Frederick II of Prussia

Biography: Frederick II

Frederick II (1712-1786), or Frederick the Great, was king of Prussia from 1740 to 1786. He combined the qualities of a warrior king with those of an enlightened despot.

The eldest son of Frederick William I of Prussia and of Princess Sophie Dorothea of Hanover, Frederick II was born in Berlin on Jan. 24, 1712. His father was a hardworking, unimaginative soldier-king, with no outward pretensions and no time to waste on superfluous niceties. Even as an adolescent Frederick, with the tacit support of his mother, rebelled against this mold. He preferred French literature to German and the company of young fops to that of old soldiers.

In 1730 Frederick and a young friend, Lieutenant Katte, planned a romantic escape to England, but their plot was discovered. The would-be escapees were arrested and condemned to death for desertion, and Katte was executed in Frederick's presence. The crown prince was spared upon the entreaties of Emperor Charles VI, although it is doubtful that his father ever intended to go through with the execution. Frederick, however, was imprisoned in the fortress of Küstrin in the most rigorous conditions until, after some 6 months, he voluntarily approached Frederick William with a request for pardon. For the next 2 years, although still nominally a prisoner, Frederick was employed in a subsidiary position of the local administration of Küstrin, thus learning the intricacies of the Prussian administrative system.

In 1732 Frederick was appointed commandant of an infantry regiment and, having decided to obey his father, he learned soldiering with all the thoroughness with which he had previously avoided it. In 1733, at his father's insistence, he married Elisabeth Christine of Braunschweig, but his aversion to women was so pronounced that the marriage was, over the many years it lasted, never consummated.

Between 1733 and 1740 Frederick, who had grown into a young man whose unimposing stature was balanced by piercing blue eyes, an aquiline nose, and a good chin, exceeded even the expectations of his father in his dedication to hard, dull routine. But he also found time to devote himself further to French literature, to begin a lifelong correspondence with a number of French philosophes, and to try writing himself. One product of this period was the Anti-Machiavel (1739), a work in which he argued that the Italian's ruthlessly practical maxims for princes were no longer compatible with the more advanced ethics of a new age. He was soon given the opportunity to test his own conduct against these views.

War of the Austrian Succession

On May 31, 1740, Frederick William died, and Frederick became king of Prussia as Frederick II. Before he had time to accustom himself to his new position, the death of Emperor Charles VI on October 20 created a political crisis and presented Frederick with a unique opportunity. Like all the other leading powers of Europe, Prussia had subscribed to the Pragmatic Sanction, guaranteeing the succession of Charles's daughter Maria Theresa and the integrity of her dominions. But it was an open secret that at least France and Bavaria intended to make demands upon Austria as soon as the Emperor was dead, and Frederick saw no reason to stand by while others enriched themselves at Austria's expense. He offered to assist Austria in the maintenance of its possessions in exchange for the cession of the rich province of Silesia to Prussia. When this outrageous piece of blackmail was indignantly rejected, in December Frederick marched his troops into Silesia, thus launching the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-1748).

In the first phase of this struggle the combined onslaught of Prussian, French, and Bavarian forces threatened to overwhelm Austria. Not wishing to bring about a situation more favorable to his potential rivals than to himself, Frederick withdrew from the war in 1742 with most of Silesia as his price. When Austria, relieved of the necessity of fighting the Prussians, threatened to crush its remaining enemies, Frederick reentered the war in 1744. The conflict was finally ended in 1748 with Silesia still firmly in Prussian hands.

Seven Years War

Since the Austrians were antagonistic over the loss of Silesia, Frederick had reason to fear a renewal of the struggle. In the aftermath of the war both sides engaged in complicated diplomatic maneuvers. Austria, which had enjoyed a tentative alliance with Russia since 1746, tried to strengthen this while making overtures toward its old enemy France. Frederick in turn concluded the Treaty of Westminster (1755) with Great Britain, promising Prussian neutrality in the war that had just broken out between France and England. These maneuvers led directly to the Diplomatic Revolution, which in 1756 left Prussia facing an overwhelming Continental alliance of Austria, Russia, France, and Saxony. Rather than await inevitable death by constriction, Frederick attacked Austria, which he regarded as the weakest among the great powers facing him. Thus began the Seven Years War (1756-1763).

In this conflict Frederick distinguished himself by continually keeping at bay much more powerful antagonists. He took advantage of the natural lack of cohesion of coalitions and fought his enemies, so far as possible, one at a time. The superior discipline of the Prussian army allowed Frederick to march it to the theater of war in small detachments, from various directions, uniting only shortly before a battle was to be fought. He also made the most of the oblique order of battle which he had inculcated in the Prussian army and which allowed him to concentrate his forces against emerging weak spots in his enemies' more ponderous formations.

In spite of these advantages, by 1762 Prussia was on the verge of bankruptcy, its army was in no condition to continue the war, and Russian troops had occupied Berlin. At this juncture Empress Elizabeth of Russia died; her successor, the mad Peter III, an admirer of Frederick, pulled Russia out of the war. Thus saved, Frederick was able to conclude the Peace of Hubertusberg (1763), which restored the prewar status quo.

The Seven Years War taught Frederick that, while Prussia's recently acquired position as a great power had been successfully defended, any further adventures in foreign policy had to be avoided at all costs. Hereafter his policy was a strictly defensive one, bent primarily on preventing changes in the balance of power. This became evident when, in 1772, it appeared as if Austria and Russia were about to succeed in partitioning the Ottoman Empire. As there was no chance of securing reasonable compensation for Prussia, Frederick blustered and threatened until the principals agreed on a three-way partition of Poland. In 1778, when Joseph II of Austria attempted to acquire Bavaria, Frederick reluctantly went to war but engaged in no more than a halfhearted war of maneuver of which the Austrians at last tired; and in 1784, when Joseph tried to trade the Austrian Netherlands for Bavaria, Frederick organized the League of German Princes to preserve the status of Germany.

Domestic Policies

Frederick had inherited a well-run state from his father, a circumstance that allowed him to fight his major wars. But he worked as hard at internal administration as at military leadership. He very reluctantly delegated authority, took all important decisions himself, and ruled through ministers responsible only to him. His ruthless insistence on hard work and honesty resulted in a doubling of the revenues of the state in his reign and a tripling of the available reserve fund, this last in spite of the devastation associated with the Seven Years War.

Frederick continued the traditional Prussian policy of encouraging immigration of economically productive elements, particularly peasants, into the more backward and underpopulated areas of the state. In contrast, his policy toward the established peasantry tended to be restrictive. In spite of the spirit of the times, he refused to abolish serfdom where it existed, fearing that such a measure would weaken the landed nobility, which produced both officers for his army and officials for his civil service.

In economics Frederick was a strict mercantilist, fostering the rather backward domestic industry with high tariffs wherever he could. He did not, however, extend these notions to the building of a fleet, so that Prussia did not participate in the great expansion of European overseas trade of the second half of the 18th century.

Apart from purely pragmatic measures, Frederick's reign was not a time of considerable reform. The one exception is the area of judicial procedure, where the efforts of his minister of justice, Cocceji, resulted not merely in a more extensive codification of the law but in the acceptance of the principle that the law is foremost the protector of the poor and the weak.

During his reign Frederick continued to concern himself with literature and music. He became, in a sense, the host of the most famous salon in Europe. Voltaire was only the best known of the philosophes to take advantage of his hospitality. The Prussian Academy of Sciences, which had long languished and which he renewed in 1744, provided much-needed subsidies for both major and minor luminaries of the French Enlightenment. At the same time Frederick had no use for those obstinate enough to persist in writing in "barbaric" German, and the young Goethe was not the only German author deprived of royal assistance for this reason.

