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: Peter-Michael Hahn

[mildred_of_midgard]

Good for him for that much, at least. (The bar, it is low.)

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.