cahn | Historical Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 44

I can see the screenshots, yes. And I meant to say, if you are looking for Fritz letters in German, there are always the ones to FW (if they still exist), including the infamous 1728 one, written in Wusterhausen. :(

But I also have to say, looking at that signature, I don't really see that being Crown Prince Fritz. Your theory regarding the "d" is compelling and that looks very fluid and practiced IMO.

And I meant to say, if you are looking for Fritz letters in German, there are always the ones to FW (if they still exist), including the infamous 1728 one, written in Wusterhausen. :(

Ha! I keep remembering those exist and then my mind veers away from them to "But what ELSE can I look at?" Because FW UGH. But yes, that's silly and I should just see if I can get my hands on them.

But I also have to say, looking at that signature, I don't really see that being Crown Prince Fritz. Your theory regarding the "d" is compelling and that looks very fluid and practiced IMO.

I would like more data points, but yes, that's what I think. I woke up leaning strongly to 1727-1728, with the building (and "er" and "affairs, work, worries") a point of confusion, and now that I've compared the signatures, I'm strongly leaning to 1753-1755, with the whole idea of Fritz asking Peter in German to come comfort him a point of confusion!

But again: deaths, Frexits, Fredersdorf married and dying, Fritz worried about Wilhelmine moving permanently to Italy: 1753-1755 makes more sense than any time before 1753.

And Peter could have been discreet and let everyone think he was going to Potsdam on business. At this point, he has Tiergarten and Charlottenburg responsibilities, and bust-supervision responsibilities if it's 1755, and getting one random task like that probably means he got others. And we know he'll get Amalie-escorting responsibilities in 1756. So if he just said, "The King has summoned me," everyone could draw their own conclusions. And I suspect the "bau" is something Peter is connected with somehow--maybe Fritz is telling him he's fine with how the project is coming along, and that if he doesn't seem happy about it, it's because of clinical depression, not that Peter's work is unsatisfactory.

Also, it occurred to me: just because King Fritz *can* pay the bills from Potsdam, logistically, more easily than Crown Prince Fritz could pay secret creditors from Wusterhausen...doesn't mean King Fritz *wants to*. Delaying paying until he's back would be a very Fritzian maneuver. In fact, at least two of his other letters to Peter include "the money will have to wait."

Also, I am irresistibly compelled to remember Zimmermann saying that someone (who we think is Luchessini) told Zimmermann that Fritz said he was still having Socratic love right before the Seven Years' War. Doesn't have to have been just Glasow! :P

Edited 2023-06-23 20:05 (UTC)

Also, I am irresistibly compelled to remember Zimmermann saying that someone (who we think is Luchessini) told Zimmermann that Fritz said he was still having Socratic love right before the Seven Years' War. Doesn't have to have been just Glasow! :

Verily. But if their reconciliation went that far, wouldn't Peter have received a more personal letter to his dying request re: Jägersdorf than a polite standard secretary penned one? I mean, yes, there's a war going on and Fritz is accordingly busy, but the war is going well for Fritz right then and also, it's winter quarters time. Not that this objection should stop fanfiction! I'm just playing advocatus diaboli.

I know, I know. It's highly unlikely. ;)

But in all scholarly seriousness, are you with me on the signature and probable date, though? It at least makes sense of the bau and the "chagrin, affairen, arbeit, und sorgen"!

Having seen the signatures, I agree that the one from the Peter letter looks far, far more like King Fritz in the 1750s than Crown Prince Fritz in the 1720s, so yes, I'm with you!

Well, now that we feel pretty good about Knobelsdorff as the intended recipient*, the tone of the final letter does make sense: "Sorry to hear it, hope you get better, happy to help out your family, but no signs that I'm going to be writing to anyone about my great depression after you die, either."

* Btw, when I was entertaining possible candidates, I decided it felt too familiar to fit Peter, but not familiar enough to fit Fredersdorf. Knobelsdorff fits perfectly.

Delaying paying until he's back would be a very Fritzian maneuver.

I wondered if it might be a convenient delay tactic, too! And I sure would like the 50s interpretation. (Maybe Knobelsdorff's death and Peter's subsequent promotion were a catalyst for more correspondence and contact.)

That said.

Playing advocatus diaboli for a minute, I have one other, possibly disappointing, theory: the letter wasn't written to Peter but to Knobelsdorff, and Peter somehow inherited it together with the library.

