Der Thronfolger: The Pic Spam

[selenak]

Back when we started this salon, I rewatched Der Thronfolger, a 1980 tv two parter on YouTube (where it's no longer to be found, alas) for the first time since the original broadcast, and provided a quick summary. This Christmas, I got the DVD, and thus can now provide screencaps. Also, I did another rewatch, with far more historical detail in the back of my head than I had relatively early in our salon, and also now with the confirmation that scriptwriter Helmut Pigge based this (losely, bot noticably) on Jochen Klepper's FW novel Der Vater. (Change of title telling of change of emphasis, as Der Vater covers FW's entire life, while Der Thronfolger is strictly about the father/son conflict and focuses on the years between 1727 - 1730.) (The Klepper basis means, among other things, that the - considerable - facts worked into this fiction are still those available in the 1930s, when Klepper wrote his book and had only a few more years to live.) As German tv two parters go, I find it holds up pretty well. Not perfect, but it tells the story it wants to tell - the family tragedy -, the acting is good, and however much budget they got, they used it well. (No filming on location, since this was a West German production and thus they couldn't go to Potsdam, and of course there isn't enough left of Küstrin anyway. But whichever palaces they used instead work.) It's not perfect, but I really like it, and as opposed to some other fictionalizations can see the reasons for most of the alterations. But even if you, faithful reader, should dislike said two parter, prepare to enjoy the screencaps as useful illustrations, because the costuming department really worked hard here.






Now, one of the reasons why I like this version and applaud the scriptwriter is that he gets across the full Hohenzollern family dysfunction in the first family breakfast scene (which takes place in 1724, when our antihero and Wilhelmine are still children), already. Now, other versions are content with letting FW yell to achieve this purpose. Not this one. SD tells Fritz not to sit so stiffly, but graciously, easily, like a prince. (BTW, this was actually an 18th century pre FW thing for the nobility, in general. You were supposed to exude elegance and graciousness in your movements, not sit straight like a stick.) Fritz starts to slouch, FW immediately tells him to sit straight. He and SD start to argue, Wilhelmine bursts into tears, SD yells at Wilhelmine to show the composure worthy of a Princess of Wales, FW and SD argue some with both children as the replacement targets for insults they don't aim directly at each other, FW gets physical, Fritz runs, and the whole thing culminates in FW's outburst that they aren't supposed to fear him, but to love him. Which he says in this screencap:



The baby, btw, is AW. The younger sibs don't get any lines, but they are the right gender and age for all the scenes they're in throughout the two parter (which is more than can be said for other versions, looking at you, "Die preußische Hochzeit"). Why I've been going on about the first breakfast scene (there is a second one later which is as good) is this: it shows the audience the dysfunction isn't just FW vs Fritz, that it's deeply (though not exclusively) rooted in the marital warfare between SD and FW, and that both Fritz and Wilhelmine have become weaponized by their parents in said warfare. It also gets across why the English marriage project is so important to SD without getting into all the insanely complicated convolutions said project went through, and why FW is having such issues about his Hannover in-laws.

Said issues are also in display, in the background, when G1 comes to visit Berlin. Here are SD and all her children up to this point standing in waiting, in order of birth:



G1 manages to casually insult both FW and Wihelmine when he tells SD that her daughter is a bit "strong" (read: heavy) for her age (this is from Wilhelmine's memoirs), but hey - looks to FW - that runs in the family.


Then he asks Fritz about plans for his future. Fritz says he wants to be a philosopher. Cue FW explosion. In the two parter, this is when FW tells Duhan there's to be no more Latin and ancient history, that's all useless for a Prussian King.



