Frederick the Great discussion post 12

[cahn]

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 rheinsberg :)

Comments

Re: Frederick for Americans?

[mildred_of_midgard]

What selenak said. The only sites of possible Fritzian interest I can think of that are on that side of the country, and I'm talking like a 2-3 hour drive south, are:

1) a very minor museum on the site of the spot where 18-yo Fritz tried to escape from his abusive father but was caught, then sent off to (modern-day) Poland for imprisonment and traumatic brainwashing rehabilitation (and yes, as selenak says, he was on his way to somewhere else when this happened),

2) Hohenzollern castle, waaay in the south, which Fritz himself didn't live at or even visit, but the current (19th century) castle has a museum that has some Fritz-related stuff (and also other things of possible interest to Americans, such as, Wikipedia tells me, a letter from George Washington to von Steuben). Also Fritz (and his abusive father Friedrich Wilhelm I) were buried there from 1952-1991. They're currently buried in Potsdam.

I haven't been to either site, but I can tell you that while (2) might be worth a trip if your friend has the time and interest, (1) is only even remotely of interest to people who are absolutely obsessed with the escape attempt, so basically just me. ;) (cahn and selenak may remember (1) as the site with the pre-1945 plaque saying "Here on August 4/5 Frederick the Great was preserved for the Fatherland," i.e. "Yay child abuse leading to conquest!")

In terms of things Fritz did in the Rhineland vicinity, he visited Strasbourg once with a forged passport and spent the night in jail (no really!), and about an hour away, he saw his first sort-of battle as a young man, at a very lackluster siege in a war that no one remembers any more, but there are no "Fritz was here" tourism sites there. (Though Strasbourg is interesting in its own right.)

But if you, your friend, or anyone you know should ever end up in the Berlin area, we can give you the Frederician itinerary to beat all itineraries! :D

Re: Frederick for Americans?

[ase]

These are not hardcore Frederick people. If they do head to Berlin I will hit you all up!

Thank you for sharing the tidbits available, as I get to hear about things like hey did anyone tell you about this one time a future monarch spent a night in jail, as one does.

Re: Frederick for Americans?

[mildred_of_midgard]

These are not hardcore Frederick people.

I figured. If they're hardcore enough to care about the escape attempt, they're hardcore enough to know where the sites are and aren't.

If they do head to Berlin I will hit you all up!

Please do! I did a whole Sanssouci tour guide over in rheinsberg, and we can totally supplement it with all the Berlin proper stuff.

Thank you for sharing the tidbits available, as I get to hear about things like hey did anyone tell you about this one time a future monarch spent a night in jail, as one does.

Even funnier, Frederick never ever admitted this happened, and if he hadn't brought his younger brother along on the trip, we would never know. It was his brother who wrote, "Hey, we totally spent the night under arrest!"

a future monarch

No, it gets even funnier. He wasn't even a future monarch. This was about two months after he'd acceded to the throne. He was the current monarch of Prussia, detained in France for forging his own passport and sneaking over the border! The reason was that he wanted to travel incognito and enjoy being a tourist like a private person and not be recognized as a monarch. Well, he was recognized very quickly, and also apparently he got detained (I don't have the details on that, maybe selenak does*) before the officials straightened everything out in the morning. So his plan to spend a lot of time doing tourism was aborted very quickly.

This fandom is chock-full of crazy anecdotes. :D

* ETA: I actually realized I don't even remember if "jail" is overstating it and it was house arrest or something similar, but the point is, he and his companions were apparently detained against their will until the paperwork situation was straightened out the next day, and it was embarrassing enough to Fritz that it NEVER HAPPENED. Much like that time Old Fritz supposedly fell off his horse during a military review, and the younger officers wanted to go see if he needed help, while the older ones knew enough to go "LALALALA nothing to see here!" Which was 100% the right move. :P