Having spent several days in Saxony this week, I also visited Königstein Castle, where they have the very special big scales where August the Strong got himself and his guests of honor weighed. And thus I can report Fritz' weight in the year 1728, fully clothed, was 64 kilo. (FW was 108.) Sadly, I don't know his height by heart, but I fully expect Mildred to know it.
At the time I only knew the two radically different heights, but now that we know Fritz was approximately 1.67 m (5'6"), and the lower height is due to French/English unit confusion, we have his height and weight at age 16! 64 kilos is 140 lbs, which is not underweight for that height.
FW, I've seen reported as 5'2" (157 cm), but that may be a similar misunderstanding, because I found an article in this volume (p. 38) that reports him as 1.65m, and as 2 1/2 "Zentner" at the age of 35 (about 5 years before the Dresden trip). With one Zentner being about 50 kilos, that's supposed to be 125 kilos (275 lb), according to Wikipedia (though of course units vary by time and place!).
Incidentally, the linked-to volume, which I turned up last night looking for something else, opens with a description of the F1 coronation, and has an article on the physical health of FW and also a history of his painting (which he did to distract himself when he was sick), which seems to indicate (to my weak German) that he was already painting in 1734 at least, which jives with Wilhelmine's memoirs.
cahn, I demand that outtake where FW wants to paint Fredersdorf in winter 1733!
(Der Vater gets cited as one of the two sources for the FW article, which is interesting. But since it would take me 30-60 minutes to get through the 10-page article, I can't speak to how it was employed by the author.)
Ooh, look, there's also an article on the medical history of Fritz, including the porphyria hypothesis. And an impressive litany of his illnesses!
Looks like there was a sightseeing bus tour along the Oder in 1997, described as "From Kundersdorf to Fredersdorf: along the old Oder." So they must have stopped by Gartz, haha.
There may be other stuff of interest as well in this volume; without a table of contents that I can find, and with the sheer number of items in 300+ pages, it's hard to say. But my German is getting better: I still can't skim the entire content of a text, but I can pick one sentence per paragraph and read it quickly. Progress!
In other new library additions, remember Münchow the younger and his first letter describing Katte's execution, the one that goes, "You're wrong about Katte! Fritz totally didn't have to watch! I was there!"? The letter was addressed to Friedrich Nicolai, well-known writer of his time and son of the bookseller Crown Prince used to get his books from, who had written a collection of anecdotes about Fritz after Fritz's death (when everyone was cashing in on the death of a celebrity). Including, apparently, the execution of Katte. And I had been wanting to get my hands on Nicolai's anecdote collection since 2019, and have *finally* turned it up.
In 6 volumes. Not searchable. Some with tables of contents, some without. So the 6 volumes are in the library if anyone has a lot of time on their hands.
That's an interesting article; as for Der Vater, it doesn't use the novel as source citation, but as one of two books to read further about FW if interest is awoken. The sources quoted are all non fictional in nature. Basically, it's an intense look at the medical side of things, and as for the non-medical stuff, can be summarized as saying:
"FW: undeniably a great King and one who, even more than his son, radically transformed Prussia and thereby German history. Probably best Prussian King ever. All the "Prussian virtues" (duty, hard work, etc.) he coined. However, it can't be denied that the choleric temper and the abusiveness not solely towards his oldest son are a severe downside, and I don't want to excuse them, I just think that medical reasons for these should also be taken into account when considering this man. It's not a coincidence that he first talks about retirement in 1729 when he is so severely sick that he confides to Old Dessauer he wants to die rather than bear all this pain anymore, but soldiers on regardless. He really was in more or less constant physical pain from this point onwards for the last decade of his life, and this definitely informed his actions, including the paranoia and the abuse."