But Frederick was not content to be merely a patron of literature. He found time to produce, besides Anti-Machiavel, the Mirror of Princes and a series of histories dealing with his own affairs that at his death filled 15 volumes.

An Assessment

Frederick was both lionized and vilified long after his death. In Germany his more nationally minded admirers produced a cult of Frederick the Great, the precursor of the all-German hero. In other countries he was blamed as the inventor of an implacable German militarism let loose upon the world. Both these views are gross distortions. Frederick was always a Prussian nationalist, never a German one. And while he was a soldier-king, his pervasive interests throughout his life were nonmilitary. The latter part of his reign was unquestionably pacific and in some cases even propitiatory in nature.

Frederick did not have a first-rate analytical mind, but Voltaire's denunciations of him after their famous quarrel do not sound much more convincing than his panegyrics when he still hoped to get some of the royal money. Frederick was parsimonious, perhaps to a fault, but his funds were in fact severely limited. His treatment of his queen, whom he refused even the right to reside near him, was perhaps unforgivable. Frederick II died at his beloved summer residence, Sans-Souci, near Potsdam on Aug. 17, 1786, and was followed on the throne by his nephew Frederick William II.

Further Reading

Among the older English biographies of Frederick, the best is probably W. F. Reddaway, Frederick the Great and the Rise of Prussia (1904). Other useful biographies are Edith Simon, The Making of Frederick the Great (1963), and D. B. Horn, Frederick the Great and the Rise of Prussia (1964). Gerhard Ritter, Frederick the Great: An Historical Profile (1936; 3d ed. 1954; trans. 1968), and G. P. Gooch, Frederick the Great: The Ruler, the Writer, the Man (1947), are both stimulating essays dealing with aspects of Frederick's life. See also John A. Marriott and Charles G. Robertson, The Evolution of Prussia: The Making of an Empire (1915; rev. ed. 1946); Hajo Holborn, History of Modern Germany, vol. 2 (1963); Peter Gay, The Enlightenment: An Interpretation (2 vols., 1966-1969); and Walter Henry Nelson, The Soldier Kings: The House of Hohenzollern (1970).

Additional Sources

Abulafia, David, Frederick II: a medieval emperor, London: Allen Lane, 1988; New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.

Duffy, Christopher, Frederick the Great: a military life, London:Routledge & K. Paul, 1985.

Duffy, Christopher, The military life of Frederick the Great, New York: Atheneum, 1986, 1985.

Mitford, Nancy, Frederick the Great, London; New York: Penguin Books, 1995.

Simon, Edith, The making of Frederick the Great, Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1977.

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Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: Frederick II

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(born Jan. 24, 1712, Berlin — died Aug. 17, 1786, Potsdam, near Berlin) King of Prussia (1740 – 86). The son of Frederick William I, he suffered an unhappy early life, subject to his father's capricious bullying. After trying to escape in 1730, he submitted to his father but continued to pursue intellectual and artistic interests. On his father's death (1740), Frederick became king and asserted his leadership. He seized parts of Silesia during the War of the Austrian Succession, strengthening Prussia considerably. He invaded Saxony in 1756 and marched on into Bohemia. Frederick was almost defeated in the Seven Years' War (1756 – 63), until his admirer Peter III signed a Russo-Prussian peace treaty that lasted until 1780. The First Partition of Poland in 1772 led to enormous territorial gains for Prussia. Austro-Prussian rivalry led to the War of the Bavarian Succession (1778 – 79), a diplomatic victory for Frederick, but continued fear of Habsburg ambitions led him to form a league of German states against Joseph II. Under Frederick's leadership Prussia became one of the great states of Europe, with vastly expanded territories and impressive military strength. In addition to modernizing the army, Frederick also espoused the ideas of enlightened despotism and instituted numerous economic, civil, and social reforms.

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Columbia Encyclopedia: Frederick II

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Frederick II or Frederick the Great, 1712-86, king of Prussia (1740-86), son and successor of Frederick William I.

Early Life

Frederick's coarse and tyrannical father despised the prince, who showed a taste for French art and literature and no interest in government and war. At the age of 18 Frederick, who had been repeatedly humiliated and ill-treated, planned to escape to England. He was arrested, imprisoned, and forced to witness the beheading of his friend and accomplice, Lieutenant Katte. Frederick submitted to his father and was released. In 1733, at his father's request, he married Elizabeth of Brunswick-Bevern, but he separated from her shortly afterward and for the rest of his life showed no interest in women.

Prince Frederick spent the next few years at Rheinsberg, where he wrote his Anti-Machiavel, an idealistic refutation of Machiavelli, and began his long correspondence with Voltaire. His period of relative inactivity ended with his accession to the throne in 1740, after which Frederick immediately showed the qualities of leadership and decision that were to characterize his reign.

Foreign Affairs

In the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-48) against Maria Theresa, Frederick invaded Silesia without warning, simultaneously offering his aid to Maria Theresa if she ceded a portion of Silesia to him. A brilliant campaigner, Frederick acted with utter disregard of his allies, notably France, and twice concluded separate peace treaties with Maria Theresa (1742, 1745), both times securing Upper and Lower Silesia for Prussia.

In the Seven Years War (1756-63), possession of Silesia was again in dispute; Maria Theresa wished to recover it, and Frederick faced a strong coalition including Austria, Russia, and France. England was his only strong ally. Victorious at Rossbach and Leuthen (1757), he was routed (1759) at Kunersdorf by the Austro-Russian forces, who in 1760 occupied Berlin. In that dark period, it is said, Frederick was on the verge of suicide. However, the accession (1762) of his admirer, Peter III of Russia, took Russia out of the war and opened Frederick's way to victory.

The Peace of Hubertusburg (1763) left Frederick his previous conquests and made Prussia the foremost military power in Europe. He was brilliantly assisted by his principal generals, Seydlitz, James Keith, Ferdinand of Brunswick, Hans Joachim von Zieten, and others. Frederick is widely recognized as the 18th century's greatest general and military strategist. His tactics were studied and admired by Napoleon Bonaparte and exerted great influence on the art of warfare.

After the peace of 1763 Frederick promoted an alliance with Russia, which had nearly defeated him in the Seven Years War. The establishment of a Russo-Prussian alliance prepared the way for the eventual dismemberment of Poland. By the first partition of Poland (see Poland, partitions of) in 1772, Frederick vastly expanded the limits of Prussia. His rivalry with Austria persisted. He opposed any attempts by Austria to extend its power within the Holy Roman Empire and instigated the War of the Bavarian Succession (1778-79) to prevent Austrian annexation of Bavaria. He also created (1785) the Fürstenbund [league of princes] to check Austrian schemes.

Internal Affairs

Frederick continued his father's fundamental domestic policies. His first care was the strength and discipline of his army. An "enlightened despot," he instituted important legal and penal reforms, set up trade monopolies to create new industries, forwarded education, and accomplished internal improvements such as drainage projects, roads, and canals. Though he improved the lot of his own serfs, the nobility had more control over their peasants after his reign than before.

Character

Frederick was tolerant in religious matters, personally professing atheism to his intimates. Cold and curt, he relaxed only during his famous midnight suppers at Sans Souci, his residence at Potsdam. There he was surrounded by a group of educated men, mostly French, that included at times Voltaire (who broke with him in 1753 but who later resumed his friendship from a safe distance), d'Alembert, La Mettrie, and Maupertuis.

