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.
Here I wonder: did Katte mention this in his interrogations, i.e. would FW, or Müller, or both have known this had happened? Or is it something only Katte and Fritz would know about?
That I don't know. He was interrogated five times, and I've never been able to find the write-up, though I've seen quotes. I suppose Kloosterhuis would tell us what's out there?
That said, whatever Katte may or may not have mentioned in his interrogations, it remains the case that only he and Fritz know what was really said. I absolutely think Katte encouraged Fritz to just wait it out, try to hide his sneakiness better and be more outwardly conforming, and that maybe FW would tone down the abuse, and they could wait it out, instead of risking everything now. And Fritz went "But that could be THIRTY YEARS! And also I will KILL MYSELF if I have to put up with this one more day!" and Katte went, "Okay, okay, let's stay calm and think this through. If we're gonna go through with this, we have to make it work."
I would be honestly shocked if Katte had never made any suggestions to Fritz that could be selectively rephrased in front of a committee or in a final letter as "Have you tried just going along with what your father wants a little more convincingly even if you're sneaking books and flutes on the side?"
But did the guy who had wanted to leave Prussian service and stay in England a mere one year before, and who was up to his ears in meeting with envoys and acquiring money and helping plot the itinerary really tell Fritz, in Saxony, that he needed to obey his father because THE BIBLE?
By the time we got to that last meeting in Potsdam Katte mentions, the night before FW and Fritz left on the fatal trip, Katte's "strongest remonstrations," at last according to Lavisse, seem to have taken the form of "PLEASE don't leave in the beginning of the trip, PLEASE leave from Wesel! It's so much safer!" Not "But the fifth commandment!"
It's clear that, in this letter and in the interrogations, he has every incentive to downplay the extent of his cooperation and play up the resistance he put up. So we're getting a very skewed picture, and a letter that really appears to be from a liar to a liar.
"Where I foretold what has now happened" is the only part that I find totally convincing as-is.
Remind me again, was this in Preuss or in Forster or elsewhere, so I can look it up again? It's all jumbled in my head now.
It's in Preuss, Vol 2 Appendix, page 170.
Die Puncta, so der unglückselige Katte kurz vor seiner Execution an den Kronprinzen durch den Feldprediger Müller überreichen lassen; übersende gleichfalls. Ich glaube, daß sie Ew. Majestät Approbation haben werden. Gott gebe nur, daß sie der Kronprinz nimmer vergesse, sondern derselben allemahl eingedenk sein möge.
Now, it sounds to me very much like Katte caused the Puncta to be given to Fritz via Müller shortly before his death, which matches what all my sources are telling me. So I'm guessing "übersende gleichfalls" means "ich übersende gleichfalls," and he (Wolden) is also sending it (to FW). Now that "also"--from looking at the beginning of the letter and getting a little help from Google Translate, it looks like Wolden started out by sending some other materials, pertaining to Fritz's debts and also a thanks in Fritz's own hand for the pardon and all that.
So I'm going with Fritz getting it either the day Katte's executed or the day after.
A little native speaker help: is it clear from that sentence whether Katte gave it to Müller just before his death, or whether it made its way to Fritz just before Katte's death? Because if Fritz read it *before* he saw Katte and fainted...I have all sorts of interesting thoughts about that.
Also, re the place of composition, everyone I've seen either says straight out that the letter to Fritz was composed at Küstrin, or that it was probably composed at Küstrin.
Now that I've read it closely, and seen all those Absalom and predestination and "the King is just an instrument of divine justice" elements...I'm kind of leaning toward it being written in Berlin/Spandau/wherever Katte was being held. Because while FW was beating everyone over the headwith his priorities and wishes before the escape attempt, and it probably would have been possible to figure out exactly what he wanted to hear without outside assistance...that letter's so completely perfect and attuned to recent Biblical comparanda like Absalom that it kind of reads like Katte got some pointers. And that was probably in Berlin.