Cue kid!Fritz slipping away from his companions - thus the tv two parter gets across Fritz doesn't sleep alone - under the pretense of having to pee to secretly read with Wilhelmine. What they're reading is Fénelon's Telemaque, aka the "how to become a nifty prince and good human being" novel much beloved by FW's mother SC, Leopold Mozart and young Fritz, but not exactly FW), and the tv two parter uses this for a time jump between the children reading out loud from the novel to teenage Fritz and Wihelmine reciting from it by heart:





At this point Fritz is 15 and played Jan Kollwitz, grandson of legendary artist Käthe Kollwitz, who was 19 at the time of shooting when he played Fritz from age 15 to 18. Which makes him the youngest grown up Fritz actor in a visual take on the 1730 drama I've seen, and I have to say, the only one who actually looks as young as Fritz was, instead of the role going to guys in their late 20s or even 30s. Him having the body of a boy, not a man, also emphasizes that. What it also means, though, is that he's up to the literal and metaphorical heavyweight Günter Strack, who was in the 1980s a very much loved character actor popular for playing a lawyer in "Ein Fall für Zwei" (odd couple mystery series about a lawyer and a detective), who was cast against type here and relished every moment of it, bringing on both the brutality and FW's conviction that he loves his family and just can't understand how anyone can see it differently.

Costume and instrument gorgeousness await. Here are Wihelmine and Fritz playing lute and flute, respectively, at Monbijou:





And hanging out with the French envoy, who isn't Rottembourg.


A word about the envoys - other than Seckendorf, they tend to be several people at once. (For example, Guy Dickens is himself and Charles Hotham Snr. This French envoy is all the French envoys. There's some neat foreshadowing beyond the narrative scope of this two parter when the envoy urges Fritz to make plans for his future and Fritz, after joking about getting a new cook once Dad is dead, says he does have plans and some people will be surprised. I bet. What the scene also features is SD trying a conspiracy to have FW declared insane, though not very aptly.)

On to Mildred's favourite scene, wherein FW inspects his Long Fellows while a bored Fritz reads in the background.



All fun about FW's fetishism aside, this also a good character scene because FW, talking to the newest recruit, gets to hear stuff he doesn't like, and the audience gets infodumped about the Tall Guys and how they are recruited in a way that doesn't feel like info dump.

(Brief paraphrased summary: FW: So, settled in? All good? My guys have everything, and you're going to get a tall wife, too!
Tall Guy Claude: Everything but my freedom.
FW: I'm a busy King and thus not free, either, you know.
Claude: You don't get beaten up. I was when they brought me here.
FW: Let the doctor see this man. Sorry about that. You're still staying in my regiment, though.)

Seckendorf (the one in the white uniform - remember, white uniform = Austrian) comes to town, and his introduction scene with Grumbkow is another example of mixing exposition and character - we see them as wily schemers, but not over the top moustache twirling the way other versions do it, and find out Team Vienna is against the English Marriage project:



Time for more dysfunctional family meals. This is also the first but not the last time we see FW in a wheelchair at the start. He's in said chair on and off throughout both parts, and no one comments on it; the audience is expected to get that this is not an exception or something new, but his state of health. Note at this family meal, all the kids are appropriately older along side with Fritz and Wilhelmine:





Prayer before eating. The latest round of the FW vs SD marital warfare is about alternate matches for Wilhelmine, both of whom she declines. FW then offers some Old Testament thunder whereupon Fritz shows all those bible lessons were useful and offers a counter quote in defense of letting Wilhelmine choose her husband. FW isn't pleased. Kid AW doesn't have a line, but someone must have told the child playing him that kid AW is stunned at Older Brother quoting the bible at Dad:



FW gives Fritz two new companions/educators, Rochow and Katte. Now, two years plus of intense Frederician studies later, I can tell Katte thus is also given Keyserling's role. He's played by Jan Niklas, who in the 1980s won a lot of audience favor by playing young Peter the Great in the the miniseries "Peter the Great", and is also a rare Katte who does have the heavy eyebrows:





The expression is because he just witnessed FW saying the army will have to save the soul of the Crown Prince. FW and Fritz are both in the standard uniform (as per FW and onward) for Prussian Royalty, with the White Eagle order:



Katte and Fritz then have a meet cute when Fritz accidentally drops his secret Voltaire book and Katte recognizes it, thus endearing himself to Fritz as a Voltaire reader instantly. Very much not how it went in rl, but we're pressed for time.