Frederick's wit was corrosive and icy. He wrote inconsequential poetry and remarkable prose on politics, history, military science, philosophy, law, and literature. Nearly all his writings were in French. He failed to appreciate such men as Lessing and Goethe, who were among his most ardent admirers. A pupil of Quantz, he played the flute creditably, and he composed marches, concertos for the flute, and other pieces. Frederick's personal appearance in his later years-small, sharp-featured, untidy, and snuff-stained-has become part of the legend of "Old Fritz." He was succeeded by his nephew, Frederick William II.

Bibliography

See J. D. E. Preuss, ed., Œuvres de Frédéric le Grand (33 vol., 1846-57). See also biographies by Carlyle and Macaulay, both classics, and the more scholarly studies by G. Ritter (1936, tr. 1968), P. Gaxotte (tr. 1941), G. P. Gooch (1947), L. Reiners (1952, tr. 1960), P. Paret, ed. (1972), W. Hubatsch (1976), and D. Fraser (2002).

History 1450-1789: Frederick II

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Frederick II (Prussia) (1712–1786; ruled 1740–1786), king of Prussia. In 1740 the years of general peace that had prevailed in Europe since the conclusion the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1714) came to an end. In May 1740 Frederick William I (ruled 1713–1740) died and was succeeded by his son Frederick II (Frederick the Great). In October 1740 Charles VI (ruled 1711–1740) of Austria died unexpectedly and was succeeded by his daughter Maria Theresa (1717–1780) as sovereign of the Austrian lands. The new Prussian king used the opportunity to seize the rich Austrian province of Silesia, beginning the War of the Austrian Succession (1740–1748) and the Seven Years' War (1756–1763). Frederick's victories in these wars raised Prussia to the rank of the great power that became, in the next century, the creator of a united Germany.

Frederick brought to his task of expanding and ruling Prussia an unusual temperament. As a youth he was interested in art and music. He played the flute, composed music, and admired the music of Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750), whose son Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (1714–1788) was the Prussian court composer. Frederick's relationship with his crude martinet of a father alternated between the explosively antagonistic and the coldly distant. But in the end he was his father's son. Flute and composition gave way to success in war and to a religion of the state, with the prince as its first servant. Reason of state became the cynical Frederick's secular creed, to which he consecrated both his life and the lives and fates of his subjects. After the wars Frederick became a misanthrope, nursing an almost pathological suspicion of everyone he knew and every report he read. But in spite of bad health and bad temper, he continued to work, spending endless hours alone reading reports and writing orders and comments, which he interrupted, when he felt up to it, with surprise inspections that terrified superior and subordinate alike. He held his officials to the same standards of diligence and honesty he maintained for himself, and the phrase "to work for the king of Prussia" became an eighteenth-century expression for working long and hard for low pay and no appreciation. But Frederick, the harsh and grim autocrat, saw it all as benefiting the one thing he loved, the Prussian state.

The Wars

In the autumn of 1740, seizing the moment, Frederick occupied Silesia. After securing it, he offered both payment and alliance to the outraged Maria Theresa, who rejected both and prepared for war. By 1741 all of Europe west of Russia was at war with someone. Although alliances shifted, as did military fortunes, in the War of the Austrian Succession, Prussia held onto Silesia. By the Treaty of Dresden (1745) Prussia retained Silesia, and in the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (1748) all other conquests were rescinded. Eight years of war had brought gain to Prussia and substantial destruction to all the rest.

The Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle satisfied no one. Austria was not reconciled to the loss of Silesia, and Maria Theresa schemed to get it back. In May 1756 she engineered the Diplomatic Revolution, in which France, after nearly three hundred years of enmity toward Austria, joined Austria and Russia against Prussia. Frederick derisively called the new triple alliance the "petticoat plot," since it was negotiated by Maria Theresa of Austria, Empress Elizabeth (ruled 1741–1762) of Russia, and Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson (Madame de Pompadour; 1721–1764), mistress of Louis XV (ruled 1715–1774), of France. Ridicule, however, was reserved for public consumption; privately Frederick worried about the new coalition sufficiently to begin the war himself in August 1756 by occupying Saxony and seizing its treasury and supplies. When the fighting began, Frederick, for one, would be in a favorable position.

Frederick needed every advantage he could grab, for the alliance was as strong as he had feared. Although Frederick had exceptional military skills and won more battles than he lost, he still could not win every time. He did defeat the French so decisively at Rossbach (1757) and Minden (1759) that they were effectively driven from the war. But Austria and Russia were more substantial foes. By 1759 Frederick had been thrown on the defensive, and in 1760 Austria took Saxony, while the Russians burned Berlin. In 1762, when it looked as if Frederick would lose the war, Empress Elizabeth of Russia died, and her successor Peter III (ruled 1762), who admired Frederick, concluded a peace treaty with him. Austria could not continue the war alone, and on 23 February 1763 signed the Treaty of Hubertusburg with Prussia. Frederick retained Silesia.

Although Frederick was pleased with the acquisition of Silesia and with the rise of Prussia as a great power, he also realized that marauding armies, including his own, had devastated every part of Prussia. Frederick continued expansion after 1763, taking the province of Posen (Poznan) in the first partition of Poland in 1772, but he engaged habitually in a diplomacy of peace, desiring to settle all international issues by negotiation. His attention turned to rebuilding Prussia.

The Society

Frederick brought to administration the same ideals that animated his fellow enlightened despots in Austria, Savoy, Tuscany, and Spain. He too strove to increase royal centralization and to impose uniformity upon the varying local and class privileges in Prussia. The technique he used was cameralism, government by committees and councils of administrators. He retained the General Directory established by his father but undercut its broad authority by creating several independent and competing councils, beginning with Commerce and Industry (1741), then War Supplies (1746), Excises and Tolls (1766), Mines (1768), and Forestry (1770). Cameralism fostered reports to the royal autocrat, secrecy in all deliberations and recommendations, and an incurable tendency toward caution and procedure (red tape). But efficiency was not Frederick's goal, autocracy was, and cameralism was well suited to deferring all decisions to the king.

Frederick's internal reforms were centered on three general areas, agriculture, commerce and manufacture, and law. In all of these areas Frederick followed the general ideals of enlightened despotism, the idea that a philosophical autocrat, with the best interests of his or her people at heart, could reform the inherited maze of medieval anomalies, privileges, exemptions, and class structures that stood athwart progress toward a more just, prosperous, and efficient state.

In the area of law Frederick and his successor Frederick William II (ruled 1786–1797) achieved what all other eighteenth-century monarchs, enlightened or not, tried and failed to do. They created a unified law code for the entire realm. In 1781 Frederick issued a general reform of civil procedure. Completed in 1794, this code made Prussian justice the most honest and efficient in Europe, no small achievement, and it guaranteed liberty of religion, again not insignificant. It secured private property but left serfdom untouched. Free persons (excluding serfs, of course) had guaranteed civil rights, but the legal predominance of the landed nobility was also established. It was a code that provided some liberty but with an emphasis on the rights of the state.

Frederick's agricultural policies were a combination of modern state support and retention of serfdom. He drained swamps, particularly in the Oder Valley and in Brandenburg. He settled immigrants on vacant lands that had been depopulated by war or reclaimed from swamps and forests. He gave peasants tax rebates, grain, fodder, animals, and timber to build or rebuild. To the landed nobility, who were the chief support of the Prussian monarchy, he gave money and tax rebates and support for the institution of serfdom. New crops, such as turnips and potatoes, were introduced through royal patronage, along with better cattle and improved crop rotation. In the end, as is so often the case, the nobles with large farms benefited more than did the peasants with small ones.

