You're Dead to Me - Frederick the Great of Prussia

Episode Date: June 10, 2022

Greg Jenner is joined by special guests Stephen Fry and Dr Bodie Ashton as they travel back to 18th-century Prussia to meet Frederick the Great. Widely known for making Prussia a military power while modernising and liberalising culture, Frederick was a complicated character, shaped by a tragic childhood ruled by his cruel father. We uncover why he wasn’t the greatest ally to neighbouring countries, and why forks enraged his father - and answer the crucial question of whether it's King of Prussia or King in Prussia.Written and produced by Emma Nagouse and Greg Jenner Assistant Producer: Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow Research by Claudia Treacher Project Management: Siefe Miyo Audio Producer: Abi PatersonThe Athletic production for BBC Radio 4

This is the BBC. This podcast is supported by advertising outside the UK. All day long. Taxes extra at participating Wendy's until May 5th. Terms and conditions apply. BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello and welcome to You're Dead to Me, the Radio 4 comedy podcast that takes history seriously. My name is Greg Jenner. I'm a public historian, author and broadcaster. And I was the chief nerd on the BBC comedy show Horrible Histories. And today we are promenading into the 18th century to Prussia to uncover the fascinating life of King Frederick the Great. And to do that, I am joined by two very special guests.

In History Corner, he's a lecturer in modern German history at the Universität Erfurt in Germany, with expertise in political, social and LGBTQ histories. He's written a ton of academic publications, including his book The Kingdom of Württemberg and The Making of Germany. It's Dr. Bodhi Ashton. Welcome, Bodhi. Hi, Greg. It's a pleasure to be here in spite of your German pronunciation. Oh, come on. I did my best. And in Comedy Corner, well, it's a man who needs no introduction.

He is simply one of the finest comic minds of my lifetime. He's a writer, performer, broadcaster, director, and of course, internationally renowned tap dancer. OK, maybe not the last one. Welcome to the podcast, Mr Stephen Fry. Thank you very much. You pronounced every word perfectly, I thought. Thank you. It's Stephen Free, right? That's how it's done authentically. Stephen, we are delighted to have you here, but slightly reticent also, because our format really relies on the comedian not knowing very much about the subject. And I

fear you might crush our format into dust. So what do you know about Frederick the Great? I know the sort of gossip, which is what I like sometimes in history. I can't tell you much about his politics, except I think he was responsible for absorbing Poland. And I only know that because I was listening to a Radio 4 programme that Misha Glennie is doing about the formation of Poland and the disappearance of Poland. I know he's the great Friedrich der Große.

I know he was gay. That's kind of anyone growing up gay collects any gay king or famous person of the past as a recruitment fellow for one's own self-worth and validation. And Frederick the Great was on our side in that sense. I think of him as having had one of those cliché childhoods with a brutal, militaristic, indeed very Prussian father, whereas he was a sensitive sort of figure. What I know best about him, though, is through the arts, because that's sort of what I love best in some ways. And I know he was a great admirer. And there's a story about him and Bach. I think Frederick the Great played the flute,

and he invented a flute sonata or similar, which he played to Bach, who then wrote the same tune backwards underneath as harmony in this sort of extraordinary act of musical brilliance. But that's all I know, to be honest. I don't think I can tell you any other facts about Frederick the Great. It's mostly just a compound of gossip. Well, we can all go home, frankly. Oh, stop it. You weren't going to talk about those things, were you? We absolutely are going to talk about these things.

I mean, we have Dr. Bodhi here who is an expert and who knows a huge amount more, but that is a wonderful preface of what we're going to be talking about today. Yeah, I feel very redundant, but delighted to be in your company. So let's crack on. So, what do you know?