Now, one valid critique of this two parter is that Katte and Fritz don't have many scenes together. The next time we see them, Katte is already a confidant, and he only has two and a half scenes in the first part. More in the second, but it's still undeniable that the episode doesn't build up their friendship but uses shorthand. Now that I know for sure what I guessed before, that it's based on Klepper's novel, I'm not surprised, because Klepper isn't interested in Katte as a character beyond what he means to the FW & Fritz relationship, and what executing him says about FW. Ditto Pigge the scriptwriter, who goes for the family relationships first and foremost.

Secret book hideout with Duhan, co-starring the red coat with golden stichings whiich made it into the war tribunal protocols.



On to Dresden. Here, the casting went for a 1980s German tv gag, because August the Strong is played by Siegfried Wischnewiski, also at that point a beloved main character of a detective tv show.



Note the black boy in an elaborate turban; this, I fear, is fairly typical for how poc servants were treated in 18th Century Europe - as "decorative".

Fritz gets to play flute at the Saxon court; note everyone ihas more expensive clothing than in Monbijou:



One party later, it's carneval time, and everyone, even FW, is in costume:



Fritz says hello to Quantz, who sits with the other musicians on the small balcony overlooking the room. Which is the kind of accurate detail I love in my historical movies.



Now, this version of young Fritz' romantic instincts are defintely drawn to women - first Orzelska, later Doris Ritter - but given that a) it's 1980, and b) neither relationship is an invention on Pigge's part, I'm not screaming "straigthwashing" here. (BTW: the scenes with Fritz and either lady aren't in Klepper's novel. Doris Ritter in Klepper's novel is talked about but only second hand, and Orzelska is also only mentioned.) Also, Mijou Kovacs, who plays the Countess Orzelska, looks really hot in the male costumes the series puts her in (accurate historical detail according to Pöllnitz):







Fritz, returned from Dresden, reports all to Wilhelmine (and fakes being sick so they can talk without an audience) complete with gleeful claim August the Strong was jealous of him. (This isn't from Klepper but it is from Wilhelmine's memoirs.)



They even have a playful tussle, and it's one of the very few times where you see these kids both laugh and be joyful:



Re: the two Fritz & Orzelska scenes: in the first one, Fritz talks like the hero of a galant Rokoko novel, which to us sounds cingeworthy, and I do think that's deliberate on the part of the scriptwriter, because it's the only time he does, including the second scene and later the one with Doriis Ritter. But reciting lines from a contemporary novel is exactly what a bookish teenager faced with his first opportunity to have sex would do. In the second scene, after she has visited him in Berlin, they have the exchange which to me sells the entire relationship as worth including in the two parter to me. It happens after Fritz' post coital "I love you!" is met with a nice, but firm reality check, she points out she can hardly be his mistress at this court, and sure as hell not his wife, so that was it, she'll go back to Dresden. Whereupon he says, indignantly: "But you can't love your father!" (Who, remember, in this version she also has a sexual relationship with.) And Orzelska, in a tone that's rueful, affectionate and sad at the same time, replies: "Do you love yours?"

(Which he can't answer. She then tells him she's brought Quantz along as a farewell present and exits screen left, still looking great in her Prussian uniform.)

Quantz, Fritz and Wilhelmine playing together. Quantz is another silent role (other than the playing), but they made the actor look as much as Quantz does on Menzel's famous "Flute Concert at Sanssouci" painting as possible:



Alas, they're busted by FW. This is the scene where the script works in both the hair dragging and the "if my father had done this to me, I'd have killed myself!" quote. Because this does not happen in front of the army, it's on the one hand less shameful in terms of Fritz' public standing, but otoh for a tv scene it's more effective, precisely because it's more intimate. Also, note witnesses Katte and Rochow in the background, looking on appalled:





(I tried to get a screencap of the actual hair pulling, but as with FW's later dragging of Wihelmine, got only blurry results.)