Frederick's efforts in commerce and manufacturing complemented his agricultural policies and followed the standard mercantilist policies of the eighteenth century. He built canals to connect the Oder and the Elbe, thus opening north central Europe to Prussian products. He expanded the harbor at Szczecin (Stettin) on the Oder to increase north-south trade from Silesia to the Baltic. Frederick invited textile workers from abroad to Prussia, abolished internal tolls to create a free trade area within Prussia, and established a state bank (1766) to extend credit to industrial enterprises. The investment of state funds, a basic mercantilist idea, reached the huge sum of sixty million talers by Frederick's death in 1786. The king also reorganized and rationalized the Prussian tax structure (1776) with the result that royal income rose. Frederick's general economic policies, both in industry and in agriculture, reflected standard Continental opinion concerning royal responsibility for national prosperity.

A general evaluation of the reign of Frederick the Great must center around his greatest concern, the state. Liberty for subjects was not important, nor was anything beyond liberty of religion granted. The state became more efficient, more powerful, and more competitive internationally, reflecting Frederick's mercantilist beliefs as an autocrat and a warrior who made peace rather than war a continuation of policy by other means.

Bibliography

Carsten, F. L. The Origins of Prussia. Oxford, 1954.

Ergang, R. R. The Potsdam Fuehrer: Frederick William I, Father of Prussian Militarism. New York, 1941.

Gooch, G. P. Frederick the Great: The Ruler, the Writer, the Man. New York, 1947.

Rosenberg, Hans. Bureaucracy, Aristocracy, and Autocracy: The Prussian Experience, 1660–1815. Cambridge, Mass., 1958.

—JAMES D. HARDY, JR.

Quotes By: (Frederick II) Frederick The Great

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Quotes:

"I must in the face of a storm, think, live and die as a king."

"In trying to defend everything he defended nothing."

"An educated people can be easily governed."

"Every man must get to Heaven his own way."

"They say that kings are made in the image of God. If that is what he looks like, I feel sorry for God."

"Don't forget your great guns, which are the most respectable arguments of the rights of kings."

See more famous quotes by (Frederick II) Frederick The Great

Artist: Frederick the Great

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Similar Artists:

Johann Sebastian Bach, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach

Born: January 24, 1712
Died: August 17, 1786
Genres: Classical
Instrument: Main Performer Representative Album: "Three Flute Concertos"

Biography

There are instances of European monarchs laying claim to composer's credits for music of their era -- best known is the example of songs attributed to England's King Henry VIII. In the case of Frederick the Great, also known as Frederick II of Prussia, the composition talent was very real, as were his musical abilities. He was taking instruction in the organ at age seven, and beginning in 1728, when he was 16 years old, he began taking instruction from flautist/composer Johann Joaquim Quantz. Frederick's father saw no purpose to his son's musical training and ordered its halt, but beginning in 1732, the crown prince maintained a chamber orchestra and took instruction in composition from its conductor, Carl Heinrich Graun.

Frederick's instrument was the flute, which he played for his own pleasure, as much as four times a day. Following his ascent to the throne in 1740 as Frederick II, he engaged Quantz at court under a very generous agreement. Frederick's interest in music caused him to take a serious interest in its creation within his domain, so that he even dictated the forms and shapes that any music written at court should take at Potsdam. He played only the works of Quantz, who authored 296 flute concertos for the king -- Frederick also wrote his own pieces, 122 sonatas for flute along with four concertos and four symphonies, as well as numerous other smaller scale works, all of which have survived. The four flute concertos are considered among the finest works of this talented amateur composer, who wrote for purposes of entertainment. ~ Bruce Eder, All Music Guide

Wikipedia: Frederick II of Prussia

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Frederick II

Frederick II, aged 68, by Anton Graff
King of Prussia; Elector of Brandenburg
Reign	1740–1786
Predecessor	Frederick William I
Successor	Frederick William II

Spouse	Elisabeth Christine of Brunswick-Bevern
House	House of Hohenzollern
Father	Frederick William I of Prussia
Mother	Sophia Dorothea of Hanover
Born	24 January 1712(1712-01-24) Berlin, Prussia
Died	17 August 1786 (aged 74) Potsdam, Prussia
Burial	Sanssouci, Potsdam

Frederick II (German: Friedrich II.; 24 January 1712 – 17 August 1786) was a King of Prussia (1740–1786) from the Hohenzollern dynasty.^[1] In his role as a prince-elector of the Holy Roman Empire, he was Frederick IV (Friedrich IV.) of Brandenburg. He was in personal union the sovereign prince of the Principality of Neuchâtel. He became known as Frederick the Great (Friedrich der Große) and was nicknamed der alte Fritz ("Old Fritz").

Interested primarily in the arts during his youth, Frederick unsuccessfully attempted to flee from his authoritarian father, Frederick William I, after which he was forced to watch the execution of a childhood friend named Hans Hermann von Katte. Upon ascending to the Prussian throne, he attacked Austria and claimed Silesia during the Silesian Wars, winning military acclaim for himself and Prussia. Near the end of his life, Frederick united most of his disconnected realm through the First Partition of Poland.

Frederick was a proponent of enlightened absolutism. For years he was a correspondent of Voltaire, with whom the king had an intimate, if turbulent, friendship. He modernized the Prussian bureaucracy and civil service and promoted religious tolerance throughout his realm. Frederick patronized the arts and philosophers. Frederick is buried at his favorite residence, Sanssouci in Potsdam. Because he died childless, Frederick was succeeded by his nephew, Frederick William II of Prussia, son of his brother, Prince Augustus William of Prussia.

1 Youth
2 Crown Prince
3 Kingship
4 Frederick in popular culture
5 Ancestry
6 Footnotes
7 Further reading
8 See also
9 External links

Youth

Frederick was born in Berlin the son of King Frederick William I of Prussia and Sophia Dorothea of Hanover. The so-called "Soldier-King", Frederick William had developed a formidable army and encouraged centralization, but was also known for his authoritarianism and temper. He would strike men in the face with his cane and kick women in the street, justifying his outbursts as religious righteousness. In contrast, Sophia was well-mannered and well-educated. Her father, George, Elector of Hanover, was the heir of Queen Anne of Great Britain. George succeeded as King George I of Great Britain in 1714.

The birth of Frederick was welcomed by his grandfather with more than usual pleasure, as two of his grandsons had already died at an early age. Frederick William wished his sons and daughters to be educated not as royalty, but as simple folk. He had been educated by a Frenchwoman, Madame de Montbail, who later became Madame de Rocoulle, and he wished that she should educate his children. Frederick was brought up by Huguenot governesses and tutors and learned French and German simultaneously. In spite of his father's desire that his education be entirely religious and pragmatic, the young Frederick, with the help of his tutor Jacques Duhan, procured for himself a three thousand volume secret library of poetry, Greek and Roman classics, and French philosophy to supplement his official lessons.^[2]

Although Frederick William I was raised a devout Calvinist, he feared he was not of the elect. To avoid the possibility of Frederick having the same motives, the king ordered that his heir not be taught about predestination. Although he was largely irreligious, Frederick adopted this tenet of Calvinism, despite the king's efforts. It is unknown if the crown prince did this to spite his father, or out of genuine religious belief.^[3]

Crown Prince

Frederick as King of Prussia

In early 1730, Queen Sophia Dorothea attempted to orchestrate a dual marriage of Frederick and his sister Wilhelmina with Amelia and Frederick, the children of King George II of Great Britain. Fearing an alliance between Prussia and Great Britain, Field Marshal von Seckendorff, the Austrian ambassador in Berlin, bribed Field Marshal von Grumbkow and Benjamin Reichenbach, the Prussian Minister of War and Prussian ambassador in London, respectively. The pair discreetly slandered the British and Prussian courts in the eyes of the two kings. Angered by the idea of the effete Frederick being so honored by Britain, Frederick William presented impossible demands to the British, such as Prussia acquiring Jülich and Berg, leading to the collapse of the marriage proposal.^[4]