It's time now for the first segment of the podcast, the So What Do You Know? This is where I have a go at guessing what you at home might know about today's subject. Well, Stephen has slightly disproved my theory, but despite being one of the most successful warrior kings of the modern age and a champion of the Enlightenment, Frederick has done rather poorly in the pop culture landscape. Our German listeners might disagree, but for the most of you, I'm thinking that he's a big old question mark with a tantalisingly impressive name. There aren't that many The Greats for your money these days, but there are no big movies. There are no TV shows. There are no pop songs about Frederick. Nobody goes as Frederick to Halloween parties. And if he does pop up anywhere, it's probably in military strategy video games where you get to command his

armies. The quick FYI is that historians have variously described Frederick as a military strategic genius, a philosopher king, a bloodthirsty warlord, and a gay icon. But is that all true? Let's find out, shall we? Dr. Vody, before we dive into Frederick's life, we are talking about Prussia in the 1700s, which is what? The first answer I have to give here is that this is really complicated, the very typical historian answer. So Frederick's family weren't always royals in the way that we kind of understand them. So his family is called the Hohenzollern family, and their major territory here is up north and in towards the east of what's now Germany,

and it's an area called Brandenburg. This was called the sandbox of the Holy Roman Empire, not just because it's sort of the play area, so to speak, where borders change all the time and so on, but the soil is really, really bad. So this is a very resource poor area of, again, what we now call Germany. In terms of what Prussia actually is, it's a member of the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation. And that means that the Hornzohlen family has allegiances to the Holy Roman Emperor. And basically Frederick's grandfather, a man who starts off as Frederick III, I say starts off, he pledges support to the Holy Roman Emperor. And as a result, he becomes king in Prussia in 1701 and also changes his name to Frederick I. I'm confused. I thought that the

Hohenzollerns were always a Lutheran or indeed Calvinist family. And the Holy Roman Empire was Catholic. And I thought he was pretty anti-catholic the that the hohensollens and just talking of the hohensollen family just a bit of gossip which might amuse you that shows how history doesn't change of course but i sat next to someone at a dinner party who at the risk of sounding like a terrible snob was in he was married to the man who is now the Duke of Wellington. And I noticed a slight accent and I asked her what her maiden name was. And she said, Preuss. I said, Preuss?

And she said, yeah. I said, your surname was Prussia, because that's the German for Prussia. And she said, yeah, well, my grandfather was the Kaiser. grandfather was the Kaiser. So I thought, wow, there's a descendant of the Duke of Wellington marrying a Hohenzollern. Isn't that extraordinary? It's just weird how history doesn't end when it comes to aristocrats. Anyway, there you are.

But it's important to remember that, I suppose, if you're talking about the Hohenzollerns, is that this was the beginning of a mighty dynasty that was to change the world entirely. We're the beginnings of modern German history in some ways here, aren't we, Bodhi? But if I can, I just wanted to sort of very quickly, specifically dwell on what on earth is king in Prussia as opposed to king of Prussia? That sounds like a burn.

It might sound like a bit of a burn, but there is a specific reason for it. What we call Prussia is actually not just one area. So there are various parts of Germany-ish that are called Prussia, and we tend to divide them between East and West. The Hohenzollerns did not rule over the entirety of Prussia. They just sort of lived in it. And as a result, once Frederick III became Frederick I and became a king, he couldn't be king of Prussia because he didn't have all of Prussia. So he could just be a king in Prussia. Stephen, do you know how many confederated states there were in the Holy Roman Empire at this time?

Gosh, I couldn't believe it. And do you know how Voltaire described it? No, tell me. I think at last count it's about 300 states, Bodhi, is that right? Thereabouts. It changes, but about 300-ish. Yes, the French philosopher Voltaire joked that the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy nor Roman nor an empire. So we have a very confusing beginnings for Frederick the Great. We have his grandfather, Frederick, who became Frederick King in Prussia, not of Prussia, in 1701. And then we have Frederick's father, who was called Frederick William,

because they like to alternate the names. You're either Frederick or Frederick William. And he was the second Frederick William, but the first to be king in Prussia. So we call him Frederick William the first which is very confusing and then Frederick the Great was Frederick the second even though he was the first king of that name so it's not helpful at all I mean this whole episode has started in a complete shambles Frederick William the father of Frederick the Great he was known as the soldier king that was his his epithet. So, I mean, you can probably guess what kind of parenting style he might have adopted. Did he, I mean, it is a, it's a thing you think of as Prussians.

