Zimmermann vs Nicolai: Or, The Penis Feud
Mar. 21st, 2021 01:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenak posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
rheinsbergOr, one of the most notorious fanboy vs fanboy(s) flame wars since Platon & Co. argued whether Achilles or Patroclos topped. Johann Georg (von, but not yet) Zimmermann started out as a (practising, not just studied) doctor, with literature as his second passion, then started to publish as well, became a member of various Academies of Sciences in various countries as well as court physician of George III. in Hannover. (Bear in mind here that George III. was the first of the Hanover Georges to never visit Hannover (it came with also being the first to being born on British soil and having grown up with English as his primary language); G3 still was reigning Prince Elector of Hanover, though, and as such maintained a separate Hanover court. (Once his younger sons were old enough to study in Göttingen, which was a university the House of Hannover sponsored, they were present.) And that's where Zimmermann was court physician. Zimmermann first met Fritz, whom he idolized, in 1771, and this personal encounter was even in Rococo age terms very intense. To quote one of Fritz' latest biographers, Tim Blanning:
After his first encounter with his hero in 1771 [Zimmermann] left the room in floods of tears, exclaiming, “Oh, my love for the King of Prussia is beyond words!”
The book that made Zimmerman known internationally as well as in the German states before Fritz' death was "Über die Einsamkeit" ("About Loneliness"), dealing with melancholy and its effects, published 1784/1785. Among other things, it got him a correspondence with Catherine the Great, a membership in the St. Petersburg Academy and an annoblement from Catherine, which was very recent in the years we're talking about. He was summoned by Fritz to Sanssouci from June 23rd to July 11th 1786 and thus was among the last foreign visitors to encounter the dying King. Now, until and including this point, Zimmermann had been on friendly terms with Berlin's literary circles, including with Friedrich Nicolai. In 1788, when Nicolai published the first of his six volumes of Frederician anecdotes, he mentions Zimmermann as a friend and encourager of his anecdote collecting project in the preface.
However, in 1788, Zimmermann also published, and not with Nicolai: " Über Friedrich den Grossen und meine Unterredungen mit ihm kurz vor seinem Tode. Von dem Ritter von Zimmermann." Leipzig 1788, one and a half year after Friedrich's death. ("About Frederick the Great and my conversations with him shortly before his death. By the baronet von Zimmermann.") Even in the flood of anecdote collections and memoirs, this was a bestseller, since Zimmermann had the undeniable advantage of near deathbed conversations, as well as a until then excellent reputation, both as a doctor and a writer.
He's not yet fallen out wiith Nicolai, which is noticeable because at one point, he advertises for a Nicolai publication, to wit, the German versions of the comedies written by Catherine the Great. However, he's already engaged in arguments about who's the biggest Fritz fan of them all, and the big publishing rush about Fritz has of course long since started. Nor is this the first time Zimmermann throws his hat into the ring; he's already published about his first meeting with Fritz, in 1771. (I don't know where he published this, but as he later was accused of partly repeating content, it must have been somewhere.) This particular book consists of: a narration of his being summoned to Fritz in the summer of 1786 and the several meetings and conversations he had with him, in detail; then another description of his first meeting with Fritz back in the day; then ponderings and warnings about where all this freethinking and religion mocking is leading among people less morally fortified than Fritz and the hope FW2 will do something about this at least in Prussia. (This was a huge factor for his upcoming fallout with Nicolai and other Berlin literati, who saw it, as it turned out, correctly, as Zimmermann's turn against the Enlightenment, a trend which was intensified by the French Revolution happening a year later, and would culminate in Zimmermann's 1795 "Memoire an Seine Kaiserlichkönigliche Majestät Leopold den Zweiten über den Wahnwitz unsers Zeitalters und die Mordbrenner, welche Deutschland und ganz Europa aufklären wollen", at which point he saw all free thinking as being of the devil.)
Most of all, though, "Unterredungen" is yet another fannish love declaration to Den Einzigen König.
Fritz isn't just the greatest King of the 18th Century for Zimmermann, he's the greatest man of the 18th Century. And he had the most beautiful eyes ever given to a human being, ever. And Zimmermann was filled full of male tenderness (männliche Zärtlichkeit) when visiting this wonderful human being dying before him, which he also felt for Fritz in happier, healthier days. His tone of voice is the clearest and most agreeable Zimmermann has ever heard. Also, no one was ever so misunderstood as Fritz was. His critics accuse him of never having loved, which is so wrong, and no, Zimmermann isn't just speaking of the dogs. (Though he does tell a touching dog story, about Fritz' current favourite dog having been ill in 1785, when Fritz was doing his last trip to Silesia, so he couldn't take the dog with him but had fast couriers standing by to bring him news of how the dog was doing, and was heartbroken when the dog died.) (Chamber Hussar Neumann will later debate this point, among others.)
Zimmermann, like the Salon, has read the printed Crown Prince Fritz/Suhm letters and thinks they're the most beautiful testimony to Fritz' capacity of feeling and love.
All this Fritz fannishness does not, however, prevent him from also plugging his own royal patron, who since he's (while born Swiss) a citizen of Hannover is Frederick Duke of York, younger son of G3, currently studying at the university of Göttingen which his family co-sponsors; Göttingen is about to become the most famous German university. Luckily, Fritz like Fred of York, too; he even tells Zimmermann repeatedly he loves the Duke of York like a son and hopes Fred of York will stay in Hannover after he's finished with uni and be a German, because Brits, eh. Zimmermann's other famous royal patron is none other than Catherine the Great. (Who has just ennobled him in 1786, making him Ritter von Zimmermann.) About her, he and Fritz have this exchange:
KING: You're corresponding with the Empress of Russia?
I: The Empress condescends to writing to me occasionally, yes.
KING: So the Empress consults you about her health?
I: The Empress doesn't need to, since she enjoys excellent health. Literature, philanthropy and philosophy are the themes of the letters with which the Empress honors me.
KING: But eveyone knows the Empress is sick!
I: The Empress knows everyone believes that. She often jokes about it and once wrote to my: her yearly expenses for her health are thirty pennies.
KING: Not what I've heard.