Speaking of Der Vater, I had a quick look at the volume of Jochen Klepper's diaries (selected edition), and it's intense and sad (unsurprisingly, since the selection focuses on the 1930s and early 40s until his death). As a contemporary document written within the Third Reich from one of its victims (who was a victim because he chose to stand by his Jewish wife and stepdaughter rather than go along with the regime and the inhumanity), it's fascinating even at first glimpse, but I tried to just check the FW-relevant passages. Just one not FW related thing, it's 1936, time for the Olympic Games. Klepper notes how the every day nastiness towards the Jews gets covered up because of the foreign visitors who are depressingly easy to fall for the propaganda, makes the observations re: that we'd make, too, and then you get a quick reminder that no, he's really not our contemporary when he goes on to disapprove of even royals from various European countries showing up, not because of the Nazis (he already covered that), but because: "No solidarity with the Hohenzollern!"
...yeah, no. Showing solidarity with the Hohenzollern by not visiting Germany post Wilhelm II's abdication was probably not on any other European royals mind even before the 1933. Mind you, the way Willy's son the ex crown prince Wilhelm Junior cozied up to Hitler & Co. throughout the early 30s depresses Jochen Klepper, simultanously working on his FW novel, even more. (And then again, he wonders what's worse, doing that or being continuously on the move and in exile like former Austrian Empress Zita and her kids. Jochen K., not even a question. Team Habsburg all the way.) He also sees Edward VII abdicating at yet another symptom of European royalty deserting their people and their duty, though he sympathizes on the "woman I love" part. (Bear in mind he has no way of knowing anything about the personality of Edward/David, he's just a newspaper reader living in another country which is a dictatorship anyway.)
Which brings me to: why FW as the subject of a novel. As I said, Klepper is seriously upset that the Hohenzollern are smooching with the Nazis in the early 1930s, and the way the Prussian heritage gets intrumentalized in propaganda. He also has professional avenues rapidly closing on him due to refusing to divorce his wife, and his father the preacher is dying, and his own patriotism and religion has to contend with the fact that the Nazis did NOT get into power via a coup. People voted for Hitler when it was still possible to do so. Massively. So writing about FW is supposed to help him cope with all of that, reclaim Prussia from the Nazis ("an Old Testament King cannot be Hitler's predecessor") and present one man's answer to the question whether one can try to be a good Christian and a responsible head of goverment at the same time.
As for sources he used: one he repeatedly refers to as great and inspirational is Lavisse, but interestingly enough, for the later part of the novel he actually has access to the state archive, which he uses to read all of EC's letters and some of the younger FW/SD children's letters, since he can't get an idea of what they were like from the biographies. EC, which doesn't surprise me, having read the novel, is after FW the character most dear to him. He also calls her "Prussia's first true Queen" and is very upset that Schönhausen is so neglected, as is her memory. (Schönhausen was later used by the GDR, but not back then.) EC is "Preußens erste wahre Königin" because Sophie Charlotte thought being a queen was just about the splendor and SD was in it for the power, but EC has the same virtues FW has - the ability to love steadfastly and selflessly without being loved back, a strong concept of duty, the ability to define being a monarch as serving - without FW's dark side. (Reminder: I'm just paraphrasing here, his opinion, not mine. It's clear he hasn't read Lehndorff.)
He also visits Wusterhausen, obviously, and Monbijou (this made me go ? for a second until I remembered Monbijou did still exist in Klepper's life time, it wasn't bombed yet), repeatedly, as they kept FW's death mask there. The tomb in the Garnison Church, otoh, leaves him cold, he can't feel an emotional connection there, unlike in Wusterhausen and seeing the death mask. Rheinsberg he already knew even before getting into the FW work, though associates it solely with Fritz, not Heinrich. And the "continueing the struggle to be good despite flaws loneliness and constant pain" thing is definitely part of what makes FW as a central character meaningful to him as his social circle shrinks and the society arounds him horrifies him more and more. By the later 30s, he at one point writes there is only Reinhold Schneider (like Klepper, one of the few writers who really can claim to have been non-Nazi while staying in Nazi Germany; unlike Klepper, Schneider survived) and Hanni (his wife), "Der einzige Mann und die einzige Frau" for him, and FW.
FW: not anyone else's idea of company to cope with horrible times. But his.
Wow, thank you very much for the write-up of the article and the diaries. The diaries were fascinating, and yes, I can see that they would be horribly intense and sad. :/ But even apart from that, Klepper seems like quite an individual.