Also, remember that Müller was in Berlin and accompanied Katte on that final ride to Küstrin. So if Katte had had a completed letter in hand, he could have handed it to Müller in the carriage, or when they arrived, and asked him to give it to Fritz. And Müller would have read it and gone, "Wow, I couldn't possibly approve more of this letter," and passed it on.
That would also make sense if the Fritz letter *isn't* in that set of circulating letters to family members, because it neither ended up with the Katte family nor did it need a clean copy made that could have resulted in it getting left lying around at Küstrin, but went straight from Müller to Fritz.
Small problem with the Katte family servant idea now that I've done the escape attempt chronology for rheinsberg: Hans Heinrich got leave to go home. Maybe Grandpa Wartensleben went at the same time, they had a funeral, etc. But that's December, not November. And was brother-in-law Rochow really there in Wust grieving Hans Hermann? How did all three letters end up in that house in November for the servants to have access to?
Possibility: stepmom and younger kids were there, and letters got copied and forwarded immediately for their comfort? But if Katte wrote a letter to his father on November 5, it had to be copied, then sent from Küstrin to Königsberg, then from Königsberg to Wust, then copied at Wust along with the other letters and distributed in Berlin...maybe that could happen by November 30. Okay, I just did the math, and the earliest my guesstimate can get that letter from Küstrin to Königsberg to Wust to Berlin is November 22, assuming everything got copied and forwarded the same day. Doable, but pretty tight timing. Especially in winter, with the Katte family servants probably having limited opportunities to copy letters and send them to Berlin without getting caught.
Katte having drafts of all the family letters with him at Küstrin and someone (whether a servant or someone of rank) copying all three and getting them to Berlin seems to fit the timing much better.
And Katte made a *huge* impression on everyone at Küstrin, plus everyone there has plausible deniability. ("I just left it on my desk! Someone must have glanced at it and copied it from memory!" Everyone else: *whistles innocently*) Also, remember that at least one person at Küstrin has already smuggled two Fritz letters to Wilhelmine out, and there will be more smuggling in and out in the days and months to come.
Küstrin staff still has my vote. As long as they had access to all three letters, and that just requires Katte to have kept the drafts that he wrote a couple days prior, before he made his clean copies, they'd have had motive, opportunity, and a demonstrated willingness to do such things.
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Re: Katte!
Date: 2020-02-08 08:35 pm (UTC)Here I wonder: did Katte mention this in his interrogations, i.e. would FW, or Müller, or both have known this had happened? Or is it something only Katte and Fritz would know about?
That I don't know. He was interrogated five times, and I've never been able to find the write-up, though I've seen quotes. I suppose Kloosterhuis would tell us what's out there?
That said, whatever Katte may or may not have mentioned in his interrogations, it remains the case that only he and Fritz know what was really said. I absolutely think Katte encouraged Fritz to just wait it out, try to hide his sneakiness better and be more outwardly conforming, and that maybe FW would tone down the abuse, and they could wait it out, instead of risking everything now. And Fritz went "But that could be THIRTY YEARS! And also I will KILL MYSELF if I have to put up with this one more day!" and Katte went, "Okay, okay, let's stay calm and think this through. If we're gonna go through with this, we have to make it work."
I would be honestly shocked if Katte had never made any suggestions to Fritz that could be selectively rephrased in front of a committee or in a final letter as "Have you tried just going along with what your father wants a little more convincingly
even if you're sneaking books and flutes on the side?"But did the guy who had wanted to leave Prussian service and stay in England a mere one year before, and who was up to his ears in meeting with envoys and acquiring money and helping plot the itinerary really tell Fritz, in Saxony, that he needed to obey his father because THE BIBLE?
By the time we got to that last meeting in Potsdam Katte mentions, the night before FW and Fritz left on the fatal trip, Katte's "strongest remonstrations," at last according to Lavisse, seem to have taken the form of "PLEASE don't leave in the beginning of the trip, PLEASE leave from Wesel! It's so much safer!" Not "But the fifth commandment!"
It's clear that, in this letter and in the interrogations, he has every incentive to downplay the extent of his cooperation and play up the resistance he put up. So we're getting a very skewed picture, and a letter that really appears to be from a liar to a liar.