I: Your Majesty knows best how unreliable in such a case even secret news from so called confidential sources are. I know perfectly well and very recently that everyting which is said about the Empress being sickly can't be true. The Empress endures the toughest fatiguing trials. As late as last year, she undertook a journey of more than twohundred and fifty German miles, in a great mood and in cheerful spirits. Her good mood doesn't leave her all day. Her busy mind never rests and remains effective. In her hours of leisure, she's recently written by her own hand a new book of laws for Russia's nobility, and a new law book for Russia's towns. She's also started a book which is amazing from a philosophical point of view, a glossary comparing slang and phrases between different languages and dialects. A few of the comedies the Empress herself wrote in order to ridicule superstition, full of sparkling satire and wit I received by the Empress' own hands this very year.*
*footnote: Three comedies against superstitions: 1) The Con Man (Cagliostro), 2.) The Deluded Man, 3) The Siberian Shaman. By Her Imperial Highness Katharina Alexejewna, published by Friedrich Nicolai, Berlin 1788. Buy it, readers!
KING: I admit it, the Empress of all the Russias is a woman of uncommon genius.
** Footnote: The King wasn't just saying that then, he ALWAYS said it. After his death, my dear friend the Marchese Lucchessini wrote to me: L'Imperatrice de la Russie, un temps l'amie du grand Frederic, toujours la rivale de sa gloire, etoit toujours aussi l' object des discours et de 'l admiration de ce roi unique.
(Now Luccessini puts it a bit differently in his diary, where he he lets Fritz give Catherine credit for writing well and also for offering, via future FW2 who has just visited her when Lucchesini writes in his diary in 1780, to mediate between Fritz and Heinrich ("„L‘Imperatrice di Russia scrive bene. Ho apiuto in quesito giorni da altra parte, che la prima conversazione dell‘ Imperatrice di Russia col Principe Reale si piegrava a porre in ricilolo il Re, e il Principe Enrico"), but also says she spent her first few years being ruled by the Orlovs, and also he's still the biggest genius of them all. But Luccessini wasn't just ennobled by her and hoping for future gifts.)
Speaking of Luccessini, since Zimmermann here uses almost identical phrases to describe him as he later uses in the 1790 "Fragments" to describe the unnamed companion of Fritz' last years who had the deepest insight etc. into Fritz and to whom Fritz said he had had "loved like Socrates did Alcibiades" until directly before the 7 Years War, which briefly led Zimmermann to assume that all the gay rumors could be true until he figured out this was just part of Fritz' distraction campaign to fool people about his tragic broken penis, I think we can settle that Luccessini is indeed the source for this story. Which still makes it sound as if Fritz/Glasow Glasow happened to me.
Back to Zimmermann's 1788 opus. He isn't just emo all the time, he can describe Fritz' various symptoms with medical accuracy. I also believe him when he says he realised at once that Fritz was dying, and that conversely Fritz refused to acknowledge it until shortly before Zimmermann left. (Heinrich, not a medic, also realised Fritz was dying when he saw him in January that same year and wrote to Ferdinand that if he wanted to see Fritz again alive he should make his visit now. So Zimmermann, a celebrated doctor of his day, definitely must have realised it.) In terms of describing people, Zimmermann is neither a Lehndorff nor a Boswell, which is to say, he doesn't have the gift of bringing them to life with a few sentences; he resorts to stock phrases instead. Take this introduction of Chamber Hussar Schöning; Zimmermann is in conversation with an unnamed courtier, who told him Fritz has fired his regular doctors before summoning Zimmermann:
"But Sir, how is the King, and who is the King's Doctor?"
"The King," he replied, "is very ill, and he has no other doctor but his chamber hussar."
"His Chamber Hussar is his doctor?"
"Yes, and in between and mainly the King himself is his own doctor. This Chamber Hussar is the King's valet. He's called Herr Schöning. He will now lead you to the King."
Herr Schöning entered, and greeted me politely and with good manners, but very seriously, and with great alacrity. In this moment I thought: Next to the King, I need to get along best with Herrr Schöning. So I pulled myself together and said and did what a lifetime of knowing people had taught me in order to study and win over the chamber hussar as much as I was able.
Herr Schöning soon showed me his true nature. I found him to be a man of good sense, of feeling and of intelligence, who spoke with great deliberation, yet truthfully, and very well. He seemed to know the King through and through. Soon Herr Schöning showed himself to be a Herzensfreund of Professor Selle of Berlin, whom the King had dismissed for a good while. This heightened the good opinion I had already formed of Herr Schöning, for this wasn't courtier behavior. (To show friendshp for a fired official.) But as it had to grieve him that I, a stranger, replaced his Herzensfreund at the King's side, this thought, or rather this suspicion made us equal and made us be very delicate in all we said and did to each other.
It's servicable as a description, but no more. Oh, and speaking of descriptions, Zimmermann never fails to mention that Fritz has a portrait of Joseph in the last antechambre where he can see it when the door of his study is open. This Zimmernann takes to mean he wants to keep an eye on Joseph. (Coming menace of Europe in Fritz' view, we might add, though Zimmermann probably thinks of Joseph as the son MT and Fritz never had instead.) Though the one Fritz truly loves as a son, as is repeatedly said by Zimmermann in this text, is the Duke of York. (Who will, btw, later marry FW2's daughter, thus concluding yet another miserable Hohenzollern and Hannover marriage.)
I feel a bit cruel for mocking Zimmermann; it's clear he did adore Fritz and was deeply affected by having to watch someone he loved so extensively be painfully ill without being able to truly help. (Because while some of the symptoms can be relieved temporarily, it's clear that he's dying.) But even for the spirit of the age, the mixture of high strung adoration on the one hand and the insistence of being The One Who Truly Understands (while all the other competing publications are wrong, of course) is annoying, and even in this book, before he starts to speculate about Fritz' sex life or lack of same, you can see why he's about to fall out with his fellow fanboys.
While the book sold very well, there was some snark about Zimmermann's early anti Enlightenment digs as well as about his pride in his now being Ritter von Zimmermann (confidant of monarchs) in the reviews. This, Zimmermann saw as mere envy and betrayal, especially on the part of (now former) friends like Nicolai, whom he attacks as a Fritz misunderstanding ignoramus in his next publication, Fragmente über Friedrich den Großen, zur Geschichte seines Lebens, seiner Regierung und seines Charakters, von dem Ritter von Zimmermann (1790, Leipzig, Weidmannsche Buchhandlung), about which you can read my detailed summary in the entry I just linked. This was the book that made Zimmermann go from famous to notorious, as it presents what we nicknamed the "broken penis" theory. (Briefly: far from disliking women, Frederick the Great had too much sex with them as a young man, got STD, got a supposed cure by a medical hack recced to him by his Schwedt Cousin, married EC, had six months of blissful marital sex with her before the STD resurfaced, then had a operation on his penis which was botched, resulting in a malformed penis and psychological (not actual, this point is important to Zimmermann) impotence, which Frederick then tried to cover up by pretending to be gay. Fragments thus became the primary canon for a lot of no homo historians through the centuries. One more thing: in true Chinese whisper fashion, I've seen the claim that Zimmermann, as Fritz' (temporary) doctor, ought to know since presumably would have seen the broken penis in question. However, he himself makes no such claim. Fritz' notorious later years dislike of being seen in the nude by anyone is in fact part of his theory as to the reason for it.