And I am interested in the medical side of things, so will check this and the Fritz article out when I can read just a little bit faster than at present. ;)
FW: not anyone else's idea of company to cope with horrible times. But his.
For all that FW is a hard no for me personally, and Klepper's view of FW is quite different from mine, I guess I can see this? He just has a different problematic fave than I do.
Yeah, that makes sense -- I was unable to find most stories about him endearing, but I can see how another person might (like the meeting his Maker in uniform, which I think I knew too many other stories about FW to find endearing but can see how someone else might).
That's the only story about him I really like, and I like it enough that I dearly wish it had been anyone else! :P
I mean, there are stories that involve FW that I find deeply entertaining (like the single combat), but the dying in uniform story is the only one that strikes a chord with me in terms of making me like *him as a person*.
I always love when you do these asides, this is fascinating and Klepper sounds fascinating. (Although the "solidarity with the Hohenzollern!" thing startled a bit of a laugh out of me.)
(Reminder: I'm just paraphrasing here, his opinion, not mine. It's clear he hasn't read Lehndorff.)
I can't help but wonder what he would have made of the fan incident!
Oh, same. His idea of EC clearly would not hit Wartensleben with a fan, let alone hard enough to shatter the thing. It doesn't sound like he's read Frau von Voss, either, since while she doesn't report the fan incident she does comment on EC's moodiness.
As for 20th century European royals supposedly needing to adhere to the royal bro code by boycotting the country where Willy no longer reigned - for God's sake, not even the other German royals (i.e. the Bavarians) saw any need for that. But that's a believer in monarchy for you.
Early googling only produces links to Klepper having seen the mask, and referencing it in Der Vater, so my guess is that like Monbijou in its enterity, it was a WWII loss. Now what I'm curious about: did SD keep the mask there on display in her life time, or did it end up in Monbijou only afterwards along with other period stuff?
What is on display in palaces today doesn't signal what was kept there in the relevant period, either. In Rheinsberg they specifically tell you that none of the Heinrich portraits were there in his era, as he didn't like paintings of himself to be around, but they have copies now to honor him. (And making up for the time where his decades there were overlooked in favor of Fritz' four years, I suppose.) (Otoh, the busts and paintings of Heinrich's boyfriends which were there, and which Fontane mentions in his own visit write up, were nowhere to be seen when I was around!) Similarly, in Sanssouci in Fritz' study/bedroom, even leaving aside the classical refurnishing, you have SD's and FW's portraits which were definitely not around in Fritz' time. (As opposed to the MT and Barbarina portraits which were and which now are no longer. :) ) Anyway, all of which I'm rambling on just to say: Klepper seeing the FW death mask in Monbijou in the mid 1930s doesn't mean it was kept there in the 18th century. Monbijou was simply the FW era palace still open and cared for in the mid 30s, as opposed to the completely locked up and neglected Schönhausen (much to Klepper's disgruntlement), and while Wusterhausen was still open to visits upon request, it had no furniture from FW's time at all when Klepper was there (as opposed to today, when they've been careful to restore it as well as possible to how it looked in the FW era).
Around 1820, the so-called "Germanic-Slavic Antiquities" were removed from the royal curiosities cabinet (Kunstkammer) and housed in Monbijou Palace as the Museum for National Antiquities (Museum für Vaterländische Alterthümer). As the collections regularly expanded with the addition of new categories (paintings, jewelry, porcelain), the German emperor Wilhelm I finally made the palace with its 42 rooms accessible to the public as the "Hohenzollern Museum" in 1877. It was considered to be on the one hand an educational institution of cultural history, and on the other hand a place for the Hohenzollern dynasty to celebrate its own history and significance.
So I'm going to guess that that's when the death mask appeared. This image shows the floorplan, and room 35 is FW, so that's probably when and where his death mask got added.
As to its survival...open question!
World War II brought this state of affairs to an end. Large parts of the collections had been evacuated, and after the war were looted and brought to the Soviet Union and other places.
I really just want someone to have taken a picture, before it disappeared or was destroyed. I've seen pictures of lots of things that haven't survived! So far Google is failing me, though. Though that may be my fault, due to lack of time.
