cahn: (Default)
cahn ([personal profile] cahn) wrote2021-02-20 09:19 pm
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Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 24

Every post I can't believe this is still going on, and yet, here we are :D
mildred_of_midgard: (Default)

Re: Zimmermann: Über Friedrich den Großen und meine Unterredungen mit ihm kurz vor seinem Tod

[personal profile] mildred_of_midgard 2021-03-03 01:01 am (UTC)(link)
And Zimmermann was filled full of male tenderness (männliche Zärtlichkeit) when visiting this wonderful human being

Such manly, heterosexual tenderness! I am moved.

And he had the most beautiful eyes ever given to a human being, ever...His tone of voice is the clearest and most agreeable Zimmermann has ever heard. Also, no one was ever so misunderstood as Fritz was.

Zimmermann: fanfic writer extraordinaire.

Though he does tell a touching dog story, about Fritz' current favourite dog having been ill in 1785, when Fritz was doing his last trip to Silesia, so he couldn't take the dog with him but had fast couriers standing by to bring him news of how the dog was doing, and was heartbroken when the dog died.

Aaaahhh. Thank you for this! I've been wanting a date for that. I'd only figured out that it must be after the War of the Bavarian Succession.

That must be Alcmene II, the one who was buried in the vault with him and whom he (supposedly) had exhumed when he returned from Silesia. That makes sense if it that was happening in 1785. Furthermore, the Silesian maneuvers in 1785 were when he's supposed to have stayed several hours in the pouring rain reviewing the troops, caught a fever, and pushed himself too hard, and triggered the beginning of the end: the final year of his life, September 1785-August 1786, in which it was clear he was dying.

He must have known Alcmene would be the last favorite he would outlive, and that's why she was in the vault with him.

MY HEART. (It's okay, Fritz, I wrote a fic where she finally gets to wake you up in 1991. And Prinzsorgenfrei drew beautiful art of you, sans souci at last!)

Oh, speaking of dogs! Have any of our recent 1780s/1790s sources confirmed that Superbe was the name of the dog who was with him when he died? I think I've only seen that in secondary sources, but most of the detail I've seen has been borne out so far.

Zimmermann, like the Salon, has read the printed Crown Prince Fritz/Suhm letters and thinks they're the most beautiful testimony to Fritz' capacity of feeling and love.

I don't disagree (as everyone knows), it's just that...love is easy, love without abuse is harder. Many, maybe most, abusers can genuinely say they love their victims. But yes, all those claims that Fritz never loved anyone, or only loved Fredersdorf, or only Lord Marischal, or whoever, those can be dismissed out of hand.

But the Fritz/Suhm letters remain THE BEST, uniformly positive and supportive, and endearing to read. <3 A little one-dimensional, but hey. There's enough complex relationships in this fandom (inc. Fritz lying to Katte!) that I'll take it.

ce roi unique

Der Einzige!

he resorts to stock phrases instead.

Oof, yes. That's forgettable in the extreme.

But even for the spirit of the age, the mixture of high strung adoration on the one hand

Per Blanning:

After his first encounter with his hero in 1771 [Zimmermann] left the room in floods of tears, exclaiming, “Oh, my love for the King of Prussia is beyond words!”

On the one hand, 18th century. On the other hand...yeah.

the mixture of high strung adoration on the one hand and the insistence of being The One Who Truly Understands (while all the other competing publications are wrong, of course) is annoying

Can if you imagine if The Other One Who Truly Understands had published at this time? The literary wars! The feuds!
selenak: (Default)

Re: Zimmermann: Über Friedrich den Großen und meine Unterredungen mit ihm kurz vor seinem Tod

[personal profile] selenak 2021-03-03 06:02 am (UTC)(link)
Superbe: haven't seen her in the Kletschke account, but maybe Rödenbeck or Büsching have her? I'm still slowly rereading Nicolai.

Such manly, heterosexual tenderness! I am moved.

I know. Zimmmermann, we would not mock your gigantic crush if you didn't attempt to provide no homo historians with fodder for centuries with your tinhat theories.

BTW, he had his wife with him on that journey (not when meeting Fritz, of course), since his cover story was that he was visiting Berlin only to show her Potsdam. Why did he need a cover story? Because he wanted to be discreet and not signal to the rest of the world how ill Fritz had to be if he was summoning Dr. Zimmmermann. Unfortunately, says Zimmermann, SOMEONE gossipped in advance about his impending arrival nonetheless, and the poetess Anna Maria Karsch wrote a poem about him coming to the King's aid which got published in the Berlin papers, thus ruining his cover story.

He must have known Alcmene would be the last favorite he would outlive, and that's why she was in the vault with him.

And thus you have answered another question, Poirot! Also, awwww. Zimmermann does note there was a new dog sitting next to Fritz on a chair with blue cushions, but not whether she was called Superbe.

love is easy, love without abuse is harder. Many, maybe most, abusers can genuinely say they love their victims.

True, and FW is a case in point. I have no doubt he loved his children and his wife, and yearned to be loved by them. (And naturally he loved his Potsdam Giants! And the rest of the army, a little bit less but still. Doesn't mean they didn't get gruesome punishments for desertion.)

Oof, yes. That's forgettable in the extreme.

Isn't it? I do regret we haven't found yet Schöning encountering one of the better letter or diary writers.

Can if you imagine if The Other One Who Truly Understands had published at this time? The literary wars! The feuds!

Ha, this reminds me that in his anti Zimmermann book, Nicolali addresses Zimmermann saying - after the storm over his "Fragments" broke loose - that this was just anti Swiss xenophobia on the part of the Germam publishing industry. To which Nicolai says that firstly, Zimmermann used to be highly respected by him and the others before his last three books, as Zimmermann damm well knows, and secondly, none of them has ever said a harsh word about the equally Swiss Catt, did they? On the contrary, see all the positive references to Henri de Catt in his and Büschings collections since they talked with him, too. But you see, Z, CATT would never!

Henri de Catt, currently busy beefing up his memoirs: Okay, that does it. I'm only publishing once I'm dead.
mildred_of_midgard: (Default)

Re: Zimmermann: Über Friedrich den Großen und meine Unterredungen mit ihm kurz vor seinem Tod

[personal profile] mildred_of_midgard 2021-03-03 01:53 pm (UTC)(link)
Many, maybe most, abusers can genuinely say they love their victims.

True, and FW is a case in point.


Yep, he was front and center in my mind when I wrote that. (A long with a lot of modern psychological literature on trauma.)

secondly, none of them has ever said a harsh word about the equally Swiss Catt, did they? On the contrary, see all the positive references to Henri de Catt in his and Büschings collections since they talked with him, too. But you see, Z, CATT would never!

Henri de Catt, currently busy beefing up his memoirs: Okay, that does it. I'm only publishing once I'm dead.


AHAHAHAAAAA, wow. I had noticed both Zimmermann and Catt were Swiss, but hadn't realized that aspect featured in the great feud. This is hilarious!

Man, if Catt *had* published during his lifetime, Nicolai would have eviscerated him a work that people might have read, because it was in the main text, rather than a preface that people like me always skip. ;)

Mind you, that hasn't stopped the Fritzian penis theory from spreading, sadly. (I know you told AP about his naked body being examined, but we were trusting Blanning at that point--does he know we now have more detail and it seems very reliable?)