After "Fragments" got published, a publication storm broke loose. Not just because of Zimmermann's main theory but because of a couple of additional theories he voices in this book as well as its general anti Enlightenment tendency. Nonetheless, Zimmermann's book is why the world has signed and written testimonies on the state of Frederick the Great's penis, which first saw the light of day in the publications by Büsching and Friedrich Nicolai that were immediately written and published to counter Zimmermann's claim. Nicolai's book is a detailed refutation of Zimmermann's everything, which is why you now get a review and summary of:
Browsing through Nicolai's anti-Zimmermann book is a headache because the printing quality is so smudged and bad (in addition to the font used), and there is a lot of detailed refuting of Zimmermann's numbers and locations which is good research work but not interesting to us sensationalist gossip mongers. (Well, not to me at any rate, as I'm not as systematically minded as Mildred with her maps.) Otoh, after a lot of that I was rewarded by getting to the good stuff, i.e. Nicolai addressing the chapters in which the good doctor voices a) the broken penis theory, b) his Fritz/MT shipping, and c) his "Fritz/Barbarina influenced the 7 Years War" theory. I have to share these gems:
1.) Zimmermann, as you may recall, is the planet's first Fritz/MT shipper and conspiracy theorist who deduced in his fragments that Fritz wanting to go to France or England was just a cover story, he was really in league with Seckendorf and had arranged to go to Austria where he wanted to marry MT, thus sparing the world the Silesian Wars and the 7 Years War. (Zimmermann calls this the greatest Fritz plan ever and really mourns it wasn't to be.) This is also the reason why Seckendorf and the Emperor later intervened with FW to save Fritz' life, and why FS was at Fritz' engagement party later, gloating over his defeated rival for Mt's love and hand.
Unsurprisingly, Nicolai has an easy time making mincemeat of that theory even without access to the secret state archives, not least because he's collected stuff on Fritz for decades, including the publication of the various foreign monarchs' letters to FW on the subject, which he uses to point out that the one from Mt's Dad was just standard for the day. He also correctly thinks that Seckendorff would have shot himself and his own influence on FW massively in the foot if he'd conspired with FW's son against him in this way and would never have done that, and points to all the meetings with Hotham and Guy Dickens Fritz had, as well as Keith going to England, as proof England was the agreed upon escape destination. And he argues that Katte's published letters form the pamphlet about his execution (which Nicolai has read, and which apparantly has just been republished) as well as the description Preacher Müller gave of his death point to Hans Herrmann von Katte having been an upstanding, really good Protestant, who would never, ever, have signed on a scheme where his beloved Crown Prince has to convert to the Church of Rome to marry MT. On the contrary, upstanding Protestant Katte would have done anything to prevent this.
...I must say, I'm impressed, because Nicolai does not, repeat, does not have access to interrogation protocols which back him up on this.
2.) Of course, the part of Zimmermann's "Fragments" everyone talked about wasn't this, it was the "Fritz: psychologically impotent due to botched penis operation after youth of STD, but NOT GAY NEVER, he just faked gay interest to cover for this" chapter. Now, as we've seen, in his own collection of anecdotes Nicolai completely avoids the "gay" question, and when he repeatedly has a go at Voltaire for all of Voltaire's ungrateful slanders, he does not include this one. So I was curious how he'd handle what is a part of Zimmermann's big headlines making argument. Mes amies, he handles it thusly.
Nicolai: Okay. Z. - he always calls him "Ritter von Z" or "Herr von Z", never writing out the last name and always using the "von" to mock Zimmermann's pride in his ennoblement - pretends he had to go against all decency to devote an entire chapter on the state of Fritz' penis in order to defend Fritz from a certain charge he then lists in detail. As anyone with a brain in the publishing industry would know, even if you are refuting a charge, by listing it and talking about it you're just making sure more people hear about it. I therefore will not talk about this charge Z is supposedly defending our glorious King from, save to say all right thinking people would never talk about this subject AT ALL. Now, on to Zimmermann's arguments for a broken penis.
....
He points that if Zimmermann was so worried about this question, he could have simply done what Nicolai and Büsching did, to wit, asked the various people who saw dead Fritz naked in the one and a half hour his dead body was lying around in that state while it was cleaned up for the wake and funeral. (mildred_of_midgard quoted Banning on this, I think; Banning's source is Nicolai, because the phrasing is almost identical.) He then, as Büsching did, prints signed testimony of the various guys involved to the effect Fritz had a completely normal piece of male equipment without any scarring tissue, meaning there can't have been any operation, botched or not, at any point. Because Nicolai is thorough, he also says readers (if they'd made it so far in this unsavoury subject) might wonder what the various people were doing checking Fritz' genitals close enough to look for scarring tissue. Well, says Nicolai, it's all that bastard Voltaire's fault, because he was the one who started the story of the botched operation in his slanderous writings, which everyone had read, so these guys were curious and had a look.
(mildred_of_midgard: Blanning cites Büsching for "The surgeon Gottlieb Engel, who helped to prepare Frederick’s body for burial, indignantly asserted that the royal genitalia were as “complete and perfect as those of any healthy man," and a 1921 article reprinting the 1790 signed testimony by the three medical officers. The 1921 author "adds that Frederick’s naked body lay for more than one and a half hours and was seen by at least a dozen people, none of whom noticed any genital deformity," so I think Blanning is one degree removed from Nicolai, but his ultimate source is Nicolai.
Also,cahn, chronology reminder: Voltaire's memoirs were published in 1784, Fritz died in 1786, meaning the medical officers have been reading bestsellers when they were published. :D
)
Nicolai then proceeds in his Zimmermann evisceration by showing Zimmermann indulges in the art of quote falsification, as Zimmermann says Schöning told him no one alive saw Fritz naked ever; by contrast, Nicolai points to Büsching quoting Schöning saying that the King had "große Schamhaftigkeit" about his person and didn't want his servants to see him naked, hence dressed and undressed himself, which is a different kind of statement, as, see above, the people who cleaned up Fritz' dead body as well as the doctors making the cuts releaving the body of the water all saw him naked.