They're the modern European equivalent of the Spartans we think of, don't we? With a very, very militaristic cast and all those schlag swords, you know, where they do duels and give each other scars. glagswords, you know, where they do duels and give each other scars, and ending up with Bismarck and that whole sort of, those schools and they're, you know, pretty, pretty tough. And was that even then the Prussian reputation? I'm really glad that that's been brought up, actually. Frederick William is a bit of an outlier here, actually. He's sort of the beginning of this idea of extremely militant, extremely Spartan, as you say, Stephen, Prussian masculinity here. He is a bit of an outlier because he's very different from his father and he's very different from his son, our Frederick here. I keep wanting to call him Freddy. The Germans now still know him as Alter Fritz, the old Fritz.

But I can never sort of get my head around calling him that, I'm afraid. He was one of Frederick William's children, one of 10 of them. And he was born in 1712. And his father was extremely authoritarian. He was a harsh taskmaster. He was the soldier king. He was extremely authoritarian. He was a harsh taskmaster. He was the soldier king. He was extremely religion. Religion.

He was extremely religious. All of religion was him. He was religion and religion was him. Oh, yeah, that was my first question, but not Catholic, surely. So you could be in the Holy Roman Empire and not be a Catholic. Yes, surely. So you could be in the Holy Roman Empire and not be a Catholic. Yes, yes. So, I mean, the Holy Roman Empire is basically where the religious wars of the Reformation take place. Frederick William himself, he's a Lutheran pietist.

He also believes in predestination, but he's kind of convinced he's not actually going to get to heaven. Isn't that more of a Calvinist thing? That's more of a Calvinist thing. And it's a bit odd because you kind of go with predestination if you think, well, I'm going to heaven, it's fine, I can do what I want. But he's kind of certain that he's not going to. He's this very, very tortured soul. He sounds like the father in Fanny and Alexander, do you know the Bergman movie? Sort of rather brutal, pious and screwed up individual. Oh, yes.

Yeah. He's all of these things. He's prone to bouts of fury and rage, and he often takes this out quite particularly on his son, Frederick. So one of the issues that comes about here is that Frederick was, for at least the first six years of his life, left in the care of a governess who was a Huguenot lady named, and here I was complaining about Greg's pronunciation, but I'm very, very bad with French pronunciation, so I'm expecting some winces here. But Madame de Rocouilleoule she was his governess and so she was the way you said it we have no idea what her name is so we can't tell if you've that's fantastic it sounded almost like the French for a comma which is Virgule is that what you said no no r-o-c-o-u-l-l-e but he was also extremely close with his mother, Sofia Dorothea, and also his sister, Wilhelmina, who ends up becoming a princess in Bayreuth in what's now Bavaria.

And with both of these, he actually spoke French exclusively. This is kind of a problem because his father thinks that everything that is French is debauched. And so the very idea that the son who is meant to succeed him on the throne takes to French so easily and so happily is something that really sticks in his craw. Shortly before Frederick's sixth birthday, his father gave him a present, not tin soldiers, but lead soldiers and little toy cannons that you could actually fire. And he wasn't best pleased when Frederick just didn't want anything to do with these. And instead he would pick up a book of French melodies and also a lute. And he would start playing these, which also annoyed his dad, not just because they were French, but because this was music and music was also unmanly and debauched. Yeah. Stephen, where do you stand on the cannons

versus loot debate? I'm very much with our Fred here. Yeah. I mean, goodness me, who wouldn't become gay with a father like that? It would be horrifying. If only out of spite, really. horrifying yeah if if only out of spite really yes exactly yeah by the time he's 12 the father is starting to notice quote effeminate traits such as wearing gloves in the cold using a three-pronged fork when two would be fine steven wow i never knew that was a thing three prongs it's luxury um so i see your two prongs. It's luxury. I see your two prongs and I offer up a chopstick. My goodness. So the father is starting to sort of bully his son and sends him off to be a captain in the Potsdam regiment.

But here, young Frederick falls off his horse. Dad is embarrassed. It's all a bit sad, really, isn't it, Bodhi? And Frederick is really not enjoying his youth. There are things that he certainly enjoys about his childhood, but they're mostly the things that his father doesn't permit. His childhood place he runs to is he's got a sort of illegal clandestine library, which he has smuggled into a bookshop opposite the Berlin Palace, where he reads books by Locke, Voltaire, Pierre Bale. He's a sort of stealth nerd. He has to run away to go to the library.

