born. (Though once Bayreuth & Ansbach fell back to the main Hohenzollern line, it would be, for a while.) It also has an utterly different dialect than Pomerania, which is in the uttermost east of of Germany, and today partly in Poland.
I should maybe also point out the following, in case you're wondering whether Burchardt is confusing something.
Franconia = Franken (in German). A Region in the northern part of Bavaria, i.e. the south of Germany, which still makes it very southern from Prussia's pov.
Frankfurt am Main = the more famous Frankfurt. Where Goethe was from, where Emperors until the end of the HRE got crowned, where the Frankfurt Book Fair, world's greatest even today, takes place. Used to be a free imperial city, which didn't stop Fritz from having Voltaire and his niece arrested there. Is located in the southern-midwest province of Hesse.
Frankfurt an der Oder = the less famous Frankfurt. Is actually in the very east of Germany. That's where Fritz got serenaded by students, and where he and Fredersdorf supposedly met.
If Burchardt were a foreigner, I'd assume he just confused Frankfurt an der Oder with Franken, but as a German, he shouldn't be able to make that mistake.
As for Fredersdorf's dad being a respectable merchant, that's the first I hear of it and sounds far less plausible than everyone else so far saying he was a musician and that was where Fredesdorf got his musical training pre army. The only thing sounding remotely plausible about this is that he got nabbed by Prussian recruiters for his size. But given the nonsense in the rest of the opening statement, I'm sceptical.
Which is a shame, because on the next page, our editor says Fredersdorf consoled himself about his new unwanted career in the army by playing the flute and thus became a virtuoso, and then the "governor" - Gouverneur, he uses this word - of Küstrin concluded he was just the ticket to cheer up the distressed Crown Prince, who after all also had only the flute as his sole consolation. I assume this preface is thus the source for the story "Fredersdorf was picked by the Küstrin staff to cheer up Fritz". No Frankfurt meeting/sighting mentioned.
Burchardt says Fritz soon started to use Fredersdorf to smuggle out and in letters to friends and relations in general and to Wilhelmine specifically. He also, in a footnote to Fredersdorf's self taught musical virtuoso status, says F made it into history as "der liebliche Flötenspieler des Königs" - "the lovely flutist of the King". He does not provide a citation for that one.
Burchardt does share Mildred's theory that alchemy did Fredersdorf in, saying his passion for alchemy was thus that "he sacrificed a good deal of his fortune and even his physical health" to it.
No mention of any firing in disgrace Otoh editor thinks Fredesdorf lived until freaking 1780, and conducted his office as chamberlain of the King even from his sickbed until then, which, what?
Finally: "Since the death of Fredersdorff, this correspondance, with the exception of the letters which the King demanded back after his death, has remained in the possession of the heirs. The editor has been permitted within the lifetime of the recently died owner to read it, and to make copies of the most excellent ones, and after his death to use it as he (the editor) sees fit. This he fulfills a holy obligation in the sense of the nobly departed by putting these letters into print and recommends them to the German public for their attention."
Okay. Now, this is where yours truly having a PhD in German literature comes in handy. If you'll recall, Fredersdorff's widow married the Granddad of Achim von Arnim, who while a writer himself is mostly famous by being the bff of poet Clemens Brentano and husband of Bettina Brentano (she of the Goethe fandom and one of the few female German star writers of the early to mid 19th century). I just checked with wiki, and yes, Achim von Arnim died in 1831 (Bettina would live on until the 1850s), which means that he's probably the "noble deceased" Burchardt is talking about in a book printed in 1833. And I would furtherly speculate that Fredersdorff suddenly being the son of a respectable Franconian merchant instead of a Pomeranian town piper is entirely to the von Arnim family wanting to beef up their sort-of-relations social ancestry.
The letters: are numbered, not dated, and not always in chronological order (thanks, editor), so you get letters complaining about the alchemy stuff before the letter about the Soor raid and the dead/missing dogs/horses. Also, there are just two or so letters from Fredersdorff, whereas 1926! editor included more, presumably more having been found in the Prussian state archives since then. As for the letters themselves, from what I can see via a quick browsing through - will have to reread the 1926 edition to be sure, am working from memory and under time pressure here -, 1926 editor did not leave any out, with the possible exception of letter Number 35, page 44 f., which goes:
I'm sending you a rare elixir which comes from Theophrast Paracelsus and which has worked miracles for me and all who have taken it, do take from this medicine, but don't take any quackery in addition to it, for he who does loses the male power of love for the rest of his life.
"männliche Kräfte der Liebe" can also be translated as "masculine force of love", or "male vigour" - or less literal, more factual (i.e what is meant) as "male potency", of course. I don't recall that letter from the 1926 editiion, though like I said, maybe I missed it a few months ago when I read it. Anyway, a "you don't want to become impotent, do you?" teasing letter like that would argue for a not so platonic relationship, no?
Fredersdorf
1.) This edition has a very humble dedication to the current Czar - Nicholas - dedicating this book which shows the great, the one, the adored and feared as "a friend and a human being". Dedications of books to sovereigns were in fact on their way out about this time - 1833 is just a bit of a decade more before it's revolution time all over Europe again, including Germany - so that marks our editor as an old fashioned kind of guy.
2.) Burchardt, the editor, then gives us a biographical sketch of Fredersdorf. Said sketch starts with a massive departure from everything else we know about Fredersdorf. In this version, he's the son of a respectable merchant from Franconia, who was also trained to be a merchant when "because of his size he fell into the hands of Prussian recruiters who tricked him into changing the pen for the sword".