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timeasmymeasure
Heights and weights; library additions
Date: 2021-02-14 02:56 pm (UTC)Having spent several days in Saxony this week, I also visited Königstein Castle, where they have the very special big scales where August the Strong got himself and his guests of honor weighed. And thus I can report Fritz' weight in the year 1728, fully clothed, was 64 kilo. (FW was 108.) Sadly, I don't know his height by heart, but I fully expect Mildred to know it.
At the time I only knew the two radically different heights, but now that we know Fritz was approximately 1.67 m (5'6"), and the lower height is due to French/English unit confusion, we have his height and weight at age 16! 64 kilos is 140 lbs, which is not underweight for that height.
FW, I've seen reported as 5'2" (157 cm), but that may be a similar misunderstanding, because I found an article in this volume (p. 38) that reports him as 1.65m, and as 2 1/2 "Zentner" at the age of 35 (about 5 years before the Dresden trip). With one Zentner being about 50 kilos, that's supposed to be 125 kilos (275 lb), according to Wikipedia (though of course units vary by time and place!).
Incidentally, the linked-to volume, which I turned up last night looking for something else, opens with a description of the F1 coronation, and has an article on the physical health of FW and also a history of his painting (which he did to distract himself when he was sick), which seems to indicate (to my weak German) that he was already painting in 1734 at least, which jives with Wilhelmine's memoirs.
(Der Vater gets cited as one of the two sources for the FW article, which is interesting. But since it would take me 30-60 minutes to get through the 10-page article, I can't speak to how it was employed by the author.)
Ooh, look, there's also an article on the medical history of Fritz, including the porphyria hypothesis. And an impressive litany of his illnesses!
Looks like there was a sightseeing bus tour along the Oder in 1997, described as "From Kundersdorf to Fredersdorf: along the old Oder." So they must have stopped by Gartz, haha.
There may be other stuff of interest as well in this volume; without a table of contents that I can find, and with the sheer number of items in 300+ pages, it's hard to say. But my German is getting better: I still can't skim the entire content of a text, but I can pick one sentence per paragraph and read it quickly. Progress!
In other new library additions, remember Münchow the younger and his first letter describing Katte's execution, the one that goes, "You're wrong about Katte! Fritz totally didn't have to watch! I was there!"? The letter was addressed to Friedrich Nicolai, well-known writer of his time and son of the bookseller Crown Prince used to get his books from, who had written a collection of anecdotes about Fritz after Fritz's death (when everyone was cashing in on the death of a celebrity). Including, apparently, the execution of Katte. And I had been wanting to get my hands on Nicolai's anecdote collection since 2019, and have *finally* turned it up.
In 6 volumes. Not searchable. Some with tables of contents, some without. So the 6 volumes are in the library if anyone has a lot of time on their hands.
Re: Heights and weights; library additions
Date: 2021-02-14 05:44 pm (UTC)"FW: undeniably a great King and one who, even more than his son, radically transformed Prussia and thereby German history. Probably best Prussian King ever. All the "Prussian virtues" (duty, hard work, etc.) he coined. However, it can't be denied that the choleric temper and the abusiveness not solely towards his oldest son are a severe downside, and I don't want to excuse them, I just think that medical reasons for these should also be taken into account when considering this man. It's not a coincidence that he first talks about retirement in 1729 when he is so severely sick that he confides to Old Dessauer he wants to die rather than bear all this pain anymore, but soldiers on regardless. He really was in more or less constant physical pain from this point onwards for the last decade of his life, and this definitely informed his actions, including the paranoia and the abuse."
Speaking of Der Vater, I had a quick look at the volume of Jochen Klepper's diaries (selected edition), and it's intense and sad (unsurprisingly, since the selection focuses on the 1930s and early 40s until his death). As a contemporary document written within the Third Reich from one of its victims (who was a victim because he chose to stand by his Jewish wife and stepdaughter rather than go along with the regime and the inhumanity), it's fascinating even at first glimpse, but I tried to just check the FW-relevant passages. Just one not FW related thing, it's 1936, time for the Olympic Games. Klepper notes how the every day nastiness towards the Jews gets covered up because of the foreign visitors who are depressingly easy to fall for the propaganda, makes the observations re: that we'd make, too, and then you get a quick reminder that no, he's really not our contemporary when he goes on to disapprove of even royals from various European countries showing up, not because of the Nazis (he already covered that), but because: "No solidarity with the Hohenzollern!"