How I got there:

The vague winter return date and the false news = Fritz on campaign. Not least because I'm not entirely convinced that 50s King Fritz would call the trip from Potsdam to Berlin a "retour/Rückkunft" (although he might do so if that's the word that was used in the letter he's clearly responding to) and also because the dates - between occasional day trips to Berlin on one hand and always spending the majority of December in Potsdam on the other - don't really add up for the time period.

(/Sidenote: Could "mehr" in the first line of the letter also be "wehr", as in who spread the news of his return, not whether? m/w might look similar, and also, see below.)

The construction/building and Fritz's response to it made me think of the 40s, when Knobelsdorff was told repeatedly to report on the building projects specifically to give Fritz happy things to think about. The creditors could easily be related to this as well, but I don't know how much Fritz would have micro-managed this issue during war-time instead of delegating it.

His depression = a result of the two 1745 deaths, specifically Keyserlingk's. It would make sense for him to feel like that grief would stay with him for years.

So: letter written to Knobelsdorff in September 1745, in the wake of Keyserlingk's death and prior to Knobelsdorff's October visit, which would then have been the direct result of the letter. Knobelsdorff wrote to Fritz in German both in 1737 and 1748, which would explain the German from King Fritz, and he knew both Jordan and Keyserlingk as well and might share Fritz's grief (there's some mutuality implied in "2 sich trösten").

Reference points:

Letter to Countess Camas, September 13th:
[...] But, madam, don't imagine that the embarrassment of affairs and critical events can distract from sadness. I can say from experience that it is a bad remedy. Unfortunately, four weeks have passed since the cause of my tears and my affliction; but, since the vehemence of the first days, I feel neither less sad nor more consoled than I was. [...] I do not know who may have divulged the rumor of my imminent return; for my part, I am entirely ignorant of it, and, to tell you the truth, I do not expect it until the end of November or the beginning of December. [...]
- So there's both the enduring sadness and the almost identical rumour/date discussion. Also, there's no direct mention of the war or of Jordan/Keyserlingk (or even death itself) in this anywhere, which I'm pointing out because both things not being mentioned at all in the Peter letter was one of the big counterarguments for my theory that I could see.

Letter to Fredersdorf 24th September 1745: "ich habe vielle Sorgen und chagrin, ich werde froh seindt, Knobelstorf zu Sehen" and "ich glaube nicht, daß ich werde vohr Ende November in Berlin seindt"

Unfortunately, there are no Fritz to Knobelsdorff letters left to compare things like the "er" for example.

There is of course the possibility that yes, it was written in 1745, but no, not to Knobelsdorff but to Peter after all. But I have to admit, after knowing what we do about the state of their relationship in 1742, that would be even more of a surprise than the 50s version.

So. Thoughts? *ducks in anticipation* ;)

You make a very good case. The almost identical phrasing in the Camas letter reminds me of how Fritz used the same text in his letters to both Duhan and Algarotti in 1740. He does this, and this truly was a depressing time for him despite impending victory against MT, for the reasons you name, plus this is the height of his fallout with Wilhelmine (lunch with MT!, September 1745 being when FS gets crowned in Frankfurt as Emperor and MT‘s route to Frankfurt takes her through Bayreuth territory), and Biche has been dognapped.

Also, this explanation would account for all the different things listed in the letter, especially the „bau“, for which we did not find a good explanation in the Peter theories for either the 1720s or the 1750s.

Given Peter inherited Knobelsdorff‘s books, I think it‘s plausible for Knobelsdorff to have used the letter as a reading marker in a book and for Peter to find it later and keep it.

The almost identical phrasing in the Camas letter reminds me of how Fritz used the same text in his letters to both Duhan and Algarotti in 1740.

Yep, and Voltaire and Suhm in 1739.

Given Peter inherited Knobelsdorff‘s books, I think it‘s plausible for Knobelsdorff to have used the letter as a reading marker in a book and for Peter to find it later and keep it.

Or maybe even more plausible, Peter not to have found it (if it was a large library and the letter was folded up inside a page, he might not have gone through every page of every book), and someone else, like his son, to have found it. Would Peter have kept a letter showing that everyone but him was in favor? Maybe, but I find it even more likely that someone who didn't have his fraught history and raw emotions re Fritz would have gone, "Ooh, a letter from the great king! Must put it somewhere safe!" Might still have been Peter, of course, but I present this alternate possibility.

ETA: The evidence for Peter finding it is the order in which it's placed in the stack of letters, i.e. early 1750s, right after Knobelsdorff's death and Peter's acquisition of the library.

