Father Knows Best?

Frederick II Becomes the Greater King.

Dr. Ronald Fritze
March 29, 2004

The times do not adapt themselves to men
but men must adapt themselves to the times.
[Frederick the Great of Prussia]

Frederick II (1712-1786) of Prussia, more commonly known as Frederick the Great, came from a dysfunctional family. In many ways, he rose above it. History remembers him as "the Great," although in German it is the more dubious sounding "der Grosse." Just what was his family background?

Royal families are frequently dysfunctional, so dysfunctional that Michael Jackson would not feel so alone if some of these dysfunctional royals were his neighbors. Certainly the parents of Frederick the Great, Frederick William I (1657-1713) of Prussia and his wife Sophia Dorothea of England, were an odd couple. Frederick William I (1688-1740) was the son of Frederick I of Prussia and Sophia Charlotte of Hanover. Frederick I was a bit of a dandy and a spendthrift while Sophia Charlotte was simply mad.

The Hohenzollern family shared a folk belief that a "white lady" appeared shortly before the death of family members. Meanwhile the pathetic Sophia Charlotte developed a delusion that her husband was divorcing her so that she could be married off to the Sultan of Morocco. In an attempt to fend off that cruel fate, one night while wearing her white nightgown, Sophia Charlotte burst through a glass door to get to her sleeping husband so that she could persuade him not to divorce her. Waking up to a bloody woman in white, a shocked Frederick I thought death had come for him. Lapsing into a coma, he died soon after. And so Frederick William I came to the throne in his mid twenties.

Where his father was an aesthete, Frederick William I was a crude man of simple tastes. He possessed a violent temper and when displeased would frequently resort to punching or caning servants or nearby family members to vent his frustrations. He converted to Pietistic Lutheranism Its precepts concerning the duty of social improvement guided his policies toward the kingdom of Prussia.

Sophia Dorothea also came from an equally troubled background. She was the daughter of George, the Elector of Hanover and later to be the King of England, and Sophia Dorothea of Brunswick-Luneberg. At the age of nine, tragedy struck little Sophia Dorothea. Her mother had an affair with Count Philip von Konigsmarck while George of Hanover was off to war. The Elector discovered the affair. Konigsmarck disappeared and probably came to a nasty end. The elder Sophia Dorothea was banished to the Castle Ahlden, never to see her children again. She stayed there for the remaining thirty-two years of her life. George of Hanover turned to a string of mistresses. The raising of his children was jobbed out to governesses and tutors.

Not surprisingly, Sophia Dorothea was anxious to escape from the known tedium and unpleasantness of home into the unknown realm of marriage. Sadly for her, the marriage she escaped into was with Frederick William I. Sophia was a comely woman of sophisticated tastes who favored French culture. Frederick William I was just a slob. In spite of her bearing fourteen children for him, remarkably the couple was not at all close.

At a very young age Frederick the Great came to favor his mother and to despise his father. It set the future king on a collision course with a father who was rigid in his attitudes and relentless in pursuing his goals, including the goal of molding his heir apparent into the type of man he wanted him to be -- just the type of man that Frederick the Great disdained. By the time he reached eighteen, Frederick became desperate to escape the oppressions of his father. Attempting to run away from home with his friend and lover Hans Hermann von Katte in 1730, the young Frederick was caught before he could escape. An irate and merciless Frederick William I had von Katte tried and sentenced to death. He even forced his son to watch Katte's execution by beheading, but Frederick the Great saved himself the spectacle by fainting as the fatal blow descended. After he regained consciousness, he still had to face his wrathful father. Apparently realizing that he could no longer overtly resist his father, Frederick the Great decided to bend so that he would remain ultimately unbroken. He did the things his father asked of him and succeeded to the throne of Prussia on the death of his father in 1740.

Under the direction of Frederick the Great, Prussia became one of the great powers of Europe. It was a near thing, however, because victory in the Seven Years War, which led to Prussia's greatness, could have just as easily ended in annihilation. Frederick the Great gambled and won big. He faced numerous enemies and they blinked first. He was a far greater king than his father, although he owed the primary tools that allowed him to become great to the obsessive-compulsive toil of Frederick William I. Bound by blood but divided by taste, this father and son were unlikely partners in the process of making Prussia great and laying a firm foundation for the ultimate creation of modern Germany.

Pen Trumps Sword.

Russia's Path to Empire.

William Walks the Walk.

The Sun King Burned.

The Moderns Won.

What Price Power?

The Old Regime.