Things get worse with Frederick William, the father. There's a horrible line saying, if I were like you, I would shoot myself, is what he says to his son, isn't it, Bodhi? Frederick William is basically trying the early modern equivalent of conversion therapy. And this tends to be obviously cruel and horrific and much like we might expect, it also doesn't work. And he does beat him on regular occasions. And so by 1730, Frederick's had enough. This is another of those cliches, Stephen. He decides that he's going to run away from home. And he tries to do so with a couple of conspirators. They're attempting to get to England.

One of them is a man named Peter von Keith, which doesn't sound German, but that's because he's from a Scottish family in service in Prussia. And the other one is his great friend and probable lover at the time, Hans Hermann von Kater. And they attempt to escape to England, but they get caught. Or rather, Peter von Kief doesn't. He's able to get away, but Frederick is captured and so is Hans Hermann von Kater. And as you can imagine, Frederick William is not best pleased with this. So the first time he sees his son, he beats him so badly that it's feared by Sophia Dorothea, so Frederick's mother, that her son is going to die from this. And in fact, apparently, Frederick William had actually wanted to convict his son of treason and sentence him to death, but was convinced not to do so by the Holy Roman Emperor. I said Peter von Kieth is able to get away.

Frederick William hangs him in effigy. And that's getting off lightly because Hans Hermann von Kater is executed. He's beheaded. And Frederick William forces his son Frederick to watch. Oh, God. This is absolutely psychopathic, isn't it? Yes. That's a historical novel in itself, isn't it? Isn't it?

Yeah. And as I said before, there's no films, there's no TV shows. Well, I hope somebody listening will become the Hilary Mantel of Frederick the Great. Maybe. And yet, after this horrendous trauma, being forced to watch your friend, perhaps lover, being executed is awful. A year later, Frederick William forgives his son. Oh, how kind of him. And young Frederick cries with cathartic relief.

Stephen, do you know why Frederick William has forgiven his son? Has the mother died? That might be a reason. No, it's a good guess. No, Frederick has another brother who is also gay. And they basically, the father needs an heir. And he's decided that this Frederick will have to do, I suppose.

So Frederick's brother refuses to marry a woman. Frederick initially refuses as well, bitterly protests, but eventually gives in and relents. So in 1732, aged about 20, he gets hitched to the 17-year-old, well, I'm going to bungle this pronunciation, Elisabeth Christine of Bevern, Bodie? It'll do.

Oh, come on. Come on then, give us your best. Yeahizabeth christina von beven i was close elizabeth christine von beven okay like i said it will do it it'll do fine fine all right well um she is the niece of the holy roman empress she's a princess is she yeah she's definitely well connected i mean obviously not a whirlwind romance with Elizabeth Christine. Depends what you mean by whirlwind, because it's certainly chaotic. Oh, right. So at the betrothal, Frederick cries, which is always a good sign, I find.

And of course, they're expected to undertake what we'll call here conjugal duties upon getting married. And they apparently do so on their wedding night. But Frederick writes to his sister, Wilhelmina, and says, and I'm sort of quoting here, so this isn't me ad-libbing, but he writes to her, thank God that's over. I think we can all relate to that as far as the sexual act is concerned. Speak for yourself, Stephen. And I guess, again, I'm wanting to peep into volume two here but was there issue of this conjugal connection no no and was there never issue he

never he did he no he never had children um so his successor is not his direct bloodline frederick is clearly not that impressed with the idea that he's he's going to be wedded to this woman his mother isn't so thrilled about her either so she's she's the unhappy mother-in-law here because she thinks that elizabeth christina is uh as thick as two planks of wood and again to quote here she was a silly goose. So, you know, Wordsmith is the queen of Prussia. Queen in Prussia. Queen in Prussia, excuse me. There we go.

Frederick does try at one point to dissolve the marriage, which is simply impossible. But what he does do is that while he remains married to Elisabeth Christina, he installs her in a palace in Berlin where she's just sort of there. And he doesn't really come to visit. He occasionally does, but only very, very rarely. And that's kind of to go and have dinner with her and then go, right, good, thanks, bye, and then go home again. So, you know, for the length of time that they're married, which is 46 years. I mean, that's a very, very long marriage. And he barely sees her, which I don't know is probably a sign of why it's so long. But he wasn't mean to her in the way that, say, George I was mean to his wife and kind of locked her up or anything like that. and kind of locked her up or anything like that.