Wilhelmine comforts Fritz, who announces he'll make an ending one way or another, and the first part ends:





Part 2 opens with FW trying to have a normal conversation with his son. This only lasts a few minutes before he's spouting abuse again, and Fritz comes up with the "Sterbekittel" quote:





Aaaand it's time for Mildred's least favourite episode in the sorry saga, the Hubertus hunt where FW makes Fritz drink and drunken Fritz! comes out with the "I love my dad!" outburst that FW has no idea how to handle. Note the gigantic cup is actually modelled on the one standing at Wusterhausen in the Tobacco College room today; it was a present from August. Also, the envoy sitting next to Fritz in this version is Seckendorf, not Suhm, which makes sense since Seckendorf is the more important character to include in this story. (He's also showing a "okay, this is just too much" reaction feeling true to Seckendorf's letters to Eugene on the subject of the FW & Fritz relationship.)









Meanwhile, in the secret book hide hout, Fritz is starting the wrote the Anti Machiavell nine years ahead of time.



Doris Ritter. Played by an actress who's definitely not sixteen as historical Doris was. Der Thronfolger''s take on this is "romance", but also shows that Fritz unhesitatingly goes for it when his mother announces the English Marriage is finally a go, so the impression you get he's into Doris mostly for what she represents - a safe place of freedom and music - not as a serious mistress. (And indeed as in reality, FW will later learn they did not have sex.)



Katte finally has a scene with dialogue again, with Guy Dickens (who is also Hotham, remember), talking about Fritz and how escape plans are a terrible idea and need to be discouraged in his own interest, please!



FW kicks out Dickens/Hotham, SD can't believe it - so close! - and rants in front of Wilhelmine. They're both in their nightly attires; this is the only time we see adult Wilhelmine without her wig, and only one of two times for SD. (Played, btw, by Maria Schell, sister of Maximilian and thus minor German acting nobility at the time.)



The fateful journey south commences. Here the producers chose to let our Prussians travel in an open carriage. I doubt that - not on a long distance journey like that, far too dusty - but it's something you rarely see on tv, so here you are:







It's Keith Brother No First Name time! Presumably meant to be Peter and Not!Robert both. Fritz uses the opportunity when they both are a bit away from the rest of the party in order to relieve themselves (again, the two parter makes it very clear Fritz is hardly ever alone, and never when he's anywhere near his Dad) to start questing for accomplices.



Meanwhile, Katte delivers a previously written "Dear Wilhelmine, am off to do a runner!" letter from Fritz to Wilhelmine. She's not happy. He assures her that he's got everything under control, Fritz won't desert without him, he, Katte, has all the cash, and he hasn't gotten leave, so he stays in Berlin, which means Fritz won't leave without him, either. Wilhelmine isn't convinced, but suddenly switches from last name to first name when asking "Why is so much bitterness between us, Hans?" (He says he feels no bitterness towards her. This would actually be a good wrap up if we'd gotten any kind of hint Wilhelmine resents Katte before, but we did not.)





Arrival at Wesel. Because Peter von Keith does not exist as a separate entity in this film, FW doesn't freak out at Peter's desertion, FW breaks out because he's barely restrained himself ever since Keith the page spilled the beans (but did restrain himself for as long as they were outside of Prussian territory. It's General Mosel's finest hour:




Aaand FW has gotten the letter to Katte which Katte's cousin forwarded:



Der Thronfolger melds two separate occasions - SD throwing a party for absent FW's birthday on August 15th, which is when a smug Grumbkow, evidently already informed, gives cryptic hints to Wilhelmine, and FW's actual return some days later - into one and has Katte arrested by FW in iperson at the ball, then FW having a showdown with his wife and daughter.

First Katte:





The "Your son is dead! ...to me, I meant he's dead to me!" scene with SD:



FW and Wilhelmine. Again, of the actual hair dragging and beating, I only got very blurry unsuable screencaps.



Katte unfortunately accidentally mentioned Fritz' stash of secret books, which leads FW to the hideout and poor Doris. He orders a midwife and doctor to check her virginity but has her whipped anyway.



Also in the secret hideout: Duhan, and the books.



FW gets the mesage from the tribunal for the second time that they have decided on life in prison, not death. The guy nex to him is Grumbkow:



FW overrides the tribunal and signs Katte's death warrant:



Scene neither in Klepper's novel nor testified in rl: FW shows up in the middle of the night in SD's bedchamber, says he can't sleep, bursts into tears and says he only ever wanted the best, Fieke, clinging to her the way Fritz clung to him in the Hubertus hunt scene. SD accepts this, though she does not say a word. (Again, not in Klepper, though I guess Pigge wanted to show the two of them in a scene where they share something other than an argument.)





