Hans or Joachim Heinrich von der Gröben

[mildred_of_midgard]

gambitten turned up von der Groeben in this post:

About Lieutenant von der Groeben
Prussian Secret State Archives

I noticed that in Tim Blanning's Fritz biography, he mentions some 'unpublished letters to a Lieutenant von der Groeben(...) [which] indicate that he continued to maintain intimate relations with young officers of his regiment'. In Frank Göse's newly released Friedrich Wilhelm biography he also mentions these letters but gives a few more details: "In any case, letters to a young lieutenant von der Groeben from the mid-1730s contain unambiguous - all the way down to anatomical details - allusions to a homoerotic relationship." He doesn't quote from the letters but gives their exact location in the archives. [GStA PK, BPH, Rep. 47, J, Nr. 371, unpag.] I finally figured out how to search on the online archives and came up with this page. While none of the letters here are 'page 371', all of them are for Hans Heinrich von der Gröben in 1734 and some of the numbers are around 371. I suppose the only way to see number 371 would be to pay 15 euros for it to be digitised and have the image to download, which I would do, but I'm not German and I don't understand the form.

felis found more:

Letters to and about Groeben
a) Fritz mentions him in passing in a letter to Wilhelmine from December 15th, 1732, where he gives a list of people he dines with, and calls him "a harlequin by nature and a fop by profession".

b) I should have read both the editor's notes and the bibliographical notes at Trier, because the latter have a link to an uncensored version of both letters, provided by Volz, and while I have a hard time understanding some of it (unknown words and references + Fritz orthography + verse + blackletters = ???), I do see why they were extensively censored: lots of profanity. Like: Fritz accuses v.d.Groeben of sitting at home and lousing his "hosenbeutel" and I don't know if he means his bottom or his balls or something less personal, but he certainly tells him that "thunder should drive sideways into your arse with barbed hooks, for you devil are sitting at home and hatching your hen's eggs". (That last expression just means that he's lazy I think, because I seem to dimly remember hearing it used even in my time?) There's more in the uncensored poem, but, see above, comprehension problems.

But, on a less sweary note, he also tells him that he's lucky because he's getting enough to eat and because there's dysentery going around in the camp. And he sends him fruit and dice and possibly a (snuff?)box filled with contraband(?) ("so you don't forget me").

As for the editor's notes: Preuss and Volz can't seem to agree on much, not even the guy's name - Johann Heinrich (Preuss, which fits the state archive) vs. Joachim Heinrich (Volz, which might make him the brother of the wiki guy Mildred linked, with a 1705 birthdate and a 1738 marriage) - but they both say that he was first ensign (at the time of the letter to Wilhelmine) and then lieutenant in Fritz' regiment, and transfered to the hussars in 1738. (Preuss says he was thirty-four at the time, so it seems that he was definitely years older than Fritz.)

Preuss' footnotes also led me to two other anecdotes about him, one in Büsching p. 20 - some questionable "pranks" on preachers and their wives played by Fritz and him - and a Fritz letter to Grumbkow in 1733, where von der Groeben apparently almost got into a fistfight with a woman - Preuss says Wolden's wife - because he bothered her with his smoking, she started to insult him, he insulted back, and then "a fight of the amazons" almost broke out, except her husband intervened and the combatants made peace by drinking.

... I guess now we know why Fritz called him a devil!? (Although in this particular case, he actually called her a female one.)

The salon discusses
selenak:

"a harlequin by nature and a fop by profession".

Checking on your link, I see Volz footnotes this not just with his own translation of the Fritz/Wilhelmine letters but with the original French phrase, where Fritz uses "petit-maitre" for "fop". Which stood out to me because that's what FW keeps calling him in his rants, including in the August 1731 submission protocol.

Hosenbeutel: definitely where the balls and the penis are kept, as far as male 18th century fashion is concerned.

I recognized one quote from the letter, the one about Prince Eugene letting the imperial army drill now the way the Prussians did. Though Fritz may have written this to more than one person, he had a lot of time at his hands in this inconclusive war.

Snuffbox: giving one with your portrait was a popular way to signal favor for royals, so I assume this is what happened. As for contraband, perhaps due to the war situation the tobacco import had gotten tricky?

What strikes me about the letter other than its frat boy tone (see, AW wasn't the only one in the family!) is that Fritz uses the Du address. This is not surprising when he's writing to Fredersdorf, because Fredersdorf is a commoner and his valet. But von der Gröben is a noble and an officer, which means he's just the kind of person whom Fritz, were he writing in French, would using "vous" to address. And of course writing in German by itself is rare - writing a poem in German hasn't happened since Küstrin!

(And in Küstrin, it had been in return to the friendly gesture by Wilke.)

I note in the poem he asks "how is the pack of whores?" (Das Hurenpack.) Which could literally mean female prostitutes, but it's worth mentioning Fritz also calls undeniable male Marwitz a whore in one of the Marwitz lettrs, and he calls all the singers (female and male alike) whores in the Fredersdorf letters (with the footnotes both by Richter and by other editors assuring the readers he didn't mean it like that, it was just how one refered to singers in Those Days, which, yeah, some people certainly did...

