18th-Century Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 37

[cahn]

More diaries of our favorite 18th-century Prussian diary-keeper have been unearthed and have been synopsized!

January 18th: Blessed be thou to me! Under your light, my Prince Heinrich was born!

Comments

Re: Most ruthless?

[cahn]

To return to the original point of comparison, it never ceases to amaze me - and illustrate how much these monsters believed their own lies - that Goebbels told Hitler about Roosevelt's death by saying "The Czarina Elizabeth has died". Truman really, really, REALLY isn't Peter III style into you!

WOW.
I realize it isn't really funny, but I laughed anyway, in sheer disbelief! That's... something else.
(I am sure you've told me this before, but now I have the context to appreciate just how screwy that is...)

Re: Most ruthless?

[selenak]

If you want to practice your German, or employ some Google Translate, here are a few articles about Hitler and Goebbels assuming they finally got their very own Miracle of the House of Brandenburg (one even mentions Goebbels had been reading from Carlyle's Fritz biography to Hitler before that):

https://www.spiegel.de/politik/lateinisches-gift-a-84b90632-0002-0001-0000-000045137657

https://www.wis-potsdam.de/de/zentrum-militaergeschichte-und-sozialwissenschaften-bundeswehr-zmsbw/1762-2022-wunder-des-hauses

https://www.welt.de/geschichte/zweiter-weltkrieg/article139320884/Als-der-gefaehrlichste-Mann-des-Krieges-starb.html

Miracle of the House of Brandenburg (NOT)

[cahn]

Thanks! I guess I can kind of see... Roosevelt being sort of this figure that loomed large enough that when he died more-or-less out of the blue, it seemed like it was providence, or their own Miracle of the House of Brandenburg.

But on the other hand, like you say... comparing Peter III! to Truman!

Re: Miracle of the House of Brandenburg (NOT)

[selenak]

One of the articles I mentioned says Hitler did expect one of the Allies to die and thus be his Miracle only he thought it would be Churchill. This at least isn't out of this world - with Churchill's smoking, hard drinking life style, he could have kicked the bucket at any point, whereas I don't think Roosevelt's actual state of health was known overseas, what with even reporters not taking pictures of him in his wheelchair -, and given Hitler had some British upper class fans (including the Duke of Windsor, and of course Unity Mitford), he may have deluded himself in the event of Churchill's death he'd get an appeasing government in Britain next, thus overlooking that the mood in the 1940s wasn't anything like it had been in 1938, and so even if Churchill HAD died, there wouldn't have been an equivalent of Peter III. coming to power next. As for Truman...

Re: Miracle of the House of Brandenburg (NOT)

[cahn]

Ah, yeah, I can see thinking that Churchill dying would be beneficial to them, but yes, I can't imagine it actually would have been!