The big execution scene. It's dark, which makes sense - it's 6 in the morning and November!



Katte's death sentence gets read to him, complete with "The King says to tell him he's sorry, but it is better for him to die than for justice to leave this world":



Fritz shouting "Forgive me!" I should say her that Fritz really has to be dragged to the window, is shouting to Katte all the time and does faint.



Katte starts to remove his clothing. Note the window with Fritz in the background. This version has him executed directly in front, which as we know is a matter of much debate.





"There's nothing to forgive". Note that there are two pastors, as there were in rl.





Aaand execution plus fainting. The two parter begins and ends with Müller, in a room with Fritz, writing to FW, pleading for the King to be merciful to his son now. The end, though credits inform us Fritz while making Prussia a European superpower via questionable means became a lonely, distrustful individual who basically never recovered. Also the end of the longest pic spam I ever did!

Comments

[felis]

Awesome pic spam! Very interesting. (I went to check out the Youtube version at some point, but it had already been deleted.)

I'm fascinated by all the things this bothered to get right (or condense in a way that makes sense) and I definitely share your approval of the first family scene getting the complexity of the dynamics across and ringing true, vs. reducing everything to FW vs. Fritz. Big fan of the costumes and age-appropriate casting and I love your take on the Orzelska inclusion. Also, damn, Strack as FW, I can see it. Whereas yes, Katte's eyebrows, absolutely, thumbs up, but the actor is almost a bit too good-looking. :P

[selenak]

LOL, yeah, Jan Niklas is definitely the best looking male actor on that particular set. Then again, even less good looking Katte's lack pockmarks, just as I've yet to see a screen Mozart with pockmarks. Peter III with pockmarks does exist in one of the Ekaterina shows, but that's the only example I can think of where the makeup people went through the trouble.

Strack is really very good as FW. Just as Götz George is now my mental image for young FW, Strack is the one for middle-aged FW. The part is something actors can sink their teeth in, but there's always the danger of going over the top - precisely because FW was such an over the top person - and making it all monotonous. Which Günter Strack does not. For example, in the show's version of how patting turn into slaps - they chose a different gesture here, perhaps because the actor had to work with a rl child, so what FW does is take kid!Fritz' hand, shake it for emphasis while arguing with SD, and then the shake gets repeated again and again, more forcefully and roughly hitting the table each time, until Fritz, trying to pull his hand away, is practically thrown across the room by it. The big acting point here is that Strack sells you on not having intended to do this from the get go, that FW is doing this moment by moment without thinking about it, which makes it worse, because you can't plan ahead to protect yourself.

[cahn]

The big acting point here is that Strack sells you on not having intended to do this from the get go, that FW is doing this moment by moment without thinking about it, which makes it worse, because you can't plan ahead to protect yourself.

Yeah, ouch. And also that FW doesn't think he's the bad guy, it's not like he planned this ahead of time, Fritz and/or SD are just that frustrating! /FW-headspace

[mildred_of_midgard]

Thank you for basically showing us the movie! I always feel like I've practically read a book when you summarize it for us, and like cahn said, this is the next best thing to watching the DVD! (Probably better in my case, tbh.)

It's always so great when we revisit old works with new knowledge. We've come so far! (Lol, all my fic is now full of inaccuracies I didn't know when I wrote it. :P)

I tickled at how you remembered my favorite and least favorite scenes and my explanations for who gets executed with or without a shirt. :D

Peter III with pockmarks does exist in one of the Ekaterina shows, but that's the only example I can think of where the makeup people went through the trouble.

And there because his bout with smallpox is the focus of a whole plot point, and his reaction and other people's reactions (taken from history) to his scarring afterwards is a recurring bit of characterization. The scars aren't there solely as a nod to historical accuracy.

FW does is take kid!Fritz' hand, shake it for emphasis while arguing with SD, and then the shake gets repeated again and again, more forcefully and roughly hitting the table each time, until Fritz, trying to pull his hand away, is practically thrown across the room by it.

