Browsing through Nicolai's anti-Zimmermann book is a headache because the printing quality is so smudged and bad (in addition to the font used), and there is a lot of detailed refuting of Zimmermann's numbers and locations which is good research work but not interesting to us sensationalist gossip mongers. (Well, not to me at any rate, as I'm not as systematically minded as Mildred with her maps.) Otoh, after a lot of that I was rewarded by getting to the good stuff, i.e. Nicolai addressing the chapters in which the good doctor voices a) the broken penis theory, b) his Fritz/MT shipping, and c) his Fritz/Barbarina influenced the 7 Years War theory. I have to share these gems:
1.) Zimmermann, as you may recall, is the planet's first Fritz/MT shipper and conspiracy theorist who deduced in his fragments that Fritz wanting to go to France or England was just a cover story, he was really in league with Seckendorf and had arranged to go to Austria where he wanted to marry MT, thus sparing the world the Silesian Wars and the 7 Years War. (Zimmermann calls this the greatest Fritz plan ever and really mourns it wasn't to be.) This is also the reason why Seckendorf and the Emperor later intervened with FW to save Fritz' life, and why FS was at Fritz' engagement party later, gloating over his defeated rival for MT's love and hand.
Unsurprisingly, Nicolai has an easy time making mincemeat of that theory even without access to the secret state archives, not least because he's collected stuff on Fritz for decades, including the publication of the various foreign monarchs' letters to FW on the subject, which he uses to point out that the one from MT's Dad was just standard for the day. He also correctly thinks that Seckendorff would have shot himself and his own influence on FW massively in the foot if he'd conspired with FW's son against him in this way and would never have done that, and points to all the meetings with Hotham and Guy Dickens Fritz had, as well as Keith going to England, as proof England was the agreed upon escape destination. And he argues that Katte's published letters form the pamphlet about his execution (which Nicolai has read, and which apparantly has just been republished) as well as the description Preacher Müller gave of his death point to Hans Herrmann von Katte having been an upstanding, really good Protestant, who would never, ever, have signed on a scheme where his beloved Crown Prince has to convert to the Church of Rome to marry MT. On the contrary, upstanding Protestant Katte would have done anything to prevent this.
...I must say, I'm impressed, because Nicolai does not, repeat, does not have access to the interrogation protocols.
2.) Of course, the part of Zimmermann's "Fragments" everyone talked about wasn't this, it was the "Fritz: psychologically impotent due to botched penis operation after youth of STD, but NOT GAY NEVER, he just faked gay interest to cover for this" chapter. Now, as we've seen, in his own collection of anecdotes Nicolai completely avoids the "gay" question, and when he repeatedly has a go at Voltaire for all of Voltaire's ungrateful slanders, he does not include this one. So I was curious how he'd handle what is a part of Zimmermann's big headlines making argument. Mes amies, he handles it thusly.
Nicolai: Okay. Z. - he always calls him "Ritter von Z" or "Herr von Z", never writing out the last name and always using the "von" to mock Zimmermann's pride in his ennoblement - pretends he had to go against all decency to devote an entire chapter on the state of Fritz' penis in order to defend Fritz from a certain charge he then lists in detail. As anyone with a brain in the publishing industry would know, even if you are refuting a charge, by listing it and talking about it you're just making sure more people hear about it. I therefore will not talk about this charge Z is supposedly defending our glorious King from, save to say all right thinking people would never talk about this subject AT ALL. Now, on to Zimmermann's arguments for a broken penis.
.... He points that if Zimmermann was so worried about this question, he could have simply done what Nicolai and Büsching did, to wit, asked the various people who saw dead Fritz naked in the one and a half hour his dead body was lying around in that state while it was cleaned up for the wake and funeral. (You, Mildred, quoted Banning on this, I think; Banning's source is Nicolai, because the phrasing is almost identical.) He then, as Büsching did, prints signed testimony of the various guys involved to the effect Fritz had a completely normal piece of male equipment without any scarring tissue, meaning there can't have been any operation, botched or not, at any point. Because Nicolai is thorough, he also says readers (if they'd made it so far in this unsavoury subject) might wonder what the various people were doing checking Fritz' genitals close enough to look for scarring tissue. Well, says Nicolai, it's all that bastard Voltaire's fault, because he was the one who started the story of the botched operation in his slanderous writings, which everyone had read, so these guys were curious and had a look.
Nicolai then proceeds in his Zimmermann evisceration by showing Zimmermann indulges in the art of quote falsification, as Zimmermann says Schöning told him no one alive saw Fritz naked ever; by contrast, Nicolai points to Büsching quoting Schöning saying that the King had "große Schamhaftigkeit" about his person and didn't want his servants to see him naked, hence dressed and undressed himself, which is a different kind of statement, as, see above, the people who cleaned up Fritz' dead body as well as the doctors making the cuts releaving the body of the water all saw him naked.
