1740 and All That

Or, to give the full title: Life and Deeds of the Most Serene and Mighty King in Prussia, Friedrich Wilhelm I.

David Faßmann, as a reminder, came to FW's court in the later 1720s, gunning for Gundling's jobs, was, when various pastors refused to bury Gundling in a wine barrel, drafted by FW to hold the funeral service (and sermon) instead, wrote a satire on Gundling which formed Gundling's image for centuries, did get some of Gundling's jobs (though not Academy President) after Gundling's death, found the reality of working for FW so ghastly that he fled Prussia after a few months. His 1735 biography of FW which I'm reviewing here was written after FW's long and dangereous 1734 illness made a lot of people (including his oldest son and daughter) believe his demise was imminent (as can be seen from their letters). Presumably Fassmann wanted to get his royal biography out in time for the funeral, found there was no funeral, and published it anyway.

The result was a really lengthy book with a lot of royal declarations quoted. It's really noticeable that Fassmann didn't join FW's court until the later 1720s. Until that point, there isn't much about FW the person, it's just FW the model reform monarch. And good lord, pages upon pages of descriptions of SD's entrance in Berlin as a bride, or F1's wake and funeral procession. And so many royal declarations! There are some childhood anecdotes, though notably no unflattering ones (no Tiny Terror FW beating up his teacher or his cousin here!), for example the one where young FW swallows his golden shoe clip because he hates waste and splendor that much as a kid already.

The comparison to Morgenstern, writing just a few decades later, is instructive, because Fassmann and Morgenstern knew FW in roughly the same decade, and neither knew him when young, i.e. they're both referring hearsay. But Morgenstern is writing in Fritz' era, and so there's F1 bashing, Tiny Terror FW, SC criticism, and what might just be the earliest mention in a public source (as opposed to private correspondence not accessible to normal contemporaries) of young FW wanting to marry Caroline before he hooks up with SD. By contrast, Fassmann doesn't mention Caroline, SD was the perfect princess and then became the perfect Queen, and she and FW have the perfect marriage. What else!

Then we get into the later 1720s, and suddenly you get detailed stuff that actually feels like an eye wittness account, like this one about FW's 1728/1729 serious illness:

( A Model Monarch and his loving family: 1729 snapshot )

Absolutely no mention of any father/son problems until we get to the FW and Fritz tour of the summer of 1730. And there Fassmann first gives us the tourist attractions and FW's reaction to each of them as if he's writing a travelogue, which made me wonder whether he's actually going to skip over the entire incident. But no. After talking about FW, Mannheim tourist, he suddenly says, only slightly paraphrased: Oh, and on this journey, something went down between the King and the Crown Prince, which has been talked about so much that I guess I have to include it. Now I don't know what really happened, and nor do you, reader, and since neither of us will ever find out, let's just be joyful that the cloud of this sad disagreement has disappeared and now the King and the Crown Prince are living in perfect harmony again. True, this sad affair has cost this officer of the Regiment Gens d'Armes, one Herr von Katte, his head, and this despite him being the son of ultra respectable FW buddy and officer Hans Herrmann and the grandson of rich and respected Wartensleben. V. sad. But look, these things happen between royals! Future F1 also ran away from his Dad when he was still a Kurprinz! And hey, we can all read in the newspapers that Fritz of Wales hardly ever shows up at court but keeps staying at a place called Richmond. FW and Fritz aren't unusual, is what I'm saying. I hope people in high places won't hold it against me that I mentioned this wretched affair at all, it's just that it's so well known that my readers wouldn't trust me if I didn't mention it. Okay, so FW then went to Wusterhausen and spend the rest of the year there...

By contrast, his report on the bonkers Clement affair actually is pretty matter-of-factly and much as I've found it in other accounts. Fassmann doesn't doubt for a moment Clement was a gifted conman (with untrustworthy black eyes!) (also of small stature and fat! So it can't have been his looks, I guess...) and a lying liar. He doesn't mention that FW had a hard time giving up on Clement, but other than that, his account, as mentioned, is very much on the money. Interestingly, he does mention that in the fallout of the Clement affair SD's lady in waiting, Frau von Baspiel, had to leave the court after a brief Spandau interlude with her husband, but he doesn't include the fact that this was because while Frau von Baspiel had nothing to do with Clement or insane kidnap plans, she did in fact spy for the Saxons (and had been Manteuffel's mistress). Whether this is because Fassmann truly doesn't know or whether he wants to be discreet, I have no idea.

