![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
Frederick the Great discussion post 12
Every time I am amazed and enchanted that this is still going on! Truly DW is the Earthly Paradise!
All the good stuff continues to be archived at![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
rheinsberg :)
All the good stuff continues to be archived at
rheinsberg :)
Re: Peter-Michael Hahn
What does Hahn count as winning, exactly?
Good question. At a guess, not just becoming King but having the majority of the sympathy then and later, at least in this particular matter. I mean, even Voltaire when writing a Fritz-attacking pamphlet loaths FW as a father. Also, I suspect half the reason why the occasional historian goes the "but hang on, Fritz (& Wilhelmine) (& SD) provoked FW!" route is to be edgy and legend deconstructing, as this is a definite minority opinion. (It's also one that never shows up in fiction. Jochen Klepper's Der Vater - which Der Thronfolger is somewhat based on - is written with sympathy for FW as a tragic figure, but Klepper is crystal clear on the fact it was abuse and that Fritz and Wilhelmine were the victims of same. (The only one Klepper has zilch sympathy for is SD.) Because "this child/youth provoked the all powerful adult into abusing him!" is not a storyline you can sell.
Or in what sense FW was the loser here. He was miserable? He didn't get what he wanted out of Fritz?
In the sense of forming Fritz into a successor he was satisfied with, he did, though, eventually. You could say - which was Klepper's argument, and why the novel is titled "Der Vater", not "Der Soldatenkönig" - that FW lost in that what he wanted as a young man and father when it all started - to have a "bürgerliche Familie" with a loving wife and children, based on a Christian ideal, as opposed to the distant royal family he came from - failed spectacularly, with the "but I don't want you to fear me, I want you to love me!" (while going after them with a cane) anecdote transferred from random unfortunate subject to his family members to make the point in one fitting image. Which you can absolutely make a case for, what with young FW's instructions to Madame de Rououlles and the other teachers that they should only ever threaten little Fritz with his mother, never with him, because he wants his son to love him. But whereas Klepper the novelist is writing this as a tragedy FW, good original intentions not withstanding, brought on himself (with some aid from SD, true, but still, "Der Vater"'s FW is an Aristitolean hero of a tragedy brought down by his own flaws), Hahn basically reversing the cause and effect - i.e. Fritz and Wilhelmine are lying to and mocking their father behind his back because they're terrified by their father vs FW terrorizes Fritz and Wilhelmine because they're mocking him and lying to him is baffling. (Argue that it became a circle and a vicious loop for everyone, absolutely. But be clear, be absolutely clear on who started it. And who had the power, vs who did not.)
The other "FW as loser" thing I could see this particular section of the interview going for is that FW becomes a ridiculous horror figure mocked and scorned on every European court as the result of this behaviour. Which, yes. But in addition to who's to blame for this (i.e. FW, the one who does it), I dispute this was somehow something unique to FW. Gossipping about foreign monarchs and telling scandalous tales about their behavior was what everyone did, in every country, at every court. And several of FW's fellow monarchs offered more than enough food for said gossip and mockery, see my earlier list. Anyone interested in the era beyond a superficial level should and would know that. Hell, everyone studying Fritz should and would know that, given such gems like Fritz talking to Mitchell, i.e. an English envoy of all the people, about how dysfunctional the Hannover cousins are in their father/son relationships, as opposed to the harmony in his own family. (And I bet the Hannover cousins gladly returned the favor by gossipping about the godawful Hohenzollerns and comparing them with the sanity of their own situation.) God knows I haven't yet read anyone in the 18th century bringing up Peter the Great without an "impressive guy, but OMG, murderous temper!" disclaimer. Etc.
In conclusion: it happened to every monarch. They were the celebrity superstars of their day. They got gossipped about and mocked. Even those who got simultanously admired and feared, like Louis XIV in the previous century, or for that matter Fritz himself later. And while FW's tall guys obsession, his radical Spartan life style and his hellish family life certainly got amply mocked and talked about, that army of 40 000 men certainly got him simultanously courted by various powers.
Lastly, to return to a deceased equine of mine, I keep getting stumped by the editing out of the abusive pattern whenever someone tries to reverse cause and effect in the negative loop Fritz and FW were in. I suppose random subject who actually did screamed at "But you're supposed to love me, not fear me!" also provoked FW? Gundling provoked him from 1713 to 1731 (and after his death, given the awful funeral as a final kick)? Doris Ritter provoked him into every one of those floggings? Hapless Bayreuth Friedrich had it coming when FW gave him the enforced drinking and verbal abuse treatment as well? They were all employing cunning tactics to provoke FW into being his worst self?
*Throws up hands* Historians wanting to be edgy, I swear.
Re: Peter-Michael Hahn
He got some of what he wanted. He never did get the full capitulation, and toward the end of his life, he kept going back and forth on whether Fritz was going to do well or fuck everything up. And as we've discussed, it's an open question how he would have felt about those wars of aggression.
that FW lost in that what he wanted as a young man and father when it all started - to have a "bürgerliche Familie" with a loving wife and children
Oh, yeah, he was definitely miserable. But Fritz also lost in what *he wanted* for a very long time (and to a certain extent, forever, because trauma), so defining FW as the *only* loser here just requires an astonishing amount of special pleading.
I suppose random subject who actually did screamed at "But you're supposed to love me, not fear me!" also provoked FW?
Well, yeah! They were insulting him by cowering in front of him! Naturally that would provoke you into yelling at them and walloping them with your cane. If they had just loved him like they were supposed to, he would have been the most chill and benevolent monarch ever.
Doris Ritter provoked him into every one of those floggings?
Of course! Also, remember, FW executing Katte and flogging Doris and pardoning Fritz is the only one in the kingdom with a conscience! Who always goes by the law, and never his emotions. And also going by the law is the most important thing, as we learned from the period leading up to 1945 in Germany and 1865 in the US and various other examples I could enumerate. The law is all!
*Throws up hands* Historians wanting to be edgy, I swear.
I only wish it were more edgy. And I'm not just talking about Fritz here, but this take I keep running into of "but you provoked him/her/them!"
With you on the vicious cycle, of course, and that it's not the children's job to break out of it or to not start it in the first place.
Btw, speaking of Hahn, I notice he talks about Fritz's self-conscious correspondence that can't be trusted. Is he with Luh on Fritz never loving anyone except maybe Fredersdorf?
Re: Peter-Michael Hahn
He also treats Fritz' homosexuality in general as given (and agrees with the Antinous = Katte theory), without bothering with a "did he or didn't he?" discussion. In the interview, he's asked about this and his reaction basically is, oh, please, and that in the 18th century as long as you were an aristocrat, it wasn't a big deal.
Oh, and he thinks Fritz had an admistration problem in the later years because the circle of people he trusted was dying on him, and he wasn't capable anymore of trusting new people; that's when his micromanagement style became a problem, which in Hahn's eyes it wasn't before.
Re: Peter-Michael Hahn
he thinks Fritz had an admistration problem in the later years because the circle of people he trusted was dying on him, and he wasn't capable anymore of trusting new people; that's when his micromanagement style became a problem, which in Hahn's eyes it wasn't before.
That is interesting. Blanning also says that the micromanaging started to fall apart as Fritz got older, but if I'm remembering correctly, he makes it sound like it was due to Fritz getting older or possibly due to the problems just getting more complicated (more territory, post-Seven Years' War, all that). If it was due to having fewer people he could delegate to (Fredersdorf for one was gone), I find that very convincing. Fritz simply losing his grip due to age, well...health problems mounted, granted, but the personality and mental acuity didn't waver one bit, until the last month or so, as far as I can tell.