So Frederick's not a doting husband by any means. He does demand respect for his wife, but at the same time, he's a bit of a hypocrite when it comes to that because he is a bit of a misogynist. So he does have a habit of calling his wife names. But it is important here that Frederick does get married at 20 because, first of all, it will sort of assuage some of the concerns of his father because maybe he will have an heir who will have an heir and this will all be fine but the other thing is that Frederick can now earn his own income he can live

in his own home so he can move out this is this is the great sort of not quite teenage emancipation. And he's going to spend that time reading, obviously, and writing to a number of people, including Voltaire throughout the period of him being crown prince. But he can specifically read more French books. He can listen to more French music. He can drink French wine and he forms his own band

as a musician yeah that's fabulous and he's playing lead flute and is it the flute as well as the lute flute and lute but particularly anything rhyming with oot he plays roots and fruit anything like that as long as it's ute. There's a story which I've always loved where he sends Voltaire. He had a palace, Frederick the Great, I think, called Sans Souci, which is the French for careless or without care. And he sent him a – I've always – this is my dinner party trick. I can write it down here.

But you write a big P then a U and under it, and then a letter A, and then C-I and under that S-A-N-S. Which, if you read it out, is un souper, one under P, at sans souci, sans under C. So it reads un souper sans souci. Supper sans souci? Question mark. And then Voltaire supposedly wrote a big letter G and a small letter A as a reply, which in French is j'ai grand, a petit. Big J, small A. But it means I have a big appetite.

I'm very hungry. Did you know that un souper thing? I did not know that. That is a big appetite. I'm very hungry. Did you know that, Ernst Huppé thing? I did not know that. That is a delightful thing. Oh, good. So whilst Frederick is playing his flute, lute, fruit and maybe even his boot, who knows? In 1740, the big, big news is that his bullying, abusive father finally dies.

And suddenly we have a new king in Prussia, not of Prussia. And Stephen, how do you think young Frederick celebrates? Let me think. Does he have a party in which he invites poets and philosophers and musicians, a sort of symposium of some kind? Does he go to France where he can is finally free to visit his intellectual homeland? Or you tell me. You're not far off, Bodhi. Not far off at all. So one of the first things that he does, actually,

is that he begins openly appearing in public with a man who is quite clearly, I think, his lover. Wow. And treats him as such. So the man is someone named Francesco Algorotti, and he is very much one of Frederick's great loves, not just emotionally, but also intellectually. So Algorotti is a man of letters. He's a doctor. He's the son of a Venetian merchant. So he comes from a very wealthy family. Frederick, quite early on, comes up with his own nickname for Algarotti, and it's gorgeous.

He calls him the Swan of Padua. And I think that's so lovely, isn't it? And just a few days after Frederick William dies, Frederick writes to Algarotti and writes to him saying, My dear Algarotti, my lot has changed. I await you with impatience. Please don't make me pine, Frederick. Wow. Isn't that beautiful?

Algarotti, on the other hand, writes to his brother about how he's treated by the new king in Prussia. And he says that the king, to quote him here, gave me countless caresses and honoured me in a thousand different ways. Coup. Bodhi, we now suddenly have a young new king who is a flute-playing poetry lover,

a fancy fork user, a man scared of gunfire who falls off horses. And he inherits this huge army and militarised state from his dad, the soldier king. So how does Frederick deal with this awkward inheritance? Again, one of the interesting things about Frederick is that he does end up getting this great reputation as this amazing military thinker and this strategic genius. And one of the things that is noted quite early on by one of his tutors, who was Prince Eugene of Savoy, was that he doesn't love war. And that is a good thing. So effectively, Frederick, upon taking on this state, which Mirabeau had at one point said that Prussia is not so much a state

in possession of an army, but an army that happens to possess a state. And it's quite true. So he takes on this well-drilled, modernised army. Boys tend to be added to the roles at the age of 10. So, you know, there is sort of a proto-conscription type idea occurring here. has come from the noble class, as we might expect from this period. The army is very, very big for its time. And Frederick adds to it. The army, by the time he dies, has doubled in size. And of course, at the time, this is not a period in which Europe knows general peace. And so Frederick is very much aware in a very practical sense that much as he might not love war, war might be very useful as a tool of foreign policy. And he hurls himself into a war pretty fast, which is known as the Austrian War of Succession. A lovely name for a war.

