I had read in another biography that Fritz had attempted to "destroy himself" in the days immediately following Katte's execution, but I was skeptical of that, seeing as how I hadn't read anything to that effect in the primary sources I had access to.
This is from Wilhelmine's account. She has Fritz trying to throw himself out the window before the execution, and refusing to eat afterward, and only being induced to eat when told that if he starved himself to death, it would devastate her and their mother. Only then did he give up his suicide plan.
On the one hand, she's known for exaggeration, and she wasn't there. On the other, she was Fritz's most likely confidant on this matter. So with details that are unique to her and are not demonstrably false, it's often hard to say whether they're true or not. For instance, she has him on death's door for 3 full days, whereas the official reports coming from Küstrin don't reflect that--of course, it's been pointed out that they do have reason, when reporting to FW, to show Fritz initially devastated and then quickly reforming and doing better than he actually is. So it's really hard to know who's telling the truth here. Maybe no one.
As another example, she has him wearing the brown prisoner's coat that he was wearing when Katte was executed, and refusing to let go of it, until it was in rags. No documentary evidence of this (documentary evidence, iirc, has him getting a new coat shortly after his pardon), but then, you wouldn't expect something like this to make it into official FW reports. Maybe he only wore it at night and no one knew. Maybe she made this up or misremembered. Who knows.
I'm a bit hesitant to say this, but there is a lot of information on the execution at rheinsberg, under the "katte execution" tag. The problem is, it's very out of date. We've discovered several new sources since then, discovered that several of our old sources are unreliable in ways we hadn't realized, and discovered new arguments (most recently, Hoffbauer's, courtesy of selenak!). I do have updating the data and conclusions on my to-do list, but doing it in an organized fashion, with original text and translation for each source, is kind of daunting given the several new sources. (Mostly given the fact that they're in a font that I still struggle with, and one of them is scanned so badly I couldn't even get started on the first half and had to ask for help.) But I should do it, because it's so useful to have all the original material there and easily findable. I referred to it frequently even in this latest write-up, and it was annoying when I had to go digging something up somewhere else.
In any case, if you remember that some of the sources included can't be trusted, the data set that's been inputted so far is very incomplete, and some of the conclusions are very outdated, there is a lot of information on rheinsberg. Trust newer posts over older posts, and watch for ETAs.
Re: Katte at Küstrin: The Theodor Hoffbauer Version
I had read in another biography that Fritz had attempted to "destroy himself" in the days immediately following Katte's execution, but I was skeptical of that, seeing as how I hadn't read anything to that effect in the primary sources I had access to.
This is from Wilhelmine's account. She has Fritz trying to throw himself out the window before the execution, and refusing to eat afterward, and only being induced to eat when told that if he starved himself to death, it would devastate her and their mother. Only then did he give up his suicide plan.
On the one hand, she's known for exaggeration, and she wasn't there. On the other, she was Fritz's most likely confidant on this matter. So with details that are unique to her and are not demonstrably false, it's often hard to say whether they're true or not. For instance, she has him on death's door for 3 full days, whereas the official reports coming from Küstrin don't reflect that--of course, it's been pointed out that they do have reason, when reporting to FW, to show Fritz initially devastated and then quickly reforming and doing better than he actually is. So it's really hard to know who's telling the truth here. Maybe no one.
As another example, she has him wearing the brown prisoner's coat that he was wearing when Katte was executed, and refusing to let go of it, until it was in rags. No documentary evidence of this (documentary evidence, iirc, has him getting a new coat shortly after his pardon), but then, you wouldn't expect something like this to make it into official FW reports. Maybe he only wore it at night and no one knew. Maybe she made this up or misremembered. Who knows.
I'm a bit hesitant to say this, but there is a lot of information on the execution at
In any case, if you remember that some of the sources included can't be trusted, the data set that's been inputted so far is very incomplete, and some of the conclusions are very outdated, there is a lot of information on