Next, Nicolai addresses Zimmermann's statement of Fritz (believing himself cured from STD courtesy of the Schwedt cousin and his quack of a doctor) indulging in six months of non stop sexual married bliss with EC until the STD returned, for which Zimmermann said there's the testimony of one of EC's ladies in waiting, whom he names by name. Leaving aside that it's extremely indelicate to incriminate a lady this way, says Nicolai, it's not true, either, since the lady in question never was lady-in-waiting to EC. She was present at the Fritz/EC wedding, and she and her husband were visiting Rheinsberg at one point, as mentioned in Bielfeld's letters, which is, Nicolai says cuttingly, presumably where Zimmermann has picked her name from. But he, Nicolai, talked to the late lady's son, Count Such and Such, and here reprints the son's testimony that his mother wasn't EC's lady-in-waiting during the first six months of EC's marriage (or later), and also certainly would never have been as crass and tasteless as to gossip about EC/Fritz marital sex. How, Nicolai demands, would Zimmermann, himself a married man, feel if people were quoted or "quoted" about his own sexual activities with his wife? And EC is still alive! As is one of Fritz' sisters!!!! The thought of poor EC and Charlotte having to read this (invented) stuff is TOO MUCH, how could you, Z!!!!!
3.) On to Fritz/Barbarina. Here, Nicolai doesn't really go on about Zimmermann's "Fritz clearly wanted to, but thought he couldn't anymore, and this explains his entire behavior with her", but chooses as his target for eviscaration another angle, because Zimmermann in "Fragments" theorizes that Barbarina's ditched boyfriend/sort of fiance?? "Mackenzie" whom she'd been with when Fritz had her extradited by Venice subsequently must have been fueled with thoughts of revenge, a revenge he later took when becoming advisor to none other than Lord Bute, making him withdraw British funding from Fritz in the 7 Years War. Thus, the story of the 7 Years War would have been different if not for Fritz' tragically unfulfilled longings for Barbarina and her ditching this Mackenzie for Fritz, sort of. Nicolai mocks this, saying that it could be one of Bute's advisors is called MacSomething or the other, it's a very common name part in GB for someone to have, but there's no proof this is Barbarina's ex. As for the idea the Brits wouldn't have withdrawn funding from Fritz otherwise, pleaaaaaase. And Z, you're again not being a gentleman towards a lady by putting into print Barbarina's old scandals, because Barbarina? Still alive, and wonderful highly respected old lady who has funded a woman's shelter in silesia with her fortune, so there.
Though that's not how 18th century guy Nicolai phrases it. He first quotes the relevant passage from Zimmermann's "Fragments" book, which is:
Z speaking: "Mackenzie was filled with an immortal hatred on Friedrich, as can be easily guessed; and as a close relation and dear friend of Lord Bute, he after his return to England infected this otherwise good man with his immortal hatred, too. One knows from Friedrich's "History of the 7 Years War" how Lord Bute treated the hero who had just revived near the end of that war."
Nicolai comments: "There we have an important deduction all the cabinets of Europe missed, and even Friedrich himself in his "Histoire" did not dare to reveal! Alas, the whole thing falls apart. It's not easy but difficult to guess that Mr. Mackenzie should have developed an immortal hatred on Frederick the Great because of such an affair. For it's far easier to believe that he made a good marriage thereafter and didn't think about the matter anymore fifteen years later. Moreover, we aren't enlightened (by Z) how close this Mackenzie - the family name contains multitudes - is related to Lord Bute, and how close their friendship was supposed to be to allow Mackenzie to infect a state minister with his immortal hatred. There's rather a huge plothole here. For Herr v. Z himself says on page 91 "Mackenzie had to separate from his beloved due to the demands of his family", and if Lord Bute did indeed belong to this family, he shouldn't have hated King Friedrich but rather loved him for contributing to the fulfillment of this very demand.
mildred_of_midgard:
As the genealogist, I got curious about James Stuart Mackenzie and Lord Bute, and what should Wikipedia tell me but that they were brothers!
Barbarina's wiki page.
James Stuart Mackenzie's wiki page, stating that he was the second son of James Stuart, 2nd Earl of Bute, that he was the brother of Lord Bute, and that he had an affair with Barbarina, was arrested in Venice, brought back to Berlin, and kicked out of Prussia.
He was envoy to Sardinia 1758-1761, and recalled to GB in August 1761. Nothing about being involved in cutting Fritz's funding off in 1762.
Lord Bute (English wiki because more detail), first son of the 2nd Earl of Bute.
So, unless English and German wiki are both extremely wrong, Zimmermann trumps Nicolai in the matter of Scottish genealogy! Not yet in the matter of cutting off Prussian subsidies. Skimming a JSTOR article that was linked by Wikipedia on Lord Bute and Fritz and the 1762 fallout shows me no mentions of the name Mackenzie, although there's no reason to believe that article is comprehensive. Still, the author devotes dozens of pages to arguing that this was a decision driven not by personal animosity between Lord Bute and Fritz, but by the considerations of international politics (which it enumerates in detail). Which I readily believe.
selenak: Okay, then clearly we and Nicolai have wronged Zimmermann re: the connection between Mackenzie and Bute. Yowsers. Though I still think Nicolai was right about Lord Bute being not out to avenge his brother's lost love. Mind you, I bet James M. wasn't exactly broken hearted when he learned Britain would no longer finance Fritz' continuing war. :)
mildred_of_midgard: Indeed. And it's possible it went something like this:
James M: Yes, yes, Big Bro, cut off that funding!
Lord Bute: Why do you care?
James M: Never mind that.
The only writer of note siding with Zimmermann in this argument was dramatist August von Kotzebue (himself to later suffer a tragic fate: he was assassinated by a student, an event which triggered the so called Karlsbader Beschlüsse that were to plunge the post Napoleonic German states into a miasma of censorship, harsh prison sentences and general conservatism decades later), who published a pamphlet called "Doctor Bahrdt mit der eisernen Stirn, oder Die deutsche Union gegen Zimmermann". Since Kotzebue did this not under his own name, but by pretending the Freiherr von Knigge, famously the author of a "how to behave among gentlemen" treatise, was the author, Knigge sued, not Kotzebue but Zimmermann. And then Georg Christoph Lichtenberg wrote a Zimmermann satire for good measure. At which point Zimmermann wrote his petition to the ruling Emperor (who was Leopold, brother of Joseph, MT s second surviving son) asking for a really hard smackdown of all these people whose lack of morals and ethics were what you got if were were free thinker without being such an exceptional human being as Frederick the Great. The state of whose genitals was now better documented than that of any other of his contemporaries. Not that this has stopped no-homo historians to pick up on Zimmermann's key theory and run with it ever since.