Well played, movie! And yeah, oof.

perhaps because the actor had to work with a rl child

What, you mean kids DON'T DESERVE THIS??

FW!!

[cahn]

This picspam is amazing! And also I feel like I have much more context to appreciate it in than when you talked about it at the start of salon :) (And also this is the next best thing to watching -- I'm finally in a headspace where I could and also appreciate it, and of course this means it's been taken down, bah.)

He and SD start to argue, Wilhelmine bursts into tears, SD yells at Wilhelmine to show the composure worthy of a Princess of Wales, FW and SD argue some with both children as the replacement targets for insults they don't aim directly at each other, FW gets physical, Fritz runs, and the whole thing culminates in FW's outburst that they aren't supposed to fear him, but to love him.

Oh man, that sounds very well done.

the dysfunction isn't just FW vs Fritz, that it's deeply (though not exclusively) rooted in the marital warfare between SD and FW, and that both Fritz and Wilhelmine have become weaponized by their parents in said warfare.

yesssss. :( Dysfunction all the way down!

Here are SD and all her children up to this point standing in waiting, in order of birth:

Aw, look at that smile on SD's face :(

On to Mildred's favourite scene, wherein FW inspects his Long Fellows while a bored Fritz reads in the background.

Still a hilarious screenshot, lol!

FW: So, settled in? All good? My guys have everything, and you're going to get a tall wife, too!

Omg, FW :P Poor tall guys!

Seckendorf (the one in the white uniform - remember, white uniform = Austrian)

haha, thank you, I need reminders!

Kid AW doesn't have a line, but someone must have told the child playing him that kid AW is stunned at Older Brother quoting the bible at Dad:

omg, AW's face, lol
Fritz's face too -- although there I don't want to laugh, it just seems so -- well, how he would look

Also, Mijou Kovacs, who plays the Countess Orzelska, looks really hot in the male costumes the series puts her in (accurate historical detail according to Pöllnitz)

I mean... yeah, you're not wrong.

But reciting lines from a contemporary novel is exactly what a bookish teenager faced with his first opportunity to have sex would do.

Aw, yeah, that does sound true to type <3

Whereupon he says, indignantly: "But you can't love your father!" (Who, remember, in this version she also has a sexual relationship with.) And Orzelska, in a tone that's rueful, affectionate and sad at the same time, replies: "Do you love yours?"

<33

It's General Mosel's finest hour:

Yayyyyy

FW shows up in the middle of the night in SD's bedchamber, says he can't sleep, bursts into tears and says he only ever wanted the best, Fieke, clinging to her the way Fritz clung to him in the Hubertus hunt scene. SD accepts this, though she does not say a word.

This is really interesting to me, and kind of makes sense -- especially to FW's thought that everyone should love him and he's not to blame.

The big execution scene. It's dark, which makes sense - it's 6 in the morning and November!

...I never thought of that. Of course. Ugh, that makes it even more, idk, gloomy than it was before in my head.

Katte starts to remove his clothing.

Did that really happen? or is it just so we can admire Jan Niklas I'd always got the impression that people got beheaded with their clothes on.

Thank you for this lovely picspam!

[selenak]

That it's no longer on YouTube was a big reason why I made this pic spam, and I'm thrilled you enjoy it!

Still a hilarious screenshot, lol!

I know.:) Also, either they found some actual tall guys, or that was some adroit camera positioning, but the size difference here really works, whereas both in Der König und sein Narr and Die preußische Hochzeit, the tall fellows aren't that much taller than the actors playing FW.

Did that really happen? or is it just so we can admire Jan Niklas I'd always got the impression that people got beheaded with their clothes on.

To quote eye witness Pastor Besser from my write up here:

The late departed talked little, but hidden in his soul happened a lot, and he listened to all speeches attentively. It is not a little thing to allow yourself be prepared for your death, to fall from the height of secular happiness to the abyss, and more, to say goodbye, to enter your spot of execution, to face the executioner, to listen to the unchanged death sentence, to remove your own clothing and to face your death.