Next, Nicolai addresses Zimmermann's statement of Fritz (believing himself cured from STD courtesy of the Schwedt cousin and his quack of a doctor) indulging in six months of non stop sexual married bliss with EC until the STD returned, for which Zimmermann said there's the testimony of one of EC's ladies in waiting, whom he names by name. Leaving aside that it's extremely indelicate to incriminate a lady this way, says Nicolai, it's not true, either, since the lady in question never was lady-in-waiting to EC. She was present at the Fritz/EC wedding, and she and her husband were visiting Rheinsberg at one point, as mentioned in Bielfeld's letters, which is, Nicolai says cuttingly, presumably where Zimmermann has picked her name from. But he, Nicolai, talked to the late lady's son, Count Such and Such, and here reprints the son's testimony that his mother wasn't EC's lady-in-waiting during the first six months of EC's marriage (or later), and also certainly would never have been as crass and tasteless as to gossip about EC/Fritz marital sex. How, Nicolai demands, would Zimmermann, himself a married man, feel if people were quoted or "quoted" about his own sexual activities with his wife? And EC is still alive! As is one of Fritz' sisters!!!! The thought of poor EC and Charlotte having to read this (invented) stuff is TOO MUCH, how could you, Z!!!!!
3.) On to Fritz/Barbarina. Here, Nicolai doesn't really go on about Zimmermann's "Fritz clearly wanted to, but thought he couldn't anymore, and this explains his entire behavior with her", but chooses as his target for eviscaration another angle, because Zimmermann in "Fragments" theorizes that Barbarina's ditched boyfriend/sort of fiance?? "Mackenzie" whom she'd been with when Fritz had her extradited by Venice subsequently must have been fueled with thoughts of revenge, a revenge he later took when becoming advisor to none other than Lord Bute, making him withdraw British funding from Fritz in the 7 Years War. Thus, the story of the 7 Years War would have been different if not for Fritz' tragically unfulfilled longings for Barbarina and her ditching this Mackenzie for Fritz, sort of. Nicolai mocks this, saying that it could be one of Bute's advisors is called MacSomething or the other, it's a very common name part in GB for someone to have, but there's no proof this is Barbarina's ex. As for the idea the Brits wouldn't have withdrawn funding from Fritz otherwise, pleaaaaaase. And Z, you're again not being a gentleman towards a lady by putting into print Barbarina's old scandals, because Barbarina? Still alive, and wonderful highly respected old lady who has funded a woman's shelter in silesia with her fortune, so there.
Nicolai vs Zimmermann: En garde!
1.) Zimmermann, as you may recall, is the planet's first Fritz/MT shipper and conspiracy theorist who deduced in his fragments that Fritz wanting to go to France or England was just a cover story, he was really in league with Seckendorf and had arranged to go to Austria where he wanted to marry MT, thus sparing the world the Silesian Wars and the 7 Years War. (Zimmermann calls this the greatest Fritz plan ever and really mourns it wasn't to be.) This is also the reason why Seckendorf and the Emperor later intervened with FW to save Fritz' life, and why FS was at Fritz' engagement party later, gloating over his defeated rival for MT's love and hand.
Unsurprisingly, Nicolai has an easy time making mincemeat of that theory even without access to the secret state archives, not least because he's collected stuff on Fritz for decades, including the publication of the various foreign monarchs' letters to FW on the subject, which he uses to point out that the one from MT's Dad was just standard for the day. He also correctly thinks that Seckendorff would have shot himself and his own influence on FW massively in the foot if he'd conspired with FW's son against him in this way and would never have done that, and points to all the meetings with Hotham and Guy Dickens Fritz had, as well as Keith going to England, as proof England was the agreed upon escape destination. And he argues that Katte's published letters form the pamphlet about his execution (which Nicolai has read, and which apparantly has just been republished) as well as the description Preacher Müller gave of his death point to Hans Herrmann von Katte having been an upstanding, really good Protestant, who would never, ever, have signed on a scheme where his beloved Crown Prince has to convert to the Church of Rome to marry MT. On the contrary, upstanding Protestant Katte would have done anything to prevent this.
...I must say, I'm impressed, because Nicolai does not, repeat, does not have access to the interrogation protocols.
2.) Of course, the part of Zimmermann's "Fragments" everyone talked about wasn't this, it was the "Fritz: psychologically impotent due to botched penis operation after youth of STD, but NOT GAY NEVER, he just faked gay interest to cover for this" chapter. Now, as we've seen, in his own collection of anecdotes Nicolai completely avoids the "gay" question, and when he repeatedly has a go at Voltaire for all of Voltaire's ungrateful slanders, he does not include this one. So I was curious how he'd handle what is a part of Zimmermann's big headlines making argument. Mes amies, he handles it thusly.