One more trivia fact: if his account of FW breaking the "you're going to get married" news to Friederike Louise is in any way correct, the Hohenzollern called this sister of Fritz' "Louise".

( Post 1731: Fassmann stalks FW via the papers )

( Bears! )

When Fassmann, near the end, lists all the members of the royal family, you can tell he likes Charlotte and Friederike Louise best of all the girls, because they get more than a page each, where Wilhelmine gets just a few lines saying she's a very virtuous and god fearing (!) model of a wife now. Fritz, future King, is now a wonderful person and all the world has only good things to expect from his reign. Heinrich he hasn't seen since Heinrich was five, but he thinks this is a smart kid who would make a good future Dompropst and theologian.

( That time FW had a son arrested and made him submit: little Heinrich edition )

There's also a lot about FW's good deeds for the Salzburg Protestants (giving them a new home), founding the famous Charité hospital, founding orphan houses and schools etc., all of which he did do, but good lord, this is in general a white washing/spin-meister job of the first order. I suspect Fassmann after a few years in the wilderness was short of cash and toyed with the idea of going back in the hope of getting rehired?

Lastly: Fassmann early on mentions FW being fluent in French from childhood onwards (true) and later insisting on only talking German to his children (also true and often testified) in order to make them love the language.

Now remember which language FW's children used near exclusively when grown up, and also (most of) their religious commitment in adulthood.

Fontane, when commenting on Heinrich's pretending to have forgotten his German in his old age: "One is tempted to call this the logical consequence of a childhood where German was rammed down one's throat."

Friedrich Nicolai (1733 - 1811) , bookseller, author and key figure of the early German Enlightenment, was also among many other things the author of a six-volume collection of Frederician anecdotes "Anekdoten von König Friedrich II. von Preussen, und von einigen Personen, die um ihn waren", published between 1788 (i.e. two years after Fritz' death) and 1792. They were part of a general rush of memoirs and anecdote colllections that went with a celebrity's death, but due to a life long passionate interest of Nicolai's better researched (in terms of what was available at the time) than most. Helpfully, Nicolai in 90% of the cases names his sources, and he was friends with three people who could boast of a decades long relationship with Fritz: Quantz the flute specialist and composer, the Marquis d'Argens and Quintus Icilius. Also, to his credit, if Nicolai between volumes got new information contradicting what he had published earlier, he brought this up in the next volume. Unsurprisingly given the sheer length of Fritz' life and the time of publication, a great many of the anecdotes hail from the later half of his life and/or from the wars, but in six volumes, there are enough of interest from the first half as well to make the reading worth one's while. Volume I is dedicated to Fritz' sister Charlotte, and the dedication mentions having talked to her, too, about her noble brother. Reminder: Niicolai was bff with Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, writer of some of German's most enduring classic plays and theoretical essays, who had ended up as Charlotte's librarian in Wolfenbüttel. The preface also mentions his buddy Dr. Zimmermann encouraging to publish, which is of deeply ironic in hindsight, since they're about to fall out, which is the subject of another post. Another motive for being a Fritz fan, err, an intense scholar of the late King's character and life, Nicolai gives is that he grew up in Fritz' Prussia, all the ideas he has about enlightenment etc. were formed there, he would not be who he became without Fritz. Aw. As for Charlotte, she even provided Nicolai with two of Fritz' letters, one he wrote to her after the death of her son Leopold, and the other just six days before his own death, which Nicolai prints here for the first time. (In the French original.) He promises to the readers that if he gets new information contradicting anything he tells in his first volume, he'll include it in the subsequent ones (and will keep the promise.)

The condoling letter is very Fritz (in a mild way way, I hasten to add): we must all die, alas, be a philosopher, accept it, even though I totally feel your pain as a tender mother, live for me, you are the happiness of my life. On to the juicy parts. The following text excerpts mostly hail from volumes 1, 2 and 6.

( That time when FW nearly caught Fritz playing flute with Quantz and Katte saved the day )

Nicolai's version of the 1730 escape attempt, in which he refutes some other versions as told in 1792 (this story is from the last volume, VI), consists of a letter written to him by a son of one of Katte's regiment comrades, Hertefeld, narrating his father's story. More about who said father was below, but first, the letter itself and Nicolai's introduction.