Frederick found an ally in his sister, Wilhelmina, with whom he remained close for life. At age 16, Frederick had formed an attachment to the king's 13-year-old page, Peter Karl Christoph Keith. Wilhelmina recorded that the two "soon became inseparable. Keith was intelligent, but without education. He served my brother from feelings of real devotion, and kept him informed of all the king's actions."^[5]

When he was 18, Frederick plotted to flee to England with Hans Hermann von Katte and other junior army officers. While the royal retinue was near Mannheim in the Electoral Palatinate, Robert Keith, Peter's brother, had an attack of conscience when the conspirators were preparing to escape and begged Frederick William for forgiveness on 5 August 1730;^[6] Frederick and Katte were subsequently arrested and imprisoned in Küstrin. Because they were army officers who had tried to flee Prussia for Great Britain, Frederick William leveled an accusation of treason against the pair. The king threatened the crown prince with the death penalty, then considered forcing Frederick to renounce the succession in favour of his brother, Augustus William, although either option would have been difficult to justify to the Reichstag of the Holy Roman Empire.^[7] The king forced Frederick to watch the decapitation of his confidant Katte at Küstrin on 6 November, leaving the crown prince to faint away and suffer hallucinations for the following two days.^[8]

Frederick was granted a royal pardon and released from his cell on 18 November, although he remained stripped of his military rank.^[9] Instead of returning to Berlin, however, he was forced to remain in Küstrin and began rigorous schooling in statecraft and administration for the War and Estates Departments on 20 November. Tensions eased slightly when Frederick William visited Küstrin a year later, and Frederick was allowed to visit Berlin on the occasion of his sister Wilhelmina's marriage to Margrave Frederick of Bayreuth on 20 November 1731. The crown prince returned to Berlin after finally being released from his tutelage at Küstrin on 26 February 1732.

Frederick William considered marrying Frederick to Elisabeth of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, the niece of Empress Anna of Russia, but this plan was ardently opposed by Prince Eugene of Savoy. Frederick himself proposed marrying Maria Theresa of Austria in return for renouncing the succession. Instead, Eugene persuaded Frederick William, through Seckendorff, that the crown prince should marry Elisabeth Christine of Brunswick-Bevern, a Protestant relative of the Austrian Habsburgs.^[10] Although Frederick wrote to his sister that, "There can be neither love nor friendship between us,"^[5] and he considered suicide, he went along with the wedding on 12 June 1733. He had little in common with his bride and resented the political marriage as an example of the Austrian interference which had plagued Prussia since 1701. Once Frederick secured the throne in 1740, he prevented Elisabeth from visiting his court in Potsdam, granting her instead Schönhausen Palace and apartments at the Berliner Stadtschloss. Frederick bestowed the title of the heir to the throne, "Prince of Prussia", on his brother Augustus William; despite this, his wife remained devoted to him.^[11]

Frederick was restored to the Prussian Army as Colonel of the Regiment von der Goltz, stationed near Nauen and Neuruppin. When Prussia provided a contingent of troops to aid Austria during the War of the Polish Succession, Frederick studied under Prince Eugene of Savoy during the campaign against France on the Rhine.^[12] Frederick William, weakened by gout brought about by the campaign, granted Frederick Schloss Rheinsberg in Rheinsberg, north of Neuruppin. In Rheinsberg, Frederick assembled a small number of musicians, actors and other artists. He spent his time reading, watching dramatic plays, making and listening to music, and regarded this time as one of the happiest of his life. Frederick formed the "Bayard Order" to discuss warfare with his friends; Heinrich August de la Motte Fouqué was made the grand master of the gathering.

The works of Niccolò Machiavelli, such as The Prince, were considered a guideline for the behavior of a king in Frederick's age. In 1739, Frederick finished his Anti-Machiavel, an idealistic refutation of Machiavelli. It was published anonymously in 1740, but Voltaire distributed it in Amsterdam to great popularity.^[13] Frederick's years dedicated to the arts instead of politics ended upon the 1740 death of Frederick William and his inheritance of the Kingdom of Prussia.

Kingship

Growth of Brandenburg-Prussia (1600-1795).

Before his accession, Frederick was told by D'Alembert, "The philosophers and the men of letters in every land have long looked upon you, Sire, as their leader and model." Such devotion, however, had to be tempered by political realities. When Frederick ascended the throne as "King in Prussia" in 1740, Prussia consisted of scattered territories, including Cleves, Mark, and Ravensberg in the west of the Holy Roman Empire; Brandenburg, Hither Pomerania, and Farther Pomerania in the east of the Empire; and the former Duchy of Prussia, outside of the Empire bordering the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. He was titled King in Prussia because this was only part of historic Prussia; he was to declare himself King of Prussia after acquiring most of the rest in 1772.

Warfare

Battle of Hohenfriedberg, Attack of the Prussian Infantry, by Carl Röchling. Oil on canvas.

Frederick's goal was to modernize and unite his vulnerably disconnected lands; toward this end, he fought wars mainly against Austria, whose Hapsburg dynasty reigned as Holy Roman Emperors, almost continuously from the 15th century until 1806. Frederick established Prussia as the fifth and smallest European great power by using the resources his frugal father had cultivated.

Desiring the prosperous Austrian province of Silesia, Frederick declined to endorse the Pragmatic Sanction of 1713, a legal mechanism to ensure the inheritance of the Habsburg domains by Maria Theresa of Austria. He was also worried that Augustus III, King of Poland and Elector of Saxony, would seek to connect his own disparate lands through Silesia. The Prussian king thus invaded Silesia the same year he took power, using as justification an obscure treaty from 1537 between the Hohenzollerns and the Piast dynasty of Brieg (Brzeg). The ensuing First Silesian War (1740–1742), part of the War of the Austrian Succession (1740–1748), resulted in Frederick conquering the province (with the exception of Austrian Silesia). Austria attempted to recover Silesia in the Second Silesian War (1744–1745), but Frederick was victorious again and forced Austria to adhere to the previous peace terms. Prussian possession of Silesia gave the kingdom control over the Oder River.

Battle of Rossbach, a tactical victory for Frederick.

Habsburg Austria and Bourbon France, traditional enemies, allied together in the Diplomatic Revolution of 1756 following the collapse of the Anglo-Austrian Alliance. Frederick swiftly made an alliance with Great Britain at the Convention of Westminster. As neighboring countries began conspiring against him, Frederick was determined to strike first. On 29 August 1756 his well-prepared army crossed the frontier and preemptively invaded Saxony, thus beginning the Seven Years' War (1756–1763). Facing a coalition which included Austria, France, Russia, Saxony, and Sweden, and having only Great Britain and Hanover as his allies, Frederick narrowly kept Prussia in the war despite having his territories frequently invaded. Frederick was frequently at the last gasp. On 6 January 1762, he wrote to Count Karl-Wilhelm Finck von Finckenstein, "We ought now to think of preserving for my nephew, by way of negotiation, whatever fragments of my territory we can save from the avidity of my enemies", which means, that he was resolved to seek a soldier's death on the first opportunity.