After his first encounter with his hero in 1771 [Zimmermann] left the room in floods of tears, exclaiming, “Oh, my love for the King of Prussia is beyond words!”
The book that made Zimmerman known internationally as well as in the German states before Fritz' death was "Über die Einsamkeit" ("About Loneliness"), dealing with melancholy and its effects, published 1784/1785. Among other things, it got him a correspondence with Catherine the Great, a membership in the St. Petersburg Academy and an annoblement from Catherine, which was very recent in the years we're talking about. He was summoned by Fritz to Sanssouci from June 23rd to July 11th 1786 and thus was among the last foreign visitors to encounter the dying King. Now, until and including this point, Zimmermann had been on friendly terms with Berlin's literary circles, including with Friedrich Nicolai. In 1788, when Nicolai published the first of his six volumes of Frederician anecdotes, he mentions Zimmermann as a friend and encourager of his anecdote collecting project in the preface.
However, in 1788, Zimmermann also published, and not with Nicolai: " Über Friedrich den Grossen und meine Unterredungen mit ihm kurz vor seinem Tode. Von dem Ritter von Zimmermann." Leipzig 1788, one and a half year after Friedrich's death. ("About Frederick the Great and my conversations with him shortly before his death. By the baronet von Zimmermann.") Even in the flood of anecdote collections and memoirs, this was a bestseller, since Zimmermann had the undeniable advantage of near deathbed conversations, as well as a until then excellent reputation, both as a doctor and a writer.
He's not yet fallen out wiith Nicolai, which is noticeable because at one point, he advertises for a Nicolai publication, to wit, the German versions of the comedies written by Catherine the Great. However, he's already engaged in arguments about who's the biggest Fritz fan of them all, and the big publishing rush about Fritz has of course long since started. Nor is this the first time Zimmermann throws his hat into the ring; he's already published about his first meeting with Fritz, in 1771. (I don't know where he published this, but as he later was accused of partly repeating content, it must have been somewhere.) This particular book consists of: a narration of his being summoned to Fritz in the summer of 1786 and the several meetings and conversations he had with him, in detail; then another description of his first meeting with Fritz back in the day; then ponderings and warnings about where all this freethinking and religion mocking is leading among people less morally fortified than Fritz and the hope FW2 will do something about this at least in Prussia. (This was a huge factor for his upcoming fallout with Nicolai and other Berlin literati, who saw it, as it turned out, correctly, as Zimmermann's turn against the Enlightenment, a trend which was intensified by the French Revolution happening a year later, and would culminate in Zimmermann's 1795 "Memoire an Seine Kaiserlichkönigliche Majestät Leopold den Zweiten über den Wahnwitz unsers Zeitalters und die Mordbrenner, welche Deutschland und ganz Europa aufklären wollen", at which point he saw all free thinking as being of the devil.)
Most of all, though, "Unterredungen" is yet another fannish love declaration to Den Einzigen König.
Fritz isn't just the greatest King of the 18th Century for Zimmermann, he's the greatest man of the 18th Century. And he had the most beautiful eyes ever given to a human being, ever. And Zimmermann was filled full of male tenderness (männliche Zärtlichkeit) when visiting this wonderful human being dying before him, which he also felt for Fritz in happier, healthier days. His tone of voice is the clearest and most agreeable Zimmermann has ever heard. Also, no one was ever so misunderstood as Fritz was. His critics accuse him of never having loved, which is so wrong, and no, Zimmermann isn't just speaking of the dogs. (Though he does tell a touching dog story, about Fritz' current favourite dog having been ill in 1785, when Fritz was doing his last trip to Silesia, so he couldn't take the dog with him but had fast couriers standing by to bring him news of how the dog was doing, and was heartbroken when the dog died.) (Chamber Hussar Neumann will later debate this point, among others.)
Zimmermann, like the Salon, has read the printed Crown Prince Fritz/Suhm letters and thinks they're the most beautiful testimony to Fritz' capacity of feeling and love.
All this Fritz fannishness does not, however, prevent him from also plugging his own royal patron, who since he's (while born Swiss) a citizen of Hannover is Frederick Duke of York, younger son of G3, currently studying at the university of Göttingen which his family co-sponsors; Göttingen is about to become the most famous German university. Luckily, Fritz like Fred of York, too; he even tells Zimmermann repeatedly he loves the Duke of York like a son and hopes Fred of York will stay in Hannover after he's finished with uni and be a German, because Brits, eh. Zimmermann's other famous royal patron is none other than Catherine the Great. (Who has just ennobled him in 1786, making him Ritter von Zimmermann.) About her, he and Fritz have this exchange:
KING: You're corresponding with the Empress of Russia?
I: The Empress condescends to writing to me occasionally, yes.
KING: So the Empress consults you about her health?
I: The Empress doesn't need to, since she enjoys excellent health. Literature, philanthropy and philosophy are the themes of the letters with which the Empress honors me.
KING: But eveyone knows the Empress is sick!
I: The Empress knows everyone believes that. She often jokes about it and once wrote to my: her yearly expenses for her health are thirty pennies.
KING: Not what I've heard.
I: Your Majesty knows best how unreliable in such a case even secret news from so called confidential sources are. I know perfectly well and very recently that everyting which is said about the Empress being sickly can't be true. The Empress endures the toughest fatiguing trials. As late as last year, she undertook a journey of more than twohundred and fifty German miles, in a great mood and in cheerful spirits. Her good mood doesn't leave her all day. Her busy mind never rests and remains effective. In her hours of leisure, she's recently written by her own hand a new book of laws for Russia's nobility, and a new law book for Russia's towns. She's also started a book which is amazing from a philosophical point of view, a glossary comparing slang and phrases between different languages and dialects. A few of the comedies the Empress herself wrote in order to ridicule superstition, full of sparkling satire and wit I received by the Empress' own hands this very year.*
*footnote: Three comedies against superstitions: 1) The Con Man (Cagliostro), 2.) The Deluded Man, 3) The Siberian Shaman. By Her Imperial Highness Katharina Alexejewna, published by Friedrich Nicolai, Berlin 1788. Buy it, readers!
