Frederick the Great discussion post 11

[cahn]

In our last installment, our heroes found that Henri de Catt's memoirs, a major source for current biographers of Frederick the Great, are not to be trusted!!

rheinsberg

Comments

Re: Katte!

[mildred_of_midgard]

Oh, you're right, Müller was with Katte. Good catch!

All right, after he woke up from the faint, then, Fritz got this letter.

In either case, Fritz has to have read this knowing what we know: that it was a letter from FW in Katte's handwriting, and *also* what Katte was trying to tell him with it. (Including any additional coded messages that Katte worked in.*) And I think that possibly in addition to influencing his own future behavior--complying with Dad, rejecting predestination--there's a very good chance it colored his perception of everything Katte said and did. In other words, this letter undermines Katte's credibility so much that I start wondering how much of the repentance and piety was real, and I sincerely hope Fritz did too.

And then I'm back to Fritz's "One can compel by force some poor wretch to utter a certain form of words, yet he will deny to it his inner consent; thus the persecutor has gained nothing" when endorsing religious tolerance as king. He was compelled to utter a certain form of words to which he denied his inner consent; he has to have known that last letter did not fully reflect Katte's inner consent; that makes the whole Katte performance suspect.

And now I'm thinking that Katte has one more motive for that sudden outspoken piety at the end, if it wasn't genuine. Yes, in the first few days and perhaps even that last night there was the chance of a last-minute pardon. Yes, even as he's being executed, he has nothing to lose and it will comfort his family after he's gone, and we know he cares about that. But if he keeps up the performance to the last minute, and his last words are about Jesus, one, he can sell FW on the fact that his repentance was real and that might make Fritz look better by association (compared to if Fritz's BFF is denying Christ to the end in front of him), and two, he can reinforce that last message to Fritz: "Do whatever it takes to stay alive. You don't have to mean it, just wait him out." And that gives his death extra meaning and purpose.

* I finally, belatedly, got what you were getting at with "Did FW and co. know that Katte tried to talk him out of it on those occasions?"--whose idea was it to include those specific references in the letter? I will try to dig up the documentation and see how much of the "Katte tried to talk Fritz out of escaping" comes from the interrogation vs. this letter, and if there are exact quotations.

ETA: I also love the exclamation point you put in the subject of this thread. ;)