Ah, thank you greatly! Some of this I didn't know.
That hungry soldiers during the Bavarian/Prussian war (i.e. fanboy Joseph against Fritz) ate uncooked potatos when plundering the land (Bavaria had potatos en masse long before Prussia did, ahem) and suffered accordingly didn't help.
For example, this.
The famous story of Fritz ordering his soldiers to guard a potato field, thus making it look desirable for the farmers, was first reported about the guy who introduced the potato in France a century earlier and at some point in 19th century anecdote collections was transfered to Fritz.
And also this! It smacked of an apocryphal story (but then again, so did the candles, and that one turned out to be probably real), but I wondered where it had come from. Now we know!
While he's at it, Luh also shoots down the story about FW cutting off the noses and ears of people stealing potatos. (This one I hadn't known.)
Neither had I!
Luh says that no one was motivated to steal potatos in FW's time, but concedes it sounds like an FW thing to threaten.
HAHAHA both parts of that are hilarious.
seriously, "ein Bekannter" is about the most distant thing you can call someone who moves in the same social circles.
LOL! Oh, Luh.
mentions Fritz was a maccaroni fiend.
I did know macaroni was his favorite!
Also that he adored cherries and was willing to pay up to the equivalent of a soldier's widow pension to get them.
We all know about the cherries, but the soldier's widow pension was news to me!
Asked whether there isn't all said and known about Fritz already, and what they are doing at the research center Sanssouci
WOW, interviewer! Asking your interviewee if they actually do anything or is their whole research center just a scam. :PP
Dude, I have 4 essays with original discoveries in progress, and I'm just an amateur!
Also, there's a whole article just on Fritz's *nose*. :P I found it while looking for the sodomy dissertation, and I may summarize it.
Also, the "Beilagen" (additions? supplements?) from her letters to Fritz from Italy which were believed to be lost have turned up as they were filed somewhere else, and they'll be added in the next edition.
Oh, nice!
(Earlier in the interview, he's referred to Wilhelmine as the other intellectual in the family, but without mentioning the enlightenment.)
Hmm. Maybe that's fair, I don't know how much she was into reforming? But she was definitely herself a product of the enlightenment.
when summarizing the escape attempt he repeats his theory Fritz didn't really want to get away
Why on earth would he want to get away from being beaten and humiliated? Jürgen Luh clearly wouldn't.
UGH.
(You told us what Nancy Mitford's father was like, I have to wonder about Luh's.)
Anyway, this was great, thank you! My German reading speed is getting faster, and I've been thinking lately that it might make sense to start working on my listening comprehension*. (I did try before asking, but quickly discovered it was not going to happen--I need to start with something that has a transcript I can read along with.)
* Especially with all those products of East German education my product-of-American-education self keeps running into. ;)
Re: Jürgen Luh, Fritz, and Potatoes
That hungry soldiers during the Bavarian/Prussian war (i.e. fanboy Joseph against Fritz) ate uncooked potatos when plundering the land (Bavaria had potatos en masse long before Prussia did, ahem) and suffered accordingly didn't help.
For example, this.
The famous story of Fritz ordering his soldiers to guard a potato field, thus making it look desirable for the farmers, was first reported about the guy who introduced the potato in France a century earlier and at some point in 19th century anecdote collections was transfered to Fritz.
And also this! It smacked of an apocryphal story (but then again, so did the candles, and that one turned out to be probably real), but I wondered where it had come from. Now we know!
While he's at it, Luh also shoots down the story about FW cutting off the noses and ears of people stealing potatos. (This one I hadn't known.)
Neither had I!
Luh says that no one was motivated to steal potatos in FW's time, but concedes it sounds like an FW thing to threaten.
HAHAHA both parts of that are hilarious.
seriously, "ein Bekannter" is about the most distant thing you can call someone who moves in the same social circles.
LOL! Oh, Luh.
mentions Fritz was a maccaroni fiend.
I did know macaroni was his favorite!
Also that he adored cherries and was willing to pay up to the equivalent of a soldier's widow pension to get them.
We all know about the cherries, but the soldier's widow pension was news to me!
Asked whether there isn't all said and known about Fritz already, and what they are doing at the research center Sanssouci
WOW, interviewer! Asking your interviewee if they actually do anything or is their whole research center just a scam. :PP
Dude, I have 4 essays with original discoveries in progress, and I'm just an amateur!
Also, there's a whole article just on Fritz's *nose*. :P I found it while looking for the sodomy dissertation, and I may summarize it.
Also, the "Beilagen" (additions? supplements?) from her letters to Fritz from Italy which were believed to be lost have turned up as they were filed somewhere else, and they'll be added in the next edition.
Oh, nice!
(Earlier in the interview, he's referred to Wilhelmine as the other intellectual in the family, but without mentioning the enlightenment.)
Hmm. Maybe that's fair, I don't know how much she was into reforming? But she was definitely herself a product of the enlightenment.
when summarizing the escape attempt he repeats his theory Fritz didn't really want to get away
Why on earth would he want to get away from being beaten and humiliated? Jürgen Luh clearly wouldn't.
UGH.
(You told us what Nancy Mitford's father was like, I have to wonder about Luh's.)
Anyway, this was great, thank you! My German reading speed is getting faster, and I've been thinking lately that it might make sense to start working on my listening comprehension*. (I did try before asking, but quickly discovered it was not going to happen--I need to start with something that has a transcript I can read along with.)
* Especially with all those products of East German education my product-of-American-education self keeps running into. ;)