Now, maybe the clothing removed was just the uniform jacket (not least because of the collar) and waistcoat; as I recall from my French Revolution movies, the men are usually depicted in their shirts sans waistcoats and jackets. But it might also be they went for a complete naked upper body - not in the French Revolution, mind, but with such ancien regime individual executions for the nobility, because then said bodies could be redressed in their clothing without blood stains on them. However the case may be, I think Mildred is right that the main reason why no previous screen Katte got to remove his shirt is that they didn't have as good a body as Jan Niklas. He also got a nude scene a few years later as young Peter in "Peter the Great". No screencaps, but here he is in costume:



Older Peter was played by Maximilian Schell, i.e. screen SD's brother.

[cahn]

Heh, Niklas as Peter -- I... can see why they gave him a nude scene :PP

Katte execution specialist, reporting for duty!

[mildred_of_midgard]

The big execution scene. It's dark, which makes sense - it's 6 in the morning and November!

...I never thought of that. Of course. Ugh, that makes it even more, idk, gloomy than it was before in my head.

As you know, this fandom for me is basically a quest to get a mental picture of Katte's execution that's as excruciatingly detailed as possible. So of course one of the first things I did in salon was research how much daylight there would have been. :DDD

This is what I found.

One, FW's order said 7 am. The most credible contemporary accounts (i.e. not Wilhelmine and the 1731 pamphlet) report that it happened "shortly after 7," "between 7 and 8," or "a quarter to eight." Some of the difference is probably the time that elapsed between when Katte was escorted out of his room, and when he was actually executed, taking into account the final walk, the farewell scene with Fritz, the reading aloud of the sentence, the saying goodbye to the people he knew who were watching, the undressing, etc.

Two, the sun rises at about 7:05 am in Küstrin on November 6 these days. November 6 is after Poland switches back from daylight savings time these days, and by 1730 Prussia was already on the Gregorian calendar, so I *think* that number should be roughly translatable back to November 6, 1730.

Furthermore, torches or no torches, FW wanted Fritz to have a good view, so I'm guessing he picked 7 am precisely so Fritz could see. Plus there's a tradition of executing people at dawn. So that's further evidence for me that the 7 am sunrise in 2021 probably translates more or less to a 7 am sunrise in 1730.

So I, who have way overthought this, am going with historically inaccurate for the pitch dark execution scene. ;) It should be around sunrise.

Did that really happen? or is it just so we can admire Jan Niklas I'd always got the impression that people got beheaded with their clothes on.

Wel, Schack says, "riß sich selbst das Hemd herunter," and Besser says, "entkleidete sich selber bis aufs Hemd." I'm not a German speaker, but the only way I can read the first one is that he's ripping off his own shirt. The second one depends on whether "bis" is inclusive, meaning he took off his clothes and stopped when he'd taken off his shirt, or exclusive, meaning he stripped down to his shirt.

I *think* bis is inclusive here, but help, selenak?

If so, we have two people saying he took off his shirt. If it's exclusive, then I would consider Besser's account more reliable, as he was actually present at the execution (not watching from a window) and Schack was still in the building, or at least that's my reading.

But I've seen at least 3 film depictions of this execution, and it's a strange coincidence that the only actor to be executed without a shirt was the only actor who looked like he had a torso that needed showing off to the audience. :P And I see Selena's with me on this one.

I checked all the other semi-credible accounts of the execution, btw, and they're all more vague, with Katte baring his neck or removing his clothing, without specific reference to a shirt.

[mildred_of_midgard]

(And also this is the next best thing to watching -- I'm finally in a headspace where I could and also appreciate it, and of course this means it's been taken down, bah.)

Do you want it? You did sort out the DVD region thing for Don Carlos, right? I forget. Anyway, if you want it, I'll gift it to you. :)

[cahn]

I did sort it out thanks to your help, thanks!

I... don't want it right now, selenak has got me hooked on Babylon 5 which is taking most of my watch mental cycles, PLUS it is her fault I have some other DVDs to watch! I would probably have at least tried to watch it if it had still been on youtube anyway (due to it being a little easier to watch without pre-processing) but... DVD is not happening right now :)