...yeah, no. Showing solidarity with the Hohenzollern by not visiting Germany post Wilhelm II's abdication was probably not on any other European royals mind even before the 1933. Mind you, the way Willy's son the ex crown prince Wilhelm Junior cozied up to Hitler & Co. throughout the early 30s depresses Jochen Klepper, simultanously working on his FW novel, even more. (And then again, he wonders what's worse, doing that or being continuously on the move and in exile like former Austrian Empress Zita and her kids. Jochen K., not even a question. Team Habsburg all the way.) He also sees Edward VII abdicating at yet another symptom of European royalty deserting their people and their duty, though he sympathizes on the "woman I love" part. (Bear in mind he has no way of knowing anything about the personality of Edward/David, he's just a newspaper reader living in another country which is a dictatorship anyway.)
Which brings me to: why FW as the subject of a novel. As I said, Klepper is seriously upset that the Hohenzollern are smooching with the Nazis in the early 1930s, and the way the Prussian heritage gets intrumentalized in propaganda. He also has professional avenues rapidly closing on him due to refusing to divorce his wife, and his father the preacher is dying, and his own patriotism and religion has to contend with the fact that the Nazis did NOT get into power via a coup. People voted for Hitler when it was still possible to do so. Massively. So writing about FW is supposed to help him cope with all of that, reclaim Prussia from the Nazis ("an Old Testament King cannot be Hitler's predecessor") and present one man's answer to the question whether one can try to be a good Christian and a responsible head of goverment at the same time.
As for sources he used: one he repeatedly refers to as great and inspirational is Lavisse, but interestingly enough, for the later part of the novel he actually has access to the state archive, which he uses to read all of EC's letters and some of the younger FW/SD children's letters, since he can't get an idea of what they were like from the biographies. EC, which doesn't surprise me, having read the novel, is after FW the character most dear to him. He also calls her "Prussia's first true Queen" and is very upset that Schönhausen is so neglected, as is her memory. (Schönhausen was later used by the GDR, but not back then.) EC is "Preußens erste wahre Königin" because Sophie Charlotte thought being a queen was just about the splendor and SD was in it for the power, but EC has the same virtues FW has - the ability to love steadfastly and selflessly without being loved back, a strong concept of duty, the ability to define being a monarch as serving - without FW's dark side. (Reminder: I'm just paraphrasing here, his opinion, not mine. It's clear he hasn't read Lehndorff.)
He also visits Wusterhausen, obviously, and Monbijou (this made me go ? for a second until I remembered Monbijou did still exist in Klepper's life time, it wasn't bombed yet), repeatedly, as they kept FW's death mask there. The tomb in the Garnison Church, otoh, leaves him cold, he can't feel an emotional connection there, unlike in Wusterhausen and seeing the death mask. Rheinsberg he already knew even before getting into the FW work, though associates it solely with Fritz, not Heinrich. And the "continueing the struggle to be good despite flaws loneliness and constant pain" thing is definitely part of what makes FW as a central character meaningful to him as his social circle shrinks and the society arounds him horrifies him more and more. By the later 30s, he at one point writes there is only Reinhold Schneider (like Klepper, one of the few writers who really can claim to have been non-Nazi while staying in Nazi Germany; unlike Klepper, Schneider survived) and Hanni (his wife), "Der einzige Mann und die einzige Frau" for him, and FW.
FW: not anyone else's idea of company to cope with horrible times. But his.
Re: Heights and weights; library additions
Date: 2021-02-14 06:10 pm (UTC)And I am interested in the medical side of things, so will check this and the Fritz article out when I can read just a little bit faster than at present. ;)
FW: not anyone else's idea of company to cope with horrible times. But his.
For all that FW is a hard no for me personally, and Klepper's view of FW is quite different from mine, I guess I can see this? He just has a different problematic fave than I do.