The sudden death of Empress Elizabeth of Russia, an event dubbed the miracle of the House of Brandenburg, led to the collapse of the anti-Prussian coalition. Although Frederick did not gain any territory in the ensuing Treaty of Hubertusburg, his ability to retain Silesia during the Silesian Wars made him and Prussia popular throughout many German-speaking territories.

Late in his life Frederick also involved Prussia in the low-scale War of the Bavarian Succession in 1778, in which he stifled Austrian attempts to exchange the Austrian Netherlands for Bavaria. When Emperor Joseph II tried the scheme again in 1784, Frederick created the Fürstenbund, allowing himself to be seen as a defender of German liberties, in contrast to his earlier role of attacking the imperial Habsburgs.

Frederick frequently led his military forces personally and had six horses shot from under him during battle. Frederick is often admired as one of the greatest tactical geniuses of all time, especially for his usage of the oblique order of battle. Even more important were his operational successes, especially preventing the unification of numerically superior opposing armies and being at the right place at the right time to keep enemy armies out of Prussian core territory. In a letter to his mother Maria Theresa, the Austrian co-ruler Emperor Joseph II wrote,

When the King of Prussia speaks on problems connected with the art of war, which he has studied intensively and on which he has read every conceivable book, then everything is taut, solid and uncommonly instructive. There are no circumlocutions, he gives factual and historical proof of the assertions he makes, for he is well versed in history… A genius and a man who talks admirably. But everything he says betrays the knave."^[14]

An example of the place that Frederick holds in history as a ruler is seen in Napoleon Bonaparte, who saw the Prussian king as the greatest tactical genius of all time;^[15] after Napoleon's defeat of the Fourth Coalition in 1807, he visited Frederick's tomb in Potsdam and remarked to his officers, "Gentlemen, if this man were still alive I would not be here".^[16]

Frederick the Great's most notable and decisive military victories on the battlefield were the Battles of Hohenfriedberg, Rossbach, and Leuthen.

First Partition of Poland

The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth after the First Partition (1772)

Main article: First Partition of Poland

Empress Catherine II took the Imperial Russian throne in 1762 after the murder of her husband, Peter III. Catherine was staunchly opposed to Prussia, while Frederick disapproved of Russia, whose troops had been allowed to freely cross the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth during the Seven Years' War. Despite the two monarchs' dislike of each other, Frederick and Catherine signed a defensive alliance on 11 April 1764 which guaranteed Prussian control of Silesia in return for Prussian support for Russia against Austria or the Ottoman Empire. Catherine's candidate for the Polish throne, Stanisław August Poniatowski, was then elected King of Poland in September of that year.

Frederick became concerned, however, after Russia gained significant influence over Poland in the Repnin Sejm of 1767, an act which also threatened Austria and the Ottoman Turks. In the ensuing Russo-Turkish War (1768–1774), Frederick reluctantly supported Catherine with a subsidy of 300,000 roubles, as he did not want Russia to become even stronger through the acquisitions of Ottoman territory. The Prussian king achieved a rapprochement with Emperor Joseph and the Austrian chancellor Kaunitz. As early as 1731 Frederick had suggested in a letter to Field Marshal Dubislav Gneomar von Natzmer that the country would be well-served by annexing Polish Prussia in order to unite the eastern territories of the Kingdom of Prussia.^[17]

After Russia occupied the Danubian Principalities, Frederick's representative in Saint Petersburg, his brother Henry, convinced Frederick and Maria Theresa that the balance of power would be maintained by a tripartite division of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth instead of Russia taking land from the Ottomans. In the First Partition of Poland in 1772, Frederick claimed most of the Polish province of Royal Prussia. Prussia annexed 20,000 mi² and 600,000 inhabitants, the least of the partitioning powers.^[18] However, the new West Prussia united East Prussia with Brandenburg and Hinterpommern and granted Prussia control of the mouth of the Vistula River. Although Maria Theresa had reluctantly agreed to the partition, Frederick commented, "she cries, but she takes".^[19]

Frederick quickly began improving the infrastructure of West Prussia, reforming its administrative and legal code, and improving the school system.^[20] However, Frederick looked upon many of his new citizens with scorn. He had nothing but contempt for the szlachta, the numerous Polish nobility, and wrote that Poland had "the worst government in Europe with the exception of Turkey".^[19] He considered West Prussia as uncivilized as Colonial Canada^[21] and compared the Poles to the Iroquois.^[19] In a letter to Henry, Frederick wrote about the province that "it is a very good and advantageous acquisition, both from a financial and a political point of view. In order to excite less jealousy I tell everyone that on my travels I have seen just sand, pine trees, heath land and Jews. Despite that there is a lot of work to be done; there is no order, and no planning and the towns are in a lamentable condition."^[22] Frederick invited German immigrants to redevelop the province,^[20] also hoping they would displace the Poles.^[23] Many German officials also regarded the Poles with contempt.^[21] Frederick did befriend some Poles, such as Ignacy Krasicki, whom he asked to consecrate St. Hedwig's Cathedral in 1773. He also advised his successors to learn Polish, a policy followed by the Hohenzollern dynasty until Frederick III decided not to let William II learn the language.^[20]

Modernization

Frederick the Great during the Seven Years' War, painting by Richard Knötel.

Frederick managed to transform Prussia from a European backwater to an economically strong and politically reformed state. His acquisition of Silesia was orchestrated so as to provide Prussia's fledgling industries with raw materials, and he protected these industries with high tariffs and minimal restrictions on internal trade. Canals were built, including between the Vistula and the Oder, swamps were drained for agricultural cultivation, and new crops, such as the potato and the turnip, were introduced. Frederick regarded his reclamation of land in the Oderbruch as a province conquered in peace.^[21] With the help of French experts, he reorganized the system of indirect taxes, which provided the state with more revenue than direct taxes. Frederick the Great commissioned Johann Ernst Gotzkowsky to promote the trade and - to take on the competition with France - put a silk factory where soon 1,500 persons found employment. Frederick the Great followed his recommendations in the field of toll levies and import restrictions. In 1763 when Gotzkowsky went broke during a financial crisis, which started in Amsterdam, Frederick took over his porcelain factory, known as KPM, but refused to buy more of his paintings.

During the reign of Frederick, the effects of the Seven Years' War and the gaining of Silesia greatly changed the economy. The circulation of depreciated money kept prices high. To revalue the Thaler, the Mint Edict of May 1763 was proposed. This stabilized the rates of depreciated coins that would not be accepted and provided for the payments of taxes in currency of prewar value. This was replaced in northern Germany by the Reichsthaler, worth one-fourth of a Conventionsthaler. Prussia used a Thaler containing one-fourteenth of a Cologne mark of silver. Many other rulers soon followed the steps of Frederick in reforming their own currencies – this resulted in a shortage of ready money thus lowering prices.^[24]

Frederick gave his state a modern bureaucracy whose mainstay until 1760 was the able War and Finance Minister Adam Ludwig von Blumenthal, succeeded in 1764 by his nephew Joachim who ran the ministry to the end of the reign and beyond. Prussia's education system was seen as one of the best in Europe. Frederick also abolished torture and corporal punishment.

Frederick began titling himself "King of Prussia" after the acquisition of Royal Prussia (West Prussia) in 1772; the phrasing "King in Prussia" had been used since the coronation of Frederick I in Königsberg in 1701.