KING: I admit it, the Empress of all the Russias is a woman of uncommon genius.
** Footnote: The King wasn't just saying that then, he ALWAYS said it. After his death, my dear friend the Marchese Lucchessini wrote to me: L'Imperatrice de la Russie, un temps l'amie du grand Frederic, toujours la rivale de sa gloire, etoit toujours aussi l' object des discours et de 'l admiration de ce roi unique.
(Now Luccessini puts it a bit differently in his diary, where he he lets Fritz give Catherine credit for writing well and also for offering, via future FW2 who has just visited her when Lucchesini writes in his diary in 1780, to mediate between Fritz and Heinrich ("„L‘Imperatrice di Russia scrive bene. Ho apiuto in quesito giorni da altra parte, che la prima conversazione dell‘ Imperatrice di Russia col Principe Reale si piegrava a porre in ricilolo il Re, e il Principe Enrico"), but also says she spent her first few years being ruled by the Orlovs, and also he's still the biggest genius of them all. But Luccessini wasn't just ennobled by her and hoping for future gifts.)
Speaking of Luccessini, since Zimmermann here uses almost identical phrases to describe him as he later uses in the 1790 "Fragments" to describe the unnamed companion of Fritz' last years who had the deepest insight etc. into Fritz and to whom Fritz said he had had "loved like Socrates did Alcibiades" until directly before the 7 Years War, which briefly led Zimmermann to assume that all the gay rumors could be true until he figured out this was just part of Fritz' distraction campaign to fool people about his tragic broken penis, I think we can settle that Luccessini is indeed the source for this story. Which still makes it sound as if Fritz/Glasow Glasow happened to me.
Back to Zimmermann's 1788 opus. He isn't just emo all the time, he can describe Fritz' various symptoms with medical accuracy. I also believe him when he says he realised at once that Fritz was dying, and that conversely Fritz refused to acknowledge it until shortly before Zimmermann left. (Heinrich, not a medic, also realised Fritz was dying when he saw him in January that same year and wrote to Ferdinand that if he wanted to see Fritz again alive he should make his visit now. So Zimmermann, a celebrated doctor of his day, definitely must have realised it.) In terms of describing people, Zimmermann is neither a Lehndorff nor a Boswell, which is to say, he doesn't have the gift of bringing them to life with a few sentences; he resorts to stock phrases instead. Take this introduction of Chamber Hussar Schöning; Zimmermann is in conversation with an unnamed courtier, who told him Fritz has fired his regular doctors before summoning Zimmermann:
"But Sir, how is the King, and who is the King's Doctor?"
"The King," he replied, "is very ill, and he has no other doctor but his chamber hussar."
"His Chamber Hussar is his doctor?"
"Yes, and in between and mainly the King himself is his own doctor. This Chamber Hussar is the King's valet. He's called Herr Schöning. He will now lead you to the King."
Herr Schöning entered, and greeted me politely and with good manners, but very seriously, and with great alacrity. In this moment I thought: Next to the King, I need to get along best with Herrr Schöning. So I pulled myself together and said and did what a lifetime of knowing people had taught me in order to study and win over the chamber hussar as much as I was able.
Herr Schöning soon showed me his true nature. I found him to be a man of good sense, of feeling and of intelligence, who spoke with great deliberation, yet truthfully, and very well. He seemed to know the King through and through. Soon Herr Schöning showed himself to be a Herzensfreund of Professor Selle of Berlin, whom the King had dismissed for a good while. This heightened the good opinion I had already formed of Herr Schöning, for this wasn't courtier behavior. (To show friendshp for a fired official.) But as it had to grieve him that I, a stranger, replaced his Herzensfreund at the King's side, this thought, or rather this suspicion made us equal and made us be very delicate in all we said and did to each other.
It's servicable as a description, but no more. Oh, and speaking of descriptions, Zimmermann never fails to mention that Fritz has a portrait of Joseph in the last antechambre where he can see it when the door of his study is open. This Zimmernann takes to mean he wants to keep an eye on Joseph. (Coming menace of Europe in Fritz' view, we might add, though Zimmermann probably thinks of Joseph as the son MT and Fritz never had instead.) Though the one Fritz truly loves as a son, as is repeatedly said by Zimmermann in this text, is the Duke of York. (Who will, btw, later marry FW2's daughter, thus concluding yet another miserable Hohenzollern and Hannover marriage.)
I feel a bit cruel for mocking Zimmermann; it's clear he did adore Fritz and was deeply affected by having to watch someone he loved so extensively be painfully ill without being able to truly help. (Because while some of the symptoms can be relieved temporarily, it's clear that he's dying.) But even for the spirit of the age, the mixture of high strung adoration on the one hand and the insistence of being The One Who Truly Understands (while all the other competing publications are wrong, of course) is annoying, and even in this book, before he starts to speculate about Fritz' sex life or lack of same, you can see why he's about to fall out with his fellow fanboys.
While the book sold very well, there was some snark about Zimmermann's early anti Enlightenment digs as well as about his pride in his now being Ritter von Zimmermann (confidant of monarchs) in the reviews. This, Zimmermann saw as mere envy and betrayal, especially on the part of (now former) friends like Nicolai, whom he attacks as a Fritz misunderstanding ignoramus in his next publication, Fragmente über Friedrich den Großen, zur Geschichte seines Lebens, seiner Regierung und seines Charakters, von dem Ritter von Zimmermann (1790, Leipzig, Weidmannsche Buchhandlung), about which you can read my detailed summary in the entry I just linked. This was the book that made Zimmermann go from famous to notorious, as it presents what we nicknamed the "broken penis" theory. (Briefly: far from disliking women, Frederick the Great had too much sex with them as a young man, got STD, got a supposed cure by a medical hack recced to him by his Schwedt Cousin, married EC, had six months of blissful marital sex with her before the STD resurfaced, then had a operation on his penis which was botched, resulting in a malformed penis and psychological (not actual, this point is important to Zimmermann) impotence, which Frederick then tried to cover up by pretending to be gay. Fragments thus became the primary canon for a lot of no homo historians through the centuries. One more thing: in true Chinese whisper fashion, I've seen the claim that Zimmermann, as Fritz' (temporary) doctor, ought to know since presumably would have seen the broken penis in question. However, he himself makes no such claim. Fritz' notorious later years dislike of being seen in the nude by anyone is in fact part of his theory as to the reason for it.