Edited 2023-06-24 16:51 (UTC)

Damn you,

felis, for being such a good detective. :P This all makes way too much sense, and there's a reason I put "...to Peter?" in the subject: I was questioning more whether it was to Peter than whether it was from Fritz.

In reading your post, I was still ?? over the last line being used to Knobelsdorff as much as to Peter, but if they're comforting each other over *shared grief*, that makes a lot of sense. As does, as you point out, the idea that this specific grief (as opposed to depression in general) would stay with him for years.

(/Sidenote: Could "mehr" in the first line of the letter also be "wehr", as in who spread the news of his return, not whether? m/w might look similar, and also, see below.)

Yes, absolutely. The "h" would have primed me to read the word that's correctly spelled in modern German, but it does look exactly like a "w" now that I'm looking for it. It's got to be "wehr".

There is of course the possibility that yes, it was written in 1745, but no, not to Knobelsdorff but to Peter after all. But I have to admit, after knowing what we do about the state of their relationship in 1742, that would be even more of a surprise than the 50s version.

Yeah, no, that would be surprise me a *lot*, probably to the point of ruling it out. If it happened at all, surely it was post 1753.

Okay, I accept this as a working theory. Wow, that was a stunningly brilliant case on your part! It does a lot to console me for the loss of my reconciliation theory. (I always appreciate high-quality research.)

Edited 2023-06-24 16:24 (UTC)

Aw, thanks. It just made too much sense to me, too.

And yeah, the specific grief made more sense to me than King Fritz saying something like that about a general feeling of depression. (He also mentions to Duhan a month later that he'll regret both Jordan and Keyserlingk for the rest of his life.)

Also, even if it's not to Peter as hoped, it's still a significant find! As I said, no letters from Fritz to Knobelsdorff in Preuss, and this one would even be related to important events on the timeline!

From a scholarly perspective, it's great! First class, outstanding! I was actually going to comment, "Wait, does this mean salon has found and identified the first surviving Fritz to Knobelsdorff letter ever?"

Some days I miss the Hohenzollern-Jahrbuch, I bet they would find all our findings notable and publish them. ;) As it is, I am not up on modern German academic journals enough to identify good candidates for the papers I want to publish, and finding one/some is going to be its whole own thing. (Suggestions welcome.)

From a fannish perspective...well, the grief may not follow me for years, but you will have to forgive me at least a day or two of regret. ;)

And yeah, the specific grief made more sense to me than King Fritz saying something like that about a general feeling of depression.

Yes, this, exactly!

From a fannish perspective...well, the grief may not follow me for years, but you will have to forgive me at least a day or two of regret. ;)

OH, I know! The Peter/Fritz narrative swerved from pleasing secret reconciliation to angsty letter-finding, totally without permission. Not cool. The perils of historical fannishness.

I go away from salon for a day or two and come back to find that Detective

felis has solved the mystery of the letter and that it's not to Peter after all?? AND not only that but

selenak was right in her totally offhand mention of "hey wouldn't it be funny if it were Knobelsdorff"??

OMG. SALON.

I know, right? I was meaning to comment that Selena was halfway there: it wasn't *from* Knobelsdorff, but it was *to* Knobelsdorff!

ETA: Yeah, looks like a lot of letters to FW in the Prussian archive, up through 1726, and then 1731-1736. None from 1727-1729, naturally, but that should still give us some good data points.

Guess I will be ordering them along with the Fredersdorf letters!

Do we know of any German correspondence between 1740-1745? It would help evaluate my theory about the "d".

If not, I might have to look for cabinet orders that he's likely to have signed.

Edited 2023-06-23 20:04 (UTC)

Huh, that's interesting - Preuss wrote that everything between 1721 and 1728 was lost. I'm wondering if 1726 might actually be the 1728 one. The volume of German correspondence at Trier doesn't really have anything interesting 1740-45 - not only that, it also shows how rare German letters are, especially to important people. The one to Fouque for example is a secretary one - the rest of their correspondence is in French and in another volume entirely.

Huh, that's weird, because it's not just one letter from 1722-1726, it's 5 of them.

But nothing from 1728--but the catalogue isn't comprehensive, as we found with the Gröben letters that weren't in the catalogue.

Anyway, maybe the 1722-1726 letters turned up after Preuss's time?

