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]

Good question. It could just be that there are too many suspects, and they all have plausible deniability, especially with the presence of servants. 150 members of the garrison, two preachers, one major, two executioners, one president, one commandant, and probably at least one servant each for the major players and various servants shared by the 150. All someone had to do was leave the letters on/in their desk, they weren't sealed, and say, "Someone, idk who, must have gotten to them while I was out of the room."

Other thought: to what extent does FW care if letters in which Katte talks about how wrong he was, and how important it is to be a godly man, go public? Likewise, to what extent does he care if an eyewitness account of the execution is public, given that he made 150 people attend specifically because the execution was meant to serve as a salutary example for the rest of his army and subjects?

We may not need to look for a gruesome punishment. The execution was *supposed* to be widely advertised.

Re: Katte!

[selenak]

Good point. True, he'd likely see it as spreading the message even more effectively.

Re: Katte!

[mildred_of_midgard]

Like I was telling our royal patron on the phone today, if you want to hush something up, ordering 150 people to stand around in a circle and watch is not the way to do it. ;)

(I was in the middle of the rheinsberg write-up when he called, and so he ended up with a rundown of all the latest developments, including our belief that the pamphlet is based on an eyewitness account.)