Re: Heights and weights; library additions
Date: 2021-02-15 06:39 am (UTC)Re: Heights and weights; library additions
Date: 2021-02-20 02:18 pm (UTC)I mean, there are stories that involve FW that I find deeply entertaining (like the single combat), but the dying in uniform story is the only one that strikes a chord with me in terms of making me like *him as a person*.
...It is outweighed by all the other stories.
Re: Heights and weights; library additions
Date: 2021-02-15 06:38 am (UTC)(Reminder: I'm just paraphrasing here, his opinion, not mine. It's clear he hasn't read Lehndorff.)
I can't help but wonder what he would have made of the fan incident!
Re: Heights and weights; library additions
Date: 2021-02-15 10:33 am (UTC)As for 20th century European royals supposedly needing to adhere to the royal bro code by boycotting the country where Willy no longer reigned - for God's sake, not even the other German royals (i.e. the Bavarians) saw any need for that. But that's a believer in monarchy for you.
FW death mask
Date: 2021-02-17 11:47 pm (UTC)I did not know or had forgotten that a death mask was made of FW! Was it removed before the bombing, do you know? Or does a picture survive?
Re: FW death mask
Date: 2021-02-18 07:11 am (UTC)What is on display in palaces today doesn't signal what was kept there in the relevant period, either. In Rheinsberg they specifically tell you that none of the Heinrich portraits were there in his era, as he didn't like paintings of himself to be around, but they have copies now to honor him. (And making up for the time where his decades there were overlooked in favor of Fritz' four years, I suppose.) (Otoh, the busts and paintings of Heinrich's boyfriends which were there, and which Fontane mentions in his own visit write up, were nowhere to be seen when I was around!) Similarly, in Sanssouci in Fritz' study/bedroom, even leaving aside the classical refurnishing, you have SD's and FW's portraits which were definitely not around in Fritz' time. (As opposed to the MT and Barbarina portraits which were and which now are no longer. :) ) Anyway, all of which I'm rambling on just to say: Klepper seeing the FW death mask in Monbijou in the mid 1930s doesn't mean it was kept there in the 18th century. Monbijou was simply the FW era palace still open and cared for in the mid 30s, as opposed to the completely locked up and neglected Schönhausen (much to Klepper's disgruntlement), and while Wusterhausen was still open to visits upon request, it had no furniture from FW's time at all when Klepper was there (as opposed to today, when they've been careful to restore it as well as possible to how it looked in the FW era).
Re: FW death mask
Date: 2021-02-18 01:20 pm (UTC)Around 1820, the so-called "Germanic-Slavic Antiquities" were removed from the royal curiosities cabinet (Kunstkammer) and housed in Monbijou Palace as the Museum for National Antiquities (Museum für Vaterländische Alterthümer). As the collections regularly expanded with the addition of new categories (paintings, jewelry, porcelain), the German emperor Wilhelm I finally made the palace with its 42 rooms accessible to the public as the "Hohenzollern Museum" in 1877. It was considered to be on the one hand an educational institution of cultural history, and on the other hand a place for the Hohenzollern dynasty to celebrate its own history and significance.
So I'm going to guess that that's when the death mask appeared. This image shows the floorplan, and room 35 is FW, so that's probably when and where his death mask got added.
As to its survival...open question!
World War II brought this state of affairs to an end. Large parts of the collections had been evacuated, and after the war were looted and brought to the Soviet Union and other places.
I really just want someone to have taken a picture, before it disappeared or was destroyed. I've seen pictures of lots of things that haven't survived! So far Google is failing me, though. Though that may be my fault, due to lack of time.
Re: FW death mask
Date: 2021-02-18 04:29 pm (UTC)... man, that took some research. I found a couple other books that had it, but none of them with a google books preview. Archive.org FTW.
Re: FW death mask
Date: 2021-02-18 04:30 pm (UTC)Re: FW death mask
Date: 2021-02-18 04:33 pm (UTC)Re: FW death mask
Date: 2021-02-21 12:09 am (UTC)Re: FW death mask
Date: 2021-02-21 12:12 am (UTC)