After "Fragments" got published, a publication storm broke loose. Not just because of Zimmermann's main theory but because of a couple of additional theories he voices in this book as well as its general anti Enlightenment tendency. Nonetheless, Zimmermann's book is why the world has signed and written testimonies on the state of Frederick the Great's penis, which first saw the light of day in the publications by Büsching and Friedrich Nicolai that were immediately written and published to counter Zimmermann's claim. Nicolai's book is a detailed refutation of Zimmermann's everything, which is why you now get a review and summary of:
Browsing through Nicolai's anti-Zimmermann book is a headache because the printing quality is so smudged and bad (in addition to the font used), and there is a lot of detailed refuting of Zimmermann's numbers and locations which is good research work but not interesting to us sensationalist gossip mongers. (Well, not to me at any rate, as I'm not as systematically minded as Mildred with her maps.) Otoh, after a lot of that I was rewarded by getting to the good stuff, i.e. Nicolai addressing the chapters in which the good doctor voices a) the broken penis theory, b) his Fritz/MT shipping, and c) his "Fritz/Barbarina influenced the 7 Years War" theory. I have to share these gems:
1.) Zimmermann, as you may recall, is the planet's first Fritz/MT shipper and conspiracy theorist who deduced in his fragments that Fritz wanting to go to France or England was just a cover story, he was really in league with Seckendorf and had arranged to go to Austria where he wanted to marry MT, thus sparing the world the Silesian Wars and the 7 Years War. (Zimmermann calls this the greatest Fritz plan ever and really mourns it wasn't to be.) This is also the reason why Seckendorf and the Emperor later intervened with FW to save Fritz' life, and why FS was at Fritz' engagement party later, gloating over his defeated rival for Mt's love and hand.
Unsurprisingly, Nicolai has an easy time making mincemeat of that theory even without access to the secret state archives, not least because he's collected stuff on Fritz for decades, including the publication of the various foreign monarchs' letters to FW on the subject, which he uses to point out that the one from Mt's Dad was just standard for the day. He also correctly thinks that Seckendorff would have shot himself and his own influence on FW massively in the foot if he'd conspired with FW's son against him in this way and would never have done that, and points to all the meetings with Hotham and Guy Dickens Fritz had, as well as Keith going to England, as proof England was the agreed upon escape destination. And he argues that Katte's published letters form the pamphlet about his execution (which Nicolai has read, and which apparantly has just been republished) as well as the description Preacher Müller gave of his death point to Hans Herrmann von Katte having been an upstanding, really good Protestant, who would never, ever, have signed on a scheme where his beloved Crown Prince has to convert to the Church of Rome to marry MT. On the contrary, upstanding Protestant Katte would have done anything to prevent this.
...I must say, I'm impressed, because Nicolai does not, repeat, does not have access to interrogation protocols which back him up on this.
2.) Of course, the part of Zimmermann's "Fragments" everyone talked about wasn't this, it was the "Fritz: psychologically impotent due to botched penis operation after youth of STD, but NOT GAY NEVER, he just faked gay interest to cover for this" chapter. Now, as we've seen, in his own collection of anecdotes Nicolai completely avoids the "gay" question, and when he repeatedly has a go at Voltaire for all of Voltaire's ungrateful slanders, he does not include this one. So I was curious how he'd handle what is a part of Zimmermann's big headlines making argument. Mes amies, he handles it thusly.
Nicolai: Okay. Z. - he always calls him "Ritter von Z" or "Herr von Z", never writing out the last name and always using the "von" to mock Zimmermann's pride in his ennoblement - pretends he had to go against all decency to devote an entire chapter on the state of Fritz' penis in order to defend Fritz from a certain charge he then lists in detail. As anyone with a brain in the publishing industry would know, even if you are refuting a charge, by listing it and talking about it you're just making sure more people hear about it. I therefore will not talk about this charge Z is supposedly defending our glorious King from, save to say all right thinking people would never talk about this subject AT ALL. Now, on to Zimmermann's arguments for a broken penis.
....
He points that if Zimmermann was so worried about this question, he could have simply done what Nicolai and Büsching did, to wit, asked the various people who saw dead Fritz naked in the one and a half hour his dead body was lying around in that state while it was cleaned up for the wake and funeral. (
mildred_of_midgard quoted Banning on this, I think; Banning's source is Nicolai, because the phrasing is almost identical.) He then, as Büsching did, prints signed testimony of the various guys involved to the effect Fritz had a completely normal piece of male equipment without any scarring tissue, meaning there can't have been any operation, botched or not, at any point. Because Nicolai is thorough, he also says readers (if they'd made it so far in this unsavoury subject) might wonder what the various people were doing checking Fritz' genitals close enough to look for scarring tissue. Well, says Nicolai, it's all that bastard Voltaire's fault, because he was the one who started the story of the botched operation in his slanderous writings, which everyone had read, so these guys were curious and had a look.(
mildred_of_midgard: Blanning cites Büsching for "The surgeon Gottlieb Engel, who helped to prepare Frederick’s body for burial, indignantly asserted that the royal genitalia were as “complete and perfect as those of any healthy man," and a 1921 article reprinting the 1790 signed testimony by the three medical officers. The 1921 author "adds that Frederick’s naked body lay for more than one and a half hours and was seen by at least a dozen people, none of whom noticed any genital deformity," so I think Blanning is one degree removed from Nicolai, but his ultimate source is Nicolai.Also,
cahn, chronology reminder: Voltaire's memoirs were published in 1784, Fritz died in 1786, meaning the medical officers have been reading bestsellers when they were published. :D)
Nicolai then proceeds in his Zimmermann evisceration by showing Zimmermann indulges in the art of quote falsification, as Zimmermann says Schöning told him no one alive saw Fritz naked ever; by contrast, Nicolai points to Büsching quoting Schöning saying that the King had "große Schamhaftigkeit" about his person and didn't want his servants to see him naked, hence dressed and undressed himself, which is a different kind of statement, as, see above, the people who cleaned up Fritz' dead body as well as the doctors making the cuts releaving the body of the water all saw him naked.