Religious tolerance

Frederick generally supported religious toleration, including the retention of Jesuits as teachers in Silesia, Warmia, and the Netze District after their suppression by Pope Clement XIV. He was interested in attracting a diversity of skills to his country, whether from Jesuit teachers, Huguenot citizens, or Jewish merchants and bankers, particularly from Spain. He wanted development throughout the country, specifically in areas that he judged as needing a particular kind of development. As an example of this practical-minded but not fully unprejudiced tolerance, Frederick wrote in his Testament politique that:

We have too many Jews in the towns. They are needed on the Polish border because in these areas Hebrews alone perform trade. As soon as you get away from the frontier, the Jews become a disadvantage, they form cliques, they deal in contraband and get up to all manner of rascally tricks which are detrimental to Christian burghers and merchants. I have never persecuted anyone from this or any other sect [sic]; I think, however, it would be prudent to pay attention, so that their numbers do not increase.^[25]

Jews on the Polish border were therefore encouraged to perform all the trade they could and received all the protection and support from the king as any other Prussian citizen. The success in integrating the Jews into those areas of society that Frederick encouraged them in can be seen by the role played by Gerson von Bleichröder in financing Bismarck's efforts to reunite Germany.^[26]

Frederick's religious tolerance seemed to be motivated by more than a simple ploy to achieve advancement for his country. At a time when much of Europe still keenly remembered the invasions of the Ottoman Empire in the 17th century, he said, "All religions are equal and good and as long as those practicing are an honest people and wish to populate our land, may they be Turks or Pagans, we will build them mosques and churches".^[27]

As under Frederick much wasteland was made arable Prussia was looking for new colonists. Frederick repeatedly emphasized that race and religion were of no concern to him. ^[28]

Architecture

Frederick had famous buildings constructed in his capital, Berlin, most of which still exist today, such as the Berlin State Opera, the Royal Library (today the State Library Berlin), St. Hedwig's Cathedral, and Prince Henry's Palace (now the site of Humboldt University). However, the king preferred spending his time in his summer residence Potsdam, where he built the palace of Sanssouci, the most important work of Northern German rococo. Sanssouci, which translates from French as "carefree" or "without worry", was a refuge for Frederick. "Frederician Rococo" developed under Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff.

South or garden facade and corps de logis of Sanssouci.

Music, arts, and learning

The Flute Concert of Sanssouci by Adolph von Menzel, 1852, depicts Frederick playing the flute in his music room at Sanssouci.

Frederick was a gifted musician who played the transverse flute. He composed 100 sonatas for the flute as well as four symphonies. The Hohenfriedberger Marsch, a military march, was supposedly written by Frederick to commemorate his victory in the Battle of Hohenfriedberg during the Second Silesian War. His court musicians included C. P. E. Bach, Johann Joachim Quantz, and Franz Benda. A meeting with Johann Sebastian Bach in 1747 in Potsdam led to Bach writing The Musical Offering.

Frederick also aspired to be a philosopher-king like the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius. The king joined the Freemasons in 1738 and stood close to the French Enlightenment, admiring above all its greatest thinker, Voltaire, with whom he corresponded frequently. The personal friendship of Frederick and Voltaire came to an unpleasant end after Voltaire's visit to Berlin and Potsdam in 1750–1753, although they reconciled from afar in later years.

Frederick invited Joseph-Louis Lagrange to succeed Leonhard Euler at the Berlin Academy. Other writers attracted to the philosopher's kingdom were Francesco Algarotti, d'Argens, Julien Offray de La Mettrie, and Pierre Louis Maupertuis. Immanuel Kant published religious writings in Berlin which would have been censored elsewhere in Europe.

In addition to his native language, German, Frederick spoke French, English, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian; he also understood Latin, ancient and modern Greek, and Hebrew. Preferring instead French culture, Frederick disliked the German language, literature, and culture, explaining that German authors "pile parenthesis upon parenthesis, and often you find only at the end of an entire page the verb on which depends the meaning of the whole sentence".^[29] His criticism led many German writers to attempt to impress Frederick with their writings in the German language and thus prove its worthiness. Many statesmen, including Baron vom und zum Stein, were also inspired by Frederick's statesmanship. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe gave his opinion of Frederick during a visit to Strasbourg (Strassburg) by writing:

Well we had not much to say in favour of the constitution of the Reich; we admitted that it consisted entirely of lawful misuses, but it rose therefore the higher over the present French constitution which is operating in a maze of lawful misuses, whose government displays its energies in the wrong places and therefore has to face the challenge that a thorough change in the state of affairs is widely prophesied. In contrast when we looked towards the north, from there shone Frederick, the Pole Star, around whom Germany, Europe, even the world seemed to turn…^[30]

Sexuality

Some historians ^[31] have speculated that Frederick the Great was homosexual, or bisexual (and perhaps possibly celibate), and his relationship with Hans Hermann von Katte was widely speculated in the Prussian court to be romantic.^[8] After Katte's execution by Frederick's father, Frederick was forced to marry Elisabeth Christine of Brunswick-Bevern, with whom he had no children. He immediately separated from his wife when Frederick William I died in 1740. In later years, Frederick would pay his wife formal visits only once a year.^[32]

Frederick spent much of his time at Sanssouci, his favourite residence in Potsdam. The grounds there included a Friendship Temple celebrating the homoerotic attachments of Greek Antiquity, decorated with portraits of Orestes and Pylades, among others.^[33] At Sanssouci Frederick entertained his most privileged guests, especially the French philosopher Voltaire, whom he asked in 1750 to come to live with him. The correspondence between Frederick and Voltaire, which spanned almost 50 years, was marked by mutual intellectual fascination. In person, however, their friendship was often contentious, as Voltaire abhorred Frederick's militarism. Voltaire's jealous attack in the press on one of Frederick's literary companions made him no longer welcome in Prussia; on his return to France in 1753 he anonymously published The Private Life of the King of Prussia, wittily claiming Frederick's homosexuality and parade of male lovers. Frederick neither admitted nor denied the contents of the book. Voltaire and Frederick soon thereafter amicably resumed their correspondence.^[34]

Other historians disagree on the nature of Frederick's sexuality, saying that Frederick's writings indicate that he simply had greater priorities than women. But the French professor Dieudonné Thiébault declared that Frederick had mistresses at Neuruppin^[35]. Frederick's physician, Johann Georg Ritter von Zimmermann, claimed that the king let rumors of homosexuality appear to be true in order to avoid the public knowing that his genitalia were harmed by "a cruel surgical operation" to save his life from an unnamed venereal disease.^[36] Historian Christopher Clark concludes Frederick "may well have abstained from sexual acts with anyone of either sex after his accession to the throne, and possibly even before. But if he did not do it, he certainly talked about it; the conversation of the inner court circle around him was peppered with homoerotic banter."^[37]

Later years

Near the end of his life Frederick grew increasingly solitary. His circle of friends at Sanssouci gradually died off without replacements, and Frederick became increasingly critical and arbitrary, to the frustration of the civil service and officer corps. The populace of Berlin always cheered the king when he returned to the city from provincial tours or military reviews, but Frederick took no pleasure from his popularity with the common folk, preferring instead the company of his pet Italian greyhounds,^[38] whom he referred to as his 'marquises de Pompadour' as a jibe at Madame de Pompadour.^[39] Frederick died in an armchair in his study in the palace of Sanssouci on 17 August 1786.

Grave of Frederick at Sanssouci.

Frederick had wished to be buried next to his greyhounds on the vineyard terrace on the side of the corps de logis of Sanssouci. His nephew and successor Frederick William II instead ordered the body to be entombed next to his father in the church of the Potsdam garrison. During World War II, the catafalques of both Frederick and Frederick William I were transferred first to an underground bunker, later to a mineshaft close to the town of Bernrode to protect them from destruction. In 1945 the US Army transported both kings first to the Elisabeth Church of Marburg and then on to Burg Hohenzollern close to the town of Hechingen. After German reunification, the body of Frederick William was entombed in the Kaiser Friedrich Mausoleum in Sanssouci's Church of Peace.