Nicolai: Okay. Z. - he always calls him "Ritter von Z" or "Herr von Z", never writing out the last name and always using the "von" to mock Zimmermann's pride in his ennoblement - pretends he had to go against all decency to devote an entire chapter on the state of Fritz' penis in order to defend Fritz from a certain charge he then lists in detail. As anyone with a brain in the publishing industry would know, even if you are refuting a charge, by listing it and talking about it you're just making sure more people hear about it. I therefore will not talk about this charge Z is supposedly defending our glorious King from, save to say all right thinking people would never talk about this subject AT ALL. Now, on to Zimmermann's arguments for a broken penis.
....
He points that if Zimmermann was so worried about this question, he could have simply done what Nicolai and Büsching did, to wit, asked the various people who saw dead Fritz naked in the one and a half hour his dead body was lying around in that state while it was cleaned up for the wake and funeral. (You, Mildred, quoted Banning on this, I think; Banning's source is Nicolai, because the phrasing is almost identical.) He then, as Büsching did, prints signed testimony of the various guys involved to the effect Fritz had a completely normal piece of male equipment without any scarring tissue, meaning there can't have been any operation, botched or not, at any point. Because Nicolai is thorough, he also says readers (if they'd made it so far in this unsavoury subject) might wonder what the various people were doing checking Fritz' genitals close enough to look for scarring tissue. Well, says Nicolai, it's all that bastard Voltaire's fault, because he was the one who started the story of the botched operation in his slanderous writings, which everyone had read, so these guys were curious and had a look.
Nicolai then proceeds in his Zimmermann evisceration by showing Zimmermann indulges in the art of quote falsification, as Zimmermann says Schöning told him no one alive saw Fritz naked ever; by contrast, Nicolai points to Büsching quoting Schöning saying that the King had "große Schamhaftigkeit" about his person and didn't want his servants to see him naked, hence dressed and undressed himself, which is a different kind of statement, as, see above, the people who cleaned up Fritz' dead body as well as the doctors making the cuts releaving the body of the water all saw him naked.
Next, Nicolai addresses Zimmermann's statement of Fritz (believing himself cured from STD courtesy of the Schwedt cousin and his quack of a doctor) indulging in six months of non stop sexual married bliss with EC until the STD returned, for which Zimmermann said there's the testimony of one of EC's ladies in waiting, whom he names by name. Leaving aside that it's extremely indelicate to incriminate a lady this way, says Nicolai, it's not true, either, since the lady in question never was lady-in-waiting to EC. She was present at the Fritz/EC wedding, and she and her husband were visiting Rheinsberg at one point, as mentioned in Bielfeld's letters, which is, Nicolai says cuttingly, presumably where Zimmermann has picked her name from. But he, Nicolai, talked to the late lady's son, Count Such and Such, and here reprints the son's testimony that his mother wasn't EC's lady-in-waiting during the first six months of EC's marriage (or later), and also certainly would never have been as crass and tasteless as to gossip about EC/Fritz marital sex. How, Nicolai demands, would Zimmermann, himself a married man, feel if people were quoted or "quoted" about his own sexual activities with his wife? And EC is still alive! As is one of Fritz' sisters!!!! The thought of poor EC and Charlotte having to read this (invented) stuff is TOO MUCH, how could you, Z!!!!!
3.) On to Fritz/Barbarina. Here, Nicolai doesn't really go on about Zimmermann's "Fritz clearly wanted to, but thought he couldn't anymore, and this explains his entire behavior with her", but chooses as his target for eviscaration another angle, because Zimmermann in "Fragments" theorizes that Barbarina's ditched boyfriend/sort of fiance?? "Mackenzie" whom she'd been with when Fritz had her extradited by Venice subsequently must have been fueled with thoughts of revenge, a revenge he later took when becoming advisor to none other than Lord Bute, making him withdraw British funding from Fritz in the 7 Years War. Thus, the story of the 7 Years War would have been different if not for Fritz' tragically unfulfilled longings for Barbarina and her ditching this Mackenzie for Fritz, sort of. Nicolai mocks this, saying that it could be one of Bute's advisors is called MacSomething or the other, it's a very common name part in GB for someone to have, but there's no proof this is Barbarina's ex. As for the idea the Brits wouldn't have withdrawn funding from Fritz otherwise, pleaaaaaase. And Z, you're again not being a gentleman towards a lady by putting into print Barbarina's old scandals, because Barbarina? Still alive, and wonderful highly respected old lady who has funded a woman's shelter in silesia with her fortune, so there.