( Katte, Keith, Spaen and I: by Ludwig Casimir von Hertefeld )


( So who was von Hertefeld? )

mildred_of_midgard used this and other information to reconstruct Peter von Keith's succesful escape from Wesel on a map:

( How to escape FW and live, by Peter von Keith )

Now, just because Nicolai has eye witnesses doesn't, of course, mean what they say is 100& true. Not least because everyone is subjective as hell. Nowhere is this more evident than in Nicolai's Marquis D'Argens' based take on Friedrich's Sanssouci tableround, which is in volume 1.

( Marquis d'Argens: C'est moi, or: They were all rubbish except for me! )

One story in which the Marquis plays an undeniable noble part, but which is depressing and frustrating in what it says about the status of Jewish citizens in Frederician Prussia, is the tale of how Moses Mendelssohn, one of the foremost philosophers of his age, the likely model of Lessing's Nathan the Wise and grandfather of Felix the composer, got the "letter of protection", the Schutzbrief necessary for Jews to live in Berlin for reasons detailed in the story itself.

( How Moses Mendelssohn had to fight for citizenship )

In order not to finish on this note, here's one last Nicolai anecdote from volume 1:

In the year 1785, the King talked with a worthy man about the manner in which a young prince should be raised so that he could become a good regent. Among other things about how a future regent had to learn early how to use his power, but also how not to abuse it. He added: "Several things by their very nature are of a matter that a regent must never extend his power to influence them. Chief among these: Religion and love!" This is in my opinion one of the truest and most noble thoughts the regent of a great realm has thought or said.

(Or, as Voltaire expressed it: The freedom of thought and of the penis.)


Nicolai volume 2: opens with another promise to be truthful and correct when necessary in the preface, which also says if he'd known Unger would provide the public with so much of the Prince de Ligne's Fritz-meets-Joseph memoir (you know, the one which contains among other things the priceless "Fritz dressed in white to spare Austrian feelings" story) , he wouldn't have included his own translation here, especially since Unger didn't cut as much as he, Nicolai, had to. (BTW, Unger's translation is in the volume 17-19 Mildred just put up in the library.)

Then we get the volume proper which opens with the Ligne memoir in edited form, with Nicolai's annotations. The best bits were already in both Volz and the "Fritz and MT as seen by their contemporaries" collection, so I already quoted them for you.

Nicolai has a major section about FW and music, opening by telling the readers that they may be surprised to learn FW didn't hate music per se, there was some music he liked.

( FW, Music Lover...in his own way )

Nicolai mentions Fritz' depressed poems from the 7 Years War (among others, one to D'Argens) and since some of Voltaire's letters have now been printed, including two from that era where he urges Fritz to live, says that a sensitive heart could almost forgive Voltaire his dastardly behavior towards Fritz for the sake of these letters.

Otoh, he attacks "the author of the Vie Privée du Roi de Prusse, most likely Voltaire" for slandering Fritz re: the Battle of Mollwitz, and for others following suit. Reminder: the issue here is that Fritz was persuaded by Schwerin to retire from the battlefield and the battle was one without him. Nicolai furiously defends Fritz from the charge of cowardice and says geography alone proves he can't have gotten as far as Ratibor, and anyway, everyone knows Fritz was the bravest! Nicholai then gives an account of the battle and does say Fritz never forgave Schwerin for having made the suggestion or himself for listening, which strikes me as accurate.

As Nicolai likes the Prince du Ligne's memoir about Fritz very much, he only has two mild corrections: one, that of course Prussian officers were all fluent in French and if some spoke German with the Marchese de Lucchessini, it's not because they didn't know French but because Lucchessini is fluent in German, and two, about the Antinuous statue. (For the full story of the "Antinous" statue as relating to Friedrich II. and Katte, see Mildred's write up here. )

( Nicolai: Ligne is wrong about why the King liked to gaze at this statue! )

Spreaking of Friedrich's lonely hours, volume 2 also contains the inevitable dog anecdote:

Just like the King chose among his snuff boxes those he liked best, he chose among his greyhounds the companions of his lonely hours. Those who conducted themselves best were taken with him during the carnival times to Berlin.