This is the sudden death of the emperor, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles. He dies and his daughter is meant to inherit. And Frederick's like, nope, not having any of that. Don't like me any lady queens. So he sizes up nearby Silesia and just invades. That's interesting. Does it go well for him? Does it go badly for him?

I know the French get involved. Well, basically, everyone gets involved in some way, shape or form. But he sees Silesia as being a really great opportunity for this resource-poor Prussia. As we said before, it's the sandbox. There's not much fertile soil. Cats are pooing in it. Yeah, exactly. And Silesia is Poland, yes?

Now in Poland? Yeah, it's sort of around Poland, Czech Republic sort of area. Bohemia. It's still very, very fluid. The borders will continue to change throughout all of area. Bohemia. It's still very, very fluid. The borders will continue to change throughout all of these decades and centuries. When P.G. Woodhouse was a prisoner of war of the Germans as an enemy alien

when he was arrested in France, he was taken to a camp in Upper Silesia and he noted in his diary, if this is Upper Silesia, I'd hate to think what Lower Silesia would be like. Anyway, there you are. I mean, Woodhouse might not have been that thrilled with Silesia, but Frederick is because it's actually very fertile, something similar to the breadbasket of Europe. And so for him to take this very, very early into his reign means that he can really secure a number of resources that

Prussia doesn't naturally have. So as Greg said, he gets into the field really quickly. There are lots of battles and various treaties and various alliances and so on that happen over the next few years. So in 1744, he once again goes to war with Austria in an attempt to gain yet more territory. And he's sort of backed by the French here. So he figures that everything's going to be OK. The French don't play along and they end up betraying him. And the Austrians are able to hit back. Frederick suffers huge losses here.

A lot of his army is deserting. And this is really, really bad really bad obviously this hardly is pointing to the idea of a military genius no there's a low point where he's in his dressing room weeping and then and then he manages to sort of he gets the cash out he buys more soldiers off he goes 1745 the land is given to him in an official treaty, and he is titled Frederick the Great at 33. You say he is titled. Do we know who gave him that title? Did he give it to himself?

I think it's the Prussians who call him the Great. I think it's a sort of internal Prussian celebration of how he's won this land for them. So he's a great at 33. I mean, Stephen, if you could choose your epithet, how you'd like to be remembered to history, what epithet would you go with? You know, one wants to steal so many phrases from other people, it's really embarrassing.

But I think probably sorry is what will be on my great. Stephen the apologetic. Yeah, exactly. Obviously, I can't go for Gregory the Great because there's already been one. And judging by the iTunes reviews, I'm more Gregory the Grating. But, you know, I'm doing my best. So we have this enormous global war called the Seven Years' War. Historians sometimes call it the First World War.

And it broke out in 1756. It ran to 1763. It's very, very complicated. We don't have time for it. So I'm going to race through it. Having annoyed everyone by stealing Silesia, Frederick fears revenge. He fears the Russians. He fears Austria. He fears everyone. So he launches a preemptive strike. He invades Saxony to knock them out of the war. This then causes Austria, Russia, France, the Holy Roman Emperor, Saxony, and Sweden to gang up on him together,

encircle him and attack. Britain is his only ally, but Britain isn't being very helpful because Britain's at war with France in India and North America, hence the World War I thing. And he loses a lot. He loses all the time and he is miserable and he has a brilliant line, fortune turned her back on me. She's a woman and I'm not that way inclined. It's just a great line.

Wow. Wow. The mixture of coming out as a gay man and as a misogynist, you can't help you. It's a bit unfortunate. Dear, dear. Good Lord. This is where things really are not going well for him. And most of the kings would just sue for peace and go, all right, got that wrong. But he's so stubborn, Bodhi. He refuses to sue for peace. I mean, he overplays his hand, the battle of

Kunisdorf in 1759. It's his worst ever defeat. And yet he sort of gets away with it. How has he got away with it? What miracle has delivered onto him from the heavens? Even while he's losing, he's very, very good at rallying his side. So even in 1757, when everything's going really, really poorly for him, he personally rallies troops, basically by yelling at them, but with a very good turn of phrase, he's quite eloquent. So you literally mean he's on a horse riding in front of his troops? There are no relays or semaphores or any other ways of communicating, are there, than in real life, as we now say?