Now, seriously, this is all rubbish. Firstly, everyone else, including Lehndorff who actually talked with the man, says Fredersdorff hails from Pomerania, and from the back of Pomerania at that. (And from a poor background.) This is an utterly different province from Franconia. Franconia is where I come from, it's in the south of Germany, and back then it was partly owned by small scale princes like the Margrave of Bayreuth, partly by the church (like my hometown, Bamberg), and partly consisting of free imperial cities, like Nuremberg. It wasn't even under Prussian rule when Fredersdorff was born. (Though once Bayreuth & Ansbach fell back to the main Hohenzollern line, it would be, for a while.) It also has an utterly different dialect than Pomerania, which is in the uttermost east of of Germany, and today partly in Poland.
I should maybe also point out the following, in case you're wondering whether Burchardt is confusing something.
Franconia = Franken (in German). A Region in the northern part of Bavaria, i.e. the south of Germany, which still makes it very southern from Prussia's pov.
Frankfurt am Main = the more famous Frankfurt. Where Goethe was from, where Emperors until the end of the HRE got crowned, where the Frankfurt Book Fair, world's greatest even today, takes place. Used to be a free imperial city, which didn't stop Fritz from having Voltaire and his niece arrested there. Is located in the southern-midwest province of Hesse.
Frankfurt an der Oder = the less famous Frankfurt. Is actually in the very east of Germany. That's where Fritz got serenaded by students, and where he and Fredersdorf supposedly met.
If Burchardt were a foreigner, I'd assume he just confused Frankfurt an der Oder with Franken, but as a German, he shouldn't be able to make that mistake.
As for Fredersdorf's dad being a respectable merchant, that's the first I hear of it and sounds far less plausible than everyone else so far saying he was a musician and that was where Fredesdorf got his musical training pre army. The only thing sounding remotely plausible about this is that he got nabbed by Prussian recruiters for his size. But given the nonsense in the rest of the opening statement, I'm sceptical.
Which is a shame, because on the next page, our editor says Fredersdorf consoled himself about his new unwanted career in the army by playing the flute and thus became a virtuoso, and then the "governor" - Gouverneur, he uses this word - of Küstrin concluded he was just the ticket to cheer up the distressed Crown Prince, who after all also had only the flute as his sole consolation. I assume this preface is thus the source for the story "Fredersdorf was picked by the Küstrin staff to cheer up Fritz". No Frankfurt meeting/sighting mentioned.
Burchardt says Fritz soon started to use Fredersdorf to smuggle out and in letters to friends and relations in general and to Wilhelmine specifically. He also, in a footnote to Fredersdorf's self taught musical virtuoso status, says F made it into history as "der liebliche Flötenspieler des Königs" - "the lovely flutist of the King". He does not provide a citation for that one.
Burchardt does share Mildred's theory that alchemy did Fredersdorf in, saying his passion for alchemy was thus that "he sacrificed a good deal of his fortune and even his physical health" to it.
No mention of any firing in disgrace Otoh editor thinks Fredesdorf lived until freaking 1780, and conducted his office as chamberlain of the King even from his sickbed until then, which, what?
Finally: "Since the death of Fredersdorff, this correspondance, with the exception of the letters which the King demanded back after his death, has remained in the possession of the heirs. The editor has been permitted within the lifetime of the recently died owner to read it, and to make copies of the most excellent ones, and after his death to use it as he (the editor) sees fit. This he fulfills a holy obligation in the sense of the nobly departed by putting these letters into print and recommends them to the German public for their attention."
Okay. Now, this is where yours truly having a PhD in German literature comes in handy. If you'll recall, Fredersdorff's widow married the Granddad of Achim von Arnim, who while a writer himself is mostly famous by being the bff of poet Clemens Brentano and husband of Bettina Brentano (she of the Goethe fandom and one of the few female German star writers of the early to mid 19th century). I just checked with wiki, and yes, Achim von Arnim died in 1831 (Bettina would live on until the 1850s), which means that he's probably the "noble deceased" Burchardt is talking about in a book printed in 1833. And I would furtherly speculate that Fredersdorff suddenly being the son of a respectable Franconian merchant instead of a Pomeranian town piper is entirely to the von Arnim family wanting to beef up their sort-of-relations social ancestry.
The letters: are numbered, not dated, and not always in chronological order (thanks, editor), so you get letters complaining about the alchemy stuff before the letter about the Soor raid and the dead/missing dogs/horses. Also, there are just two or so letters from Fredersdorff, whereas 1926! editor included more, presumably more having been found in the Prussian state archives since then. As for the letters themselves, from what I can see via a quick browsing through - will have to reread the 1926 edition to be sure, am working from memory and under time pressure here -, 1926 editor did not leave any out, with the possible exception of letter Number 35, page 44 f., which goes:
I'm sending you a rare elixir which comes from Theophrast Paracelsus and which has worked miracles for me and all who have taken it, do take from this medicine, but don't take any quackery in addition to it, for he who does loses the male power of love for the rest of his life.
"männliche Kräfte der Liebe" can also be translated as "masculine force of love", or "male vigour" - or less literal, more factual (i.e what is meant) as "male potency", of course. I don't recall that letter from the 1926 editiion, though like I said, maybe I missed it a few months ago when I read it. Anyway, a "you don't want to become impotent, do you?" teasing letter like that would argue for a not so platonic relationship, no?