Anyway, re: the question whether or not he had sex with von der Gröben: it more sounds like, what's the euphemism these days employed by US politicians, army "locker room talk". Which isn't to say that he didn't! Just that I can't tell on the basis of the letter and the poem alone.

felis:

As for contraband, perhaps due to the war situation the tobacco import had gotten tricky?

Possibly, yeah. Spain was on the opposite side, too, if I remember correctly.

Talking about his gifts, I'm also rather curious what the "rare local fruit" was that had to be cooked on coals...

What strikes me about the letter other than its frat boy tone (see, AW wasn't the only one in the family!) is that Fritz uses the Du address.

Right! I already noticed this last time and forgot to comment on it. But also: shouldn't von der Groeben, as a noble, know French? And if he did, it would be rather interesting that Fritz was still writing in German - possibly because their relationship is so closely army related?

re: Hurenpack - thank you for the collection of other instances where Fritz uses the word, that's good context. I wasn't quite sure how he meant it, so I didn't mention it. (I mean, I even know the compound word as a current day insult for a group of people regardless of gender and/or profession, but I have no idea if that particular use was a thing in the 18th century. If so, and given that he asks if they are "in good harmony", he might even be referring to the rest of their group who stayed behind?)

selenak: Petit-maitre: I just remembered another prominent use of the term, and that's good old Voltaire managing to tick off his friend Lord Hervey with the dedication of Voltaire's tragedy, Zaire, to an English merchant named Edward Falkener. To quote Hervey's biographer Halsband:

In France it was regarded as scandalous because it was addressed not only to a commoner but to a foreign one at that. Hervey told Henry Fox that he thought it "bad, false, & impertinent ... by a superficial Frenchman to an Englishman, & the Dedicator pretends to be better acquainted with our Country, our Manners, our Laws, & even our Language than the Dedicatee'.

What could have aroused such a violent opinion ? In the dedicatory epistle, after praising the high rank and regard the mercantile class enjoyed in England, Voltaire continues : 'I know very well that this profession is despised by our petits-maîtres ; but you also know that our petits -maîtres and yours are the most ridiculous species that proudly crawl on the face of the earth'. This, rather than the general remarks about French and English theatre, could have been offensive to one who was certainly closer to being a petit-maître than a man of commerce.

So "petit-maitre" is definitely as derogatory as "Stutzer" is in German and "fop" in English, not just when FW says it.

rare local fruit: any chance it might have been a potato? He did famously introduce them to Prussia later. :)

But also: shouldn't von der Groeben, as a noble, know French?

He should. Now granted, your average Prussian noble family isn't able to afford the sheer number of French native speakers to raise their kids the way the Royal household did, and thus he's likely to have it learned later than Fritz & Co. Also, there's a great bandwidth of just how fluent a noble could be in French, even discounting sons of the Old Dessauer. Remember, when EC and Louise talked to each other or their mother, their default language was German, as Lehndorff notes more than once, and EC's French was deemed sufficiently imperfect when she first arrived in Brandenburg for her to take extra lessons to please her husband. Augusta von Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Fritz of Wales' wife, also supposedly wasn't very good at French when first arriving in England. (Though the source for this is Hervey, who never loses an opportunity for a good diss.) So I'm guessing that while Gröben could read, write and talk French if he had to, presumably he wasn't as comfortable or fluent in it as the Hohenzollern and their usual social circle, and Fritz cared enough to indulge him by writing German.

And if he did, it would be rather interesting that Fritz was still writing in German - possibly because their relationship is so closely army related?

That, too, and chances are "Hurenpack" in this context means the rest of the regiment back home in Ruppin. There's another possibility, too; since Fritz is with the army when writing this, and his father is paranoid again,FW might have decided to have his mail read once more. Swearing not withstanding or even especially with the swearing, this letter sounds exactly like the kind of friendship FW would want Fritz to have. It's in German, not French, not a single work of literature or music is mentioned, the desire to see some military action is suitable, too, and the general tone is manly men enjoying manly things. (Note that Fritz doesn't mention having sex of either variety himself at all, so the one manly thing which could bring FW's ire is not there.)

felis:

any chance it might have been a potato?

It did cross my mind! Depends on how much he knew about potatoes at that point I guess, given that he calls it a "local fruit" and doesn't seem to have a name for it. That he introduced it seems to be more legend than fact, later efforts to popularize its cultivation notwithstanding. Wiki tells me that one of the first places where potatoes were grown in the 17th century was in Bavaria, and also that Fritz' great-grandfather already grew potatoes as ornamental plants in Berlin. Which doesn't mean Fritz encountered them later of course, or that he would make the connection between plant and "fruit" at that point.

since Fritz is with the army when writing this, and his father is paranoid again, FW might have decided to have his mail read once more

I initially thought it unlikely because he writes very openly to Wilhelmine during that time, but thinking about it, he probably had a much safer way to send letters to her than back to Berlin (he even mentions her messengers in his letters). The other reason was indeed all the swearing, which was one of the things FW named as something to prevent in his 1718 instructions, although compared to other things it seems low on the list on offenses.