No, he's not sort of to steal something from something that you've previously done, Stephen. He's not trying to move his drinks cabinet six inches closer to Berlin or, in this case, to Vienna. And this is the boy who wouldn't play with his soldiers, which is interesting, isn't it? Well, exactly. He's overcome all of this.

And you can sort of see, I think, where Prince Eugene had said the crown prince doesn't love war and this is a good thing. Because it means he's much more measured in what he does. It's sort of realpolitik before realpolitik. He does that which he thinks he can get away with. And sometimes it doesn't work. Most of the time it does. One of his very famous rallying cries to his troops was, you rascals or you dogs, do you really want to live forever?

And it gets them out onto the field, whereas I think I might answer, well, yes, actually, or at least for a bit longer. Closer to forever than you were suggesting, exactly. Yeah, exactly. But, I mean, he starts rallying. He beats the Austrians twice at Liegnitz and at Torgal. He's actually wounded in action at the latter.

And he's really suffering at this point. He thinks he's going to lose this war and he's very concerned about what happens if he'll be captured. But he wants to still stay with his troops. So, you know, points for bravery here. But where it really works out for him is that Peter III becomes the Tsar of Russia in 1762. And so there's a regime change in Russia. And Peter is a huge fan of Frederick. He cosplays as Frederick the Great.

He loves dressing up in Prussian uniforms and swanning about. So, you know, he's... These people! Yeah, well, yes. And so he's pretty thrilled about the fact that, you know, he can now come to the aid of his great hero, Frederick the Great of Prussia. And this is exactly what the Prussians need and what Frederick needs at this exact moment, because suddenly one of those powers that's been ranged against him has changed side

and will ultimately end up taking to the field against Austria. And Tsar Peter III has entered the chat and then very quickly leaves the chat because he is murdered by his wife, who is, of course, another great from history, Catherine the Great. We have two greats side by side. She's not so keen, but she doesn't betray him. She sort of goes, well, fine, we'll be sort of lukewarm allies then.

But it does mean, in the end, he pretty much emerges from the Seven Years' War almost victorious. He gets to keep the land that he's won in Silesia. So he has made Prussia bigger. He's a man who goes to war very readily. And I don't think we can be hugely comfortable with sort of heroizing people like that. But he was considered heroic at the time. I don't know how you feel about that, Stephen, the idea of men who go to war being valorized. I don't know how you feel about that, Stephen, the idea of men who go to war being valorized. It's one of the real problems of history and of human affairs, really, isn't it?

Is that we all realize that war is a destructive, futile and terrible thing, that the collateral damage is never justified by whatever goals are achieved, it seems, and yet it is the only human arena, apart from sport, which people have different views on, in which glory, real glory is possible, heroism and self-sacrifice and some beautiful gestures and remarkable achievements and valour and so on, tremendous stories, and all the way back to the Greeks and right up to the dawn of history. History has shown war to be something awful and simultaneously awesome. And it's quite hard to deny that. You can be a pacifist. And of course, most of us are disposed to pacifism where possible. But it's very hard to look back at the Second World War and certain wars of resistance and overcoming tyranny without admiration for the sacrifice, the martyrdom, and so on. And I think we are as conflicted within ourselves. We are, if I can be cute about this, at war with ourselves

when it comes to our understanding and our feelings about war. So Frederick is clearly bad news for his neighbours. I mean, you don't want to be next door to him. But what about his own people? Is he a good king, Bodhi? Well, the really important thing here is that he doesn't want to be like his father. What we know about Frederick William is that he was very despotic, very miserly, very much didn't support the arts or anything along those lines. Frederick is a very different person. So he believes in what we might call enlightened absolutism, but he defines the king as being the first servant of the state. So his idea is that all of the citizens of Prussia serve the state. The king is a citizen of Prussia. He modernizes the