But speaking of weird dates, 1754 or 1755 Fritz/Peter, amirite? Fritz must have been *lonely*. Btw, I know I keep saying 1753-1755, but if Wilhelmine was there in October 1753 and he kept going back and forth between Berlin and Potsdam, my tentative dating is narrowed to 1754 or 1755.

Oh, interesting, he writes to Wilhelmine in October 1, 1755, "I am now going to lead a solitary life until Christmas, when, in spite of myself, I have to stay in Berlin." Which we know from Rödenbeck he did, but he seems already sure he's not coming back until mid-December at that point, whereas with Peter he's not sure yet. Of course, things might have come up in October or early November making Fritz wonder if he would have to return sooner than he wanted.

I'm still voting for autumn 1754, though, just because Wilhelmine is in Italy and he's worried she's not coming back. And he's probably still more raw from 1753 (Voltaire, Fredersdorf's marriage, Algarotti's Frexit)...and he probably hasn't even met Glasow yet! :P

Edited 2023-06-23 21:12 (UTC)

While we're speculating: maybe an encounter with the well travelled Peter that's less formal than their previouis ones as monarch and subject and allows for some confidential conversation inspires Fritz at this point to FINALLY make a successful trip abroad to the Netherlands? (Which will be with Glasow, in 1755.) I mean, that's as close to holidaying as he ever got as a King, and he did it anonymously, no less, and in the country where he and Peter and Katte had been planning to meet up.

Ooh, I like it! Poor Peter if he was left wondering why Colonel Balbi got to go and he didn't, though. :(

felis's AU forever!

What about the Old Dessauer, did Fritz correspond with him in French or German, do we know? There seem to be approximately one gazillion pages of correspondence between them, and I could at least ask if the archive could scan just the ones with Fritz's signature.

German! They were published in 1894, Fritzian spelling and all (I see his favorite "vohr"). Haha, the opening sentence says, "A researcher who was familiar with part of the letters of Crown Prince Friedrich to Leopold of Anhalt-Dessau thought that the only thing valuable in them was the signature."

Also, I see an undated one that the editor footnotes as, "Judging by the handwriting, the letter must have been composed around 1727."

Well, that's perfect, that's exactly what we want! And it looks like we've got 1720, 1722, undated circa 1727, 1728, and then from 1731-1739 (these are only the Crown Prince letters).

Since the archive contains their correspondence until 1747, and it's all this military stuff...WHAT. The archive only contains their correspondence 1740-1747; the 1717-1740 stuff is a different Anhalt-Dessau, a Prinz Dietrich von Anhalt-Dessau? Well, maybe that's in German too. Ugh, I really need someone to go to the archive and just take pictures of Fritz's signatures and handwriting in German. I missed my chance to ask Prinzsorgenfrei when they were in the archive looking at Katte stuff in May!

Well, maybe I can ask the archive if the Prinz Dietrich stuff is in German. The 1717-1740 stuff at least might be!

Oh, interesting, looking further through the published material in 1735, his letters to the other Anhalt-Dessau princes are mostly but not exclusively in German. The 3 Dietrich letters listed are summarized, so of course I can't tell.

Still, looks like the Anhalt-Dessau correspondence might be a good place to start, after the FW correspondence.

ETA: Oh, I see, the editor says the crown prince letters are in the archive at Zerbst. Makes sense! All right, I'll see if I can find them there.

ETA 2: Remember that Manteuffel called the Alte Dessauer "Prince Moustache"? Our editor says he was called the "alten Schnurrbart"! Well, like I said last time, makes sense.

Edited 2023-06-23 22:14 (UTC)

Historical Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 44

Re: Evolving Fritz signatures

Re: Evolving Fritz signatures

Re: Evolving Fritz signatures

Re: Evolving Fritz signatures

Re: Evolving Fritz signatures

Re: Evolving Fritz signatures

Re: Letter from Fritz...to Peter? - or not?

Re: Letter from Fritz...to Peter? - or not?

Re: Letter from Fritz...to Peter? - or not?

Re: Letter from Fritz...to Peter? - or not?

Re: Letter from Fritz...to Peter? - or not?

Re: Letter from Fritz...to Peter? - or not?

Re: Letter from Fritz...to Peter? - or not?

Re: Letter from Fritz...to Peter? - or not?

Re: Letter from Fritz...to Peter? - or not?

Re: Evolving Fritz signatures

Re: Evolving Fritz signatures

Re: Evolving Fritz signatures

Re: Evolving Fritz signatures

Re: Evolving Fritz signatures

Re: Evolving Fritz signatures

Re: Evolving Fritz signatures