A minor mystery cleared up! Thank you for checking.
BTW, having dipped in and out of Bielfeld's letters, I see one of them is entirely about AW on the occasion of his death, which Bielfeld coems across as genuinely distressed about, and there he - at least in the English translation you've uploaded - manages to avoid mentioning the AW/Fritz fallout altogether. AW withdraws from the field because reasons. The letter is mostly praise, with the critique consisting of AW being undereducated and not appreciating books enough and overestimating the military vis a vis men of letters as long as FW is king, for which however Bielfeld blames FW, and he then adds AW went through a massive self improvement and catching-up-on-reading program once Fritz became King. Oh, and Bielfeld also notes something Lehndorff includes in his diaries as well, and which is in Ziebura: that AW, while not admonishing his kids in public (unlike you-know-who), also "out of mistaken shame" refrained from showing them tenderness in public, too, only playing with them in private, which Bielfeld (but not Lehndorff) contracts with him having been able to be openly affectionate with his younger brothers and sisters and thus can't really understand.* Otherwise the entire letter is grief and praise and given the letters were published as far as I recall just a few years after the 7 Years War as good as an official obituary navigating around the big elephant as you'd get. (This is true no matter whether the letter was entirely a literate one - i.e. written years after the fact - or based on an actual letter from the time.)
*At a guess, the problem wasn't the "being affectionate towards children in public" part, it was the "being a father in public" part, which is different from being a big brother. Especially if your own father, no matter how much he favored you, was FW. Or perhaps because he favored you; if none of the kids are petted or yelled at in public, you can hardly be less FW like.
At a guess, the problem wasn't the "being affectionate towards children in public" part, it was the "being a father in public" part, which is different from being a big brother. Especially if your own father, no matter how much he favored you, was FW. Or perhaps because he favored you; if none of the kids are petted or yelled at in public, you can hardly be less FW like.
Yep. This makes perfect sense. Especially since, again judging by Ziebura, he didn't feel emotionally ready to be a father when little FW2 was born, and didn't like being teased about it.
*At a guess, the problem wasn't the "being affectionate towards children in public" part, it was the "being a father in public" part, which is different from being a big brother. Especially if your own father, no matter how much he favored you, was FW. Or perhaps because he favored you; if none of the kids are petted or yelled at in public, you can hardly be less FW like.
Obituaries
Date: 2021-03-29 05:13 am (UTC)BTW, having dipped in and out of Bielfeld's letters, I see one of them is entirely about AW on the occasion of his death, which Bielfeld coems across as genuinely distressed about, and there he - at least in the English translation you've uploaded - manages to avoid mentioning the AW/Fritz fallout altogether. AW withdraws from the field because reasons. The letter is mostly praise, with the critique consisting of AW being undereducated and not appreciating books enough and overestimating the military vis a vis men of letters as long as FW is king, for which however Bielfeld blames FW, and he then adds AW went through a massive self improvement and catching-up-on-reading program once Fritz became King. Oh, and Bielfeld also notes something Lehndorff includes in his diaries as well, and which is in Ziebura: that AW, while not admonishing his kids in public (unlike you-know-who), also "out of mistaken shame" refrained from showing them tenderness in public, too, only playing with them in private, which Bielfeld (but not Lehndorff) contracts with him having been able to be openly affectionate with his younger brothers and sisters and thus can't really understand.* Otherwise the entire letter is grief and praise and given the letters were published as far as I recall just a few years after the 7 Years War as good as an official obituary navigating around the big elephant as you'd get. (This is true no matter whether the letter was entirely a literate one - i.e. written years after the fact - or based on an actual letter from the time.)
*At a guess, the problem wasn't the "being affectionate towards children in public" part, it was the "being a father in public" part, which is different from being a big brother. Especially if your own father, no matter how much he favored you, was FW. Or perhaps because he favored you; if none of the kids are petted or yelled at in public, you can hardly be less FW like.
Re: Obituaries
Date: 2021-03-30 04:49 pm (UTC)Yep. This makes perfect sense. Especially since, again judging by Ziebura, he didn't feel emotionally ready to be a father when little FW2 was born, and didn't like being teased about it.
Re: Obituaries
Date: 2021-04-01 05:19 am (UTC):( Man, Hohenzollerns.