Next, Nicolai addresses Zimmermann's statement of Fritz (believing himself cured from STD courtesy of the Schwedt cousin and his quack of a doctor) indulging in six months of non stop sexual married bliss with EC until the STD returned, for which Zimmermann said there's the testimony of one of EC's ladies in waiting, whom he names by name. Leaving aside that it's extremely indelicate to incriminate a lady this way, says Nicolai, it's not true, either, since the lady in question never was lady-in-waiting to EC. She was present at the Fritz/EC wedding, and she and her husband were visiting Rheinsberg at one point, as mentioned in Bielfeld's letters, which is, Nicolai says cuttingly, presumably where Zimmermann has picked her name from. But he, Nicolai, talked to the late lady's son, Count Such and Such, and here reprints the son's testimony that his mother wasn't EC's lady-in-waiting during the first six months of EC's marriage (or later), and also certainly would never have been as crass and tasteless as to gossip about EC/Fritz marital sex. How, Nicolai demands, would Zimmermann, himself a married man, feel if people were quoted or "quoted" about his own sexual activities with his wife? And EC is still alive! As is one of Fritz' sisters!!!! The thought of poor EC and Charlotte having to read this (invented) stuff is TOO MUCH, how could you, Z!!!!!
3.) On to Fritz/Barbarina. Here, Nicolai doesn't really go on about Zimmermann's "Fritz clearly wanted to, but thought he couldn't anymore, and this explains his entire behavior with her", but chooses as his target for eviscaration another angle, because Zimmermann in "Fragments" theorizes that Barbarina's ditched boyfriend/sort of fiance?? "Mackenzie" whom she'd been with when Fritz had her extradited by Venice subsequently must have been fueled with thoughts of revenge, a revenge he later took when becoming advisor to none other than Lord Bute, making him withdraw British funding from Fritz in the 7 Years War. Thus, the story of the 7 Years War would have been different if not for Fritz' tragically unfulfilled longings for Barbarina and her ditching this Mackenzie for Fritz, sort of. Nicolai mocks this, saying that it could be one of Bute's advisors is called MacSomething or the other, it's a very common name part in GB for someone to have, but there's no proof this is Barbarina's ex. As for the idea the Brits wouldn't have withdrawn funding from Fritz otherwise, pleaaaaaase. And Z, you're again not being a gentleman towards a lady by putting into print Barbarina's old scandals, because Barbarina? Still alive, and wonderful highly respected old lady who has funded a woman's shelter in silesia with her fortune, so there.
Though that's not how 18th century guy Nicolai phrases it. He first quotes the relevant passage from Zimmermann's "Fragments" book, which is:
Z speaking: "Mackenzie was filled with an immortal hatred on Friedrich, as can be easily guessed; and as a close relation and dear friend of Lord Bute, he after his return to England infected this otherwise good man with his immortal hatred, too. One knows from Friedrich's "History of the 7 Years War" how Lord Bute treated the hero who had just revived near the end of that war."
Nicolai comments: "There we have an important deduction all the cabinets of Europe missed, and even Friedrich himself in his "Histoire" did not dare to reveal! Alas, the whole thing falls apart. It's not easy but difficult to guess that Mr. Mackenzie should have developed an immortal hatred on Frederick the Great because of such an affair. For it's far easier to believe that he made a good marriage thereafter and didn't think about the matter anymore fifteen years later. Moreover, we aren't enlightened (by Z) how close this Mackenzie - the family name contains multitudes - is related to Lord Bute, and how close their friendship was supposed to be to allow Mackenzie to infect a state minister with his immortal hatred. There's rather a huge plothole here. For Herr v. Z himself says on page 91 "Mackenzie had to separate from his beloved due to the demands of his family", and if Lord Bute did indeed belong to this family, he shouldn't have hated King Friedrich but rather loved him for contributing to the fulfillment of this very demand.
mildred_of_midgard: As the genealogist, I got curious about James Stuart Mackenzie and Lord Bute, and what should Wikipedia tell me but that they were brothers!
Barbarina's wiki page.
James Stuart Mackenzie's wiki page, stating that he was the second son of James Stuart, 2nd Earl of Bute, that he was the brother of Lord Bute, and that he had an affair with Barbarina, was arrested in Venice, brought back to Berlin, and kicked out of Prussia.
He was envoy to Sardinia 1758-1761, and recalled to GB in August 1761. Nothing about being involved in cutting Fritz's funding off in 1762.
Lord Bute (English wiki because more detail), first son of the 2nd Earl of Bute.
So, unless English and German wiki are both extremely wrong, Zimmermann trumps Nicolai in the matter of Scottish genealogy! Not yet in the matter of cutting off Prussian subsidies. Skimming a JSTOR article that was linked by Wikipedia on Lord Bute and Fritz and the 1762 fallout shows me no mentions of the name Mackenzie, although there's no reason to believe that article is comprehensive. Still, the author devotes dozens of pages to arguing that this was a decision driven not by personal animosity between Lord Bute and Fritz, but by the considerations of international politics (which it enumerates in detail). Which I readily believe.
selenak: Okay, then clearly we and Nicolai have wronged Zimmermann re: the connection between Mackenzie and Bute. Yowsers. Though I still think Nicolai was right about Lord Bute being not out to avenge his brother's lost love. Mind you, I bet James M. wasn't exactly broken hearted when he learned Britain would no longer finance Fritz' continuing war. :) mildred_of_midgard: Indeed. And it's possible it went something like this:James M: Yes, yes, Big Bro, cut off that funding!
Lord Bute: Why do you care?
James M: Never mind that.
The only writer of note siding with Zimmermann in this argument was dramatist August von Kotzebue (himself to later suffer a tragic fate: he was assassinated by a student, an event which triggered the so called Karlsbader Beschlüsse that were to plunge the post Napoleonic German states into a miasma of censorship, harsh prison sentences and general conservatism decades later), who published a pamphlet called "Doctor Bahrdt mit der eisernen Stirn, oder Die deutsche Union gegen Zimmermann". Since Kotzebue did this not under his own name, but by pretending the Freiherr von Knigge, famously the author of a "how to behave among gentlemen" treatise, was the author, Knigge sued, not Kotzebue but Zimmermann. And then Georg Christoph Lichtenberg wrote a Zimmermann satire for good measure. At which point Zimmermann wrote his petition to the ruling Emperor (who was Leopold, brother of Joseph, MT s second surviving son) asking for a really hard smackdown of all these people whose lack of morals and ethics were what you got if were were free thinker without being such an exceptional human being as Frederick the Great. The state of whose genitals was now better documented than that of any other of his contemporaries. Not that this has stopped no-homo historians to pick up on Zimmermann's key theory and run with it ever since.