(Reminder: The carnival lasted from December til March in Frederician Prussia. As Sanssouci was a summer palace, Fritz spent that time in the city palace in Berlin.)

They were driven to Berlin in a six hourse equipage supervised by a so called royal little footman who was in charge of their feeding and care. One assures us that this footman always took the backseat so the dogs could take the front seat, and always adressed the dogs with "Sie", as in: "Biche, seien Sie doch artig!" (Biche, be good), and "Alcmene, bellen Sie doch nicht so" (Alcmene, don't bark so much!)"

Nicolai finishes the volume by dissing Zimmermann's first Fritz publication; this, and the war between them is the subject of another post.

Jochen Klepper's novel Der Vater is hands down one of the most famous and original German 20th century novels dealing with Prussian history, and also the one designed to get Fredericians protesting, as it is 900 plus pages of FW as the tragic hero of the tale. (SD is the villain.) Incidentally, the first time I read this novel I was still in school, and it was in a severely abriged version, only about 300 pages which centred on the father/son drama. At a guess, that edition existed because some post war publisher figured that the Fritz of it was why most readers were interested in FW. It wasn't until last year that I came across the complete, uncut version, which I read; this was also the first time I read Klepper
since aquiring enough historical knowledge to judge how Klepper works with or around the facts. With the caveat: what facts and research he had access to, writing in the 1930s in Nazi Germany as an harrassed Protestant theologian and writer with a Jewish wife and daughter who would end up committing suicide with them not rather than see them taken away to camps not too long after Der Vater became his success against the odds. I know a novel should speak for itself, but this biographical background of Klepper's is worth keeping in mind when looking at his characterisation of FW, why FW as a character spoke to him - keep in mind that the Third Reich had simultanously a cult of genius leader figures going, of which their distorted image of Friedrich II. was one; Klepper's FW is very much a counterpoint and antithesis to this, among other things. Klepper also had a strict pastor as a father himself, whom he was in conflict with, and trying to understand FW went hand in hand with trying to understand his father. Last not least, there was his own religious struggle to understand why God let the horror around him happen. After the war ended, Klepper's sister Hildegard gave his diary to the Allied trial against Adolf Eichmann where it was used evidence (in session 51).

So much for the author. On to the novel itself.

Some impressions: the 900 plus pages version is still immensely readable if you like well written 1920s/1930s style historical novels, which I do (by which I mean the language and psychology is of that time as much as it's rokoko when directly quoting from documents), and I can see from this version, as I could not from the 300 pages one, why so many literary historians say about Klepper's FW is that he's supposed to be a counter image to Hitler and Franco, the good, morally responsible ruler (despite being also a tragic human being) who reforms his country out of bankruptcy and despite his military fetish keeps it out of war. Klepper makes much of the lesson young FW draws from participating in the battle of Malplaquet in 1709, which was the bloodiest, most devasting European battle (as a part of the Spanish War of Succession - essentially, think old Louis XIV against the rest of Europe) of that century until the 7 Years War, which was on the one hand celebrating the anniversary with fellow veterans like Grumbkow and Seckendorff every year but on the other doing his best to ensure something like this does not happen again within his life time, at least not involving Prussian/Brandenburg armies.

Unsurprisingly, Klepper is good with FW's religious struggles throughout his life. If you do know more history, however, it's noticeable that he goes out of his way to mitigate FW's abusive streak (for which his behavior towards Fritz isn't the only example).

( How Klepper deals with Gundling, Doris Ritter, and Katte )

( Klepper's SD: Ron the Death Eater? )

( Klepper's Wilhelmine: Hermione in a Harry/Draco story )

( The FW/Fritz relationship: tragedy with a Grey Havens ending )

( Klepper: must have read Gustav Volz )

( On young FW falling in love with the future Queen of England )

( On who deflowered FW )

( Klepper's Fritz: Definitely Gay )

Overall: Klepper's FW is presented as tragic but essentially a good man with flaws, at in the end understood as such by his children, including the two oldest ones, with his painful death being written as both atonment (like I said, Katte's death isn't presented as necessary or justified by Prussian law, but strictly because FW has convinced himself he needs a replacement sacrifice for his oldest son to God, in which he's wrong) and martyrdom (FW dies as justified in the Lutherian sense). This is achieved by a lot of editing, hardly unusual for a historical novel, of course, but at least it is a novel, not a biography.