Frederick the Great, discussion post 16

[cahn]

We have slowed down a lot, but are still (sporadically) going! And somehow filled up the last post while I wasn't looking!

...I was asked to start a new thread so that STDs could be discussed. Really! :D

Comments

[mildred_of_midgard]

The only fly in this otherwise perfect ointment is that the same wiki entry says Marwitz was Heinrich's Kammerjunker, and he wasn't.

Not necessarily a fly. While it would, of course, be nice to have actual evidence of a different rank, an explanation for it (Lehndorff writing 10+ years after the fact about events he wasn't present for concerning someone he's not close to) suffices.

Or maybe she does in later editions?

I just checked the updated edition (which is in our very secret library if you ever want to access it), and I'm not seeing either a different rank than page or the word Kammerjunker anywhere in the volume (per search function).

I think our ointment is acceptable, pending further evidence.

Looking back through Ziebura, I am reminded that she says that Heinrich accused Marwitz of intriguing against Ferdinand and broke up with him. Do we know what her source for that is? Is it in Henckel?

[selenak]

Not that I've found. Henckel's summing up of Marwitz' career (now at Rheinberg edited into the Marwitz Affair post) certainly doesn't include it. Lehndorff's summary of the Marwitz affair in his diary entry just says this about the initial Heinrich/Marwitz fallout (after Heinrich had successfully pleaded with Fritz to put Marwitz with the guards): Some time later, the Prince accused him of falsehood and bad manners, and banished him completely from his company. Nothing about Ferdinand. (And of course the diary entry ends with the note that Marwitz is now back in Heinrich's social circle.)

However, Ziebura mentions in her book what a treasure trove for Heinrich's life his letters to Ferdinand were, which Ferdinand all preserved, and which because they were seen as private, not political, previous biographers tended to ignore. It might be that she has it directly from the horse's mouth, so to speak ,i.e. maybe Ferdinand or Heinrich mention it at the time? But if so, she hasn't given us the quote.