There was an emotional debate in Germany whether the funeral of a former king of Prussia, who was responsible for many wars during his time and who had been exploited as a symbol both by Nazi Germany and the German Democratic Republic, should be regarded as a public matter or not. Despite numerous protests, on the 205th anniversary of his death, on 17 August 1991, Frederick's casket lay in state in the court of honor of Sanssouci, covered by a Prussian flag and escorted by a Bundeswehr guard of honour. After nightfall, Frederick's body was finally laid to rest on the terrace of the vineyard of Sanssouci, according to his last will without pomp and at night ("... Im übrigen will ich, was meine Person anbetrifft, in Sanssouci beigesetzt werden, ohne Prunk, ohne Pomp und bei Nacht..." (1757))..

Frederick in popular culture

There are several films from the Nazi period about Frederick.

In the 2004 German film Der Untergang, Adolf Hitler is shown sitting in a dark room forlornly gazing at a painting of Frederick shortly before taking his own life, possibly a reference to the dictator's fading hopes for another Miracle of the House of Brandenburg.

King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, is named after the King of Prussia Inn, itself named in honor of Frederick.^[40]

Frederick has been included in the Civilization computer game series, the computer games Age of Empires III, Empire Earth II, Empire: Total War, and the board game Friedrich.

Frederick is the main protagonist in the webcomic Frederick the Great: A Most Lamentable Comedy Breaching Space and Time.

Frederick appears in the manga Hetalia: Axis Powers as Old Fritz, and is the boss of the character Prussia.

Ancestry

Frederick William
Elector of Brandenburg

Louise Henriette of Orange-Nassau

Ernest Augustus
Elector of Brunswick-Lüneburg

Sophia
of the Palatine

George William
Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg

Eleonore d'Esmier d'Olbreuse

Frederick I
of Prussia

Sophia Charlotte
of Hanover

George I
of Great Britain

Sophia Dorothea
of Celle

Frederick William I of Prussia

Sophia Dorothea of Hanover

Frederick II of Prussia

Footnotes

^ Frederick was the third and last "King in Prussia"; beginning in 1772 he used the title "King of Prussia".
^ MacDonogh, p. 37
^ MacDonogh, p. 35
^ Reiners, p. 33
^ ^a ^b Crompton
^ MacDonogh, p. 63
^ Reiners, p. 41
^ ^a ^b N. Mitford, Frederick the Great, New York, 1970
^ Reiners, p. 52
^ Reiners, p. 63
^ Reiners, p. 69
^ Reiners, p. 71
^ MacDonogh, p. 125
^ Reiners, pp.247-248
^ Koch, p. 126
^ Koch, p. 160
^ MacDonogh, p. 78
^ Reiners, p.250
^ ^a ^b ^c Ritter, p. 192
^ ^a ^b ^c Koch, p. 136
^ ^a ^b ^c David Blackbourn. "Conquests from Barbarism": Interpreting Land Reclamation in 18th Century Prussia. Harvard University. Accessed 24 May 2006.
^ MacDonogh, p. 363
^ Norbert Finszch and Dietmar Schirmer. Identity and Intolerance: Nationalism, Racism, and Xenophobia in Germany and the United States. Cambridge University Press, 2006. ISBN 0521591589
^ W. O. Henderson. Studies in the economic policy of Frederick the Great. Cass. London, 1963.
^ MacDonogh, p. 347
^ Stern, p. 19
^ In the heart of Berlin's history (from the Hertie School of Governance website. Retrieved 13 October 2007.)
^ Frederick the Great: A Historical Profile Gerhard Ritter page 180. University of California Press, 1975
^ MacDonogh, p. 370
^ Koch, p. 138
^ Mitford, Reiners, Steakley, Henderson
^ L. Reiners, Frederick the Great, New York, 1960
^ J.D. Steakley, Sodomy in Enlightenment Prussia, Journal of Homosexuality, 16, 1/2 (1988): 163-175
^ S.W. Henderson, Frederick the Great of Prussia: A Homophile Perspective, Gai Saber,1,1 (1977): 46-54.
^ Mes souvenirs de vingt ans de séjour à Berlin, Paris, 1804, .5 vol.
^ Snyder, pp. 132-136
^ Clark, p. 188
^ Ritter, p. 200
^ MacDonogh, p. 366
^ "Historic Reeseville, Early King of Prussia, Pennsylvania". Accessed 24 May 2006.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Friedrich II

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: The Collection of Friedrich II von Preußen

Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article Frederick II, king of Prussia.

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Frederick II of Prussia

Digital edition of Frederick the Great's Works by Trier University Library
Voltaire and Frederick the Great by Lytton Strachey
Story about Frederick and Madame de Pompadour (German)
Frederick II of Prussia at Genealogics

Regnal titles
Frederick II of Prussia House of Hohenzollern Born: 24 January 1712 Died: 17 August 1786
Preceded by Frederick William I	King in Prussia 1740 – 1772	Recreated as King of Prussia
	Elector of Brandenburg as Frederick IV 1740 – 1786	Merged with Prussian crown
	Prince of Neuchâtel as Frederick II 1740 – 1786	Succeeded by Frederick William II
New creation First partition of Poland	King of Prussia 1772 – 1786
Preceded by Charles Edzard	Count of Ostfriesland 1744 – 1786

Figures in the Age of Enlightenment by country

Notable figures

British Colonies	Benjamin Franklin · Thomas Jefferson · James Madison · Thomas Paine

Prussia and Saxe-Weimar	Immanuel Kant · Gotthold Ephraim Lessing · Johann Gottfried von Herder · Johann Wolfgang von Goethe · J.C.F. von Schiller · Moses Mendelssohn

England	Edward Gibbon · Samuel Johnson · Mary Wollstonecraft · John Locke · Isaac Newton · Thomas Hobbes

Scotland	Joseph Black · James Boswell · Adam Ferguson · David Hume · Thomas Reid · Adam Smith

France	Montesquieu · François Quesnay · Voltaire · Buffon · Jean-Jacques Rousseau · Denis Diderot · Helvétius · Jean le Rond d'Alembert · Baron d'Holbach · Marquis de Sade · Condorcet · Étienne Bonnot de Condillac

Italy	Cesare Beccaria

Spain	Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos · Benito Jerónimo Feijoo · Antonio de Ulloa

Portugal	Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo, Marquis of Pombal

Poland	Hugo Kołłątaj · Ignacy Krasicki · Samuel Bogumił Linde · Adam Naruszewicz · Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz · Józef Maksymilian Ossoliński · Stanisław August Poniatowski · Stanisław Staszic · Jędrzej Śniadecki · Franciszek Zabłocki

Persondata
NAME	Frederick II of Prussia
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Friedrich II., Frederick the Great, Friedrich der Große
SHORT DESCRIPTION	King of Prussia (1740-1786)
DATE OF BIRTH	24 January 1712
PLACE OF BIRTH	Berlin, Prussia
DATE OF DEATH	17 August 1786
PLACE OF DEATH	Potsdam, Prussia

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	War of the Austrian Succession
	Elizabeth (Russia)
	Enlightened Despotism

	Frederick the great ruled prussia as an enlightened despot this can be described as? Read answer...
	How many kids did Frederick the second of Prussia have? Read answer...
	Was Frederick the Great the leader of religion in Prussia? Read answer...

	What did Frederick II of Prussia Major Accomplishments Military?
	How was frederick II of prussia an absolute ruler?
	Why did Maria Theresa want revenge on Frederick II of Prussia?