Friedrich I. : Portrait(s) of a Prussian King (and Woobie)

[selenak]

Seeking to find out more about our antihero's much disparaged (by him) grandfather, the first King in (!) Prussia, Friedrich I., I read two biographies, the Werner Schmidt one from 2004 (though originally published in the 1990s), which is the one his German wiki entry footnotes most frequently, and one by Frank Göse from 2012. Frank Göse we already know as the guy who co-edited the FW essays anthology together with Kloosterhuis and who published the latest FW biography (only last year or so). His F1 biography is, like his FW biography, only intermittently chronological and arranged by topics (foreign policy, inner policy, family life etc). Like his FW biography, it's also a bit plodding to read - a great narrator, he's not - but unlike with his FW biography, I'm glad I've read to have read this one, since Werner Schmidt's attitude towards their shared subject is: "F1 is my woobie and I'm his one man defense squad!", so Göse, while also sympathetic to F1, provides a good counterbalance. A good example of how differently they present the same subject comes when we get to the fall of Danckelman.

But mainly I wanted to read these books to look up F1's youth and the other escape attempt by a Crown Prince, well, Kurprinz. And on the youth, Schmidt the woobie defense squad delivers in far more detail than Göse, despite his book being far slimmer. (Their different emphasis is also telling.)

( Third (handicapped) son of the Great Elector: medical horrors await )

( Future F1 gets Prussian Severus Snape as a teacher )

( Enter the Stepmother: the Elector starts to loathe his son )

( Young future F1 marries (twice) )

( The Affair of the Poisons, Prussian Edition, Followed By The First Escape From Dad By A Prussian Prince. )

( Double standards for baroque princes with an eye on a crown alert )

( The Fall of Prussian Severus Snape: Who is to blame? )

( The Three Ws: Was Katte's Grandpa Scum? )

( F1's biographers refuting two more F2 accusations )

Long live Woobie F1!