"Where I foretold what has now happened" is the only part that I find totally convincing as-is.
Remind me again, was this in Preuss or in Forster or elsewhere, so I can look it up again? It's all jumbled in my head now.
It's in Preuss, Vol 2 Appendix, page 170.
Die Puncta, so der unglückselige Katte kurz vor seiner Execution an den Kronprinzen durch den Feldprediger Müller überreichen lassen; übersende gleichfalls. Ich glaube, daß sie Ew. Majestät Approbation haben werden. Gott gebe nur, daß sie der Kronprinz nimmer vergesse, sondern derselben allemahl eingedenk sein möge.
Now, it sounds to me very much like Katte caused the Puncta to be given to Fritz via Müller shortly before his death, which matches what all my sources are telling me. So I'm guessing "übersende gleichfalls" means "ich übersende gleichfalls," and he (Wolden) is also sending it (to FW). Now that "also"--from looking at the beginning of the letter and getting a little help from Google Translate, it looks like Wolden started out by sending some other materials, pertaining to Fritz's debts and also a thanks in Fritz's own hand for the pardon and all that.
So I'm going with Fritz getting it either the day Katte's executed or the day after.
A little native speaker help: is it clear from that sentence whether Katte gave it to Müller just before his death, or whether it made its way to Fritz just before Katte's death? Because if Fritz read it *before* he saw Katte and fainted...I have all sorts of interesting thoughts about that.
Also, re the place of composition, everyone I've seen either says straight out that the letter to Fritz was composed at Küstrin, or that it was probably composed at Küstrin.
Now that I've read it closely, and seen all those Absalom and predestination and "the King is just an instrument of divine justice" elements...I'm kind of leaning toward it being written in Berlin/Spandau/wherever Katte was being held. Because while FW was beating everyone over the headwith his priorities and wishes before the escape attempt, and it probably would have been possible to figure out exactly what he wanted to hear without outside assistance...that letter's so completely perfect and attuned to recent Biblical comparanda like Absalom that it kind of reads like Katte got some pointers. And that was probably in Berlin.
Also, remember that Müller was in Berlin and accompanied Katte on that final ride to Küstrin. So if Katte had had a completed letter in hand, he could have handed it to Müller in the carriage, or when they arrived, and asked him to give it to Fritz. And Müller would have read it and gone, "Wow, I couldn't possibly approve more of this letter," and passed it on.
That would also make sense if the Fritz letter *isn't* in that set of circulating letters to family members, because it neither ended up with the Katte family nor did it need a clean copy made that could have resulted in it getting left lying around at Küstrin, but went straight from Müller to Fritz.
Small problem with the Katte family servant idea now that I've done the escape attempt chronology for
Possibility: stepmom and younger kids were there, and letters got copied and forwarded immediately for their comfort? But if Katte wrote a letter to his father on November 5, it had to be copied, then sent from Küstrin to Königsberg, then from Königsberg to Wust, then copied at Wust along with the other letters and distributed in Berlin...maybe that could happen by November 30. Okay, I just did the math, and the earliest my guesstimate can get that letter from Küstrin to Königsberg to Wust to Berlin is November 22, assuming everything got copied and forwarded the same day. Doable, but pretty tight timing. Especially in winter, with the Katte family servants probably having limited opportunities to copy letters and send them to Berlin without getting caught.
Katte having drafts of all the family letters with him at Küstrin and someone (whether a servant or someone of rank) copying all three and getting them to Berlin seems to fit the timing much better.
And Katte made a *huge* impression on everyone at Küstrin, plus everyone there has plausible deniability. ("I just left it on my desk! Someone must have glanced at it and copied it from memory!" Everyone else: *whistles innocently*) Also, remember that at least one person at Küstrin has already smuggled two Fritz letters to Wilhelmine out, and there will be more smuggling in and out in the days and months to come.
Küstrin staff still has my vote. As long as they had access to all three letters, and that just requires Katte to have kept the drafts that he wrote a couple days prior, before he made his clean copies, they'd have had motive, opportunity, and a demonstrated willingness to do such things.