bureaucracy of the state. He abolishes torture. He allows newspapers to be published. He opened royal granaries, which would bring down prices of bread and also help for in times that there might be shortages that the people would actually be provided for. He doesn't quite do away with, but he certainly relaxes public punishment in a judicial setting. Capital punishment is rolled back quite a bit. It still exists, but it has a lot of preconditions before one is executed. He begins codifying Prussian law. He brings peasants into the army, so they're often press ganged into the army, but he has a reputation for treating peasants very well, much the same way as he treats the nobility. So he does have sort of the, if I can call it that, the common touch here. He's also sort of proto-pro-vaccine in the sense that there is something called variolation at this time. So if you take the scabs from someone who had smallpox

and you rub them on the open wounds of someone, then you give them a small dose of smallpox, which is meant to sort of inoculate them from another and worse bout of it. So he's sort of ahead of his time in many many ways here. That's extraordinary. He hugely ramps up education. Something like 94% of Prussian children could write their name.

65% were going to schools. He funds the Prussian Academy of Science, which is, you know, Immanuel Kant is a member. He is also interesting in terms of religion, Bodhi. He's kind of tolerant. And Stephen, you asked about that earlier. What do you know about his attitude towards faith?

Myself, I have no knowledge at all. I mean, Voltaire was a deist, which is to say he believed there may be some author of the universe, but he had no time for religion. And in France, generally, the Enlightenment was being crushed by Catholicism. Diderot and the Encyclopedia were, you know, finding it very difficult to disseminate knowledge freely because the church got in the way. But presumably, that wasn't the case in Prussia. Was he anti-Semitic? Because there was a time in Berlin when the Jews really flourished under Mendelssohn, the grandfather of the composer, for example. And was that because he deliberately wanted an intellectually active Berlin?

It's interesting that you bring that up, actually, Stephen, because Frederick is a non-believer. He's obviously a bit soured on religion to begin with, given the state of his childhood and his upbringing. He is understood to be vaguely tolerant in some ways. So he had once said that if the Turks came to Prussia, he would build the mosques, which is, again, a remarkable sentiment for this time. He does provide safe haven for the atheists of Europe and also for other religious refugees from the wars of religion. But he is quite notably anti-Semitic, which is also not so surprising for the time and for the person he is, which shouldn't excuse it either. But it is possible to make a life in Prussia as a Jewish person. But particularly in Berlin, Frederick sort of runs a bit of a protection racket for Jewish families that they're meant to actually buy their protection from the state.

So it's a very conflicting legacy there. He's pretty horrible about the Polish-Lithuanian people. He calls them, I think, trash, vile trash. And you mentioned earlier on, Stephen, the division of Poland. That is his big gambit in 1772. He gets upgraded to king of Prussia, from king in Prussia, because he swoops in and takes Polish land. And he carves up this land in a three-way deal.

There has been a Polish civil war called the Bar Confederation. And to avoid another huge war in Europe, he does a deal between Prussia, Russia, and Austria. And he ends up taking the bit of land that had separated the two Prussias, and he gets to join them all together. And now he's king of Prussia. So he's added land, but he is not keen at all on Polish people. He is very, very cruel about them. I mean, this runs through history that the poor Poles are despised by the Russians and the Germans right up to the 20th century. Yeah, it's a desperately sad situation. And Frederick's racism towards Poles and Jews is a nasty mark on his record. And of course, once again, he is invading other people's lands.

He's killing soldiers, probably civilians too you know this biography is not unproblematic but we have to move on and there's another part of his story which is less problematic thankfully um steven if you were to visit frederick's grave what would you find decorating it decorating it gosh let me think he's prussian i mean obviously when i was assuming not a pair of crossed swords or a military things would it be a uh a carving of a book um that's a lovely guess think more culinary culinary oh well he's fritz it can't be a sausage come on german cliches a sausage an onion what else i completely give up tell me potatoes he's a spud pioneer he's the kartoffelkönig yeah so he loved agriculture bodhi didn't he really you know hugely invests in in reclamation

of lands and making the soil more fertile but But he also wants a reliable food source. At the time, potatoes were believed to be dangerous to humans. They were believed to be only for horses. And humans who ate them were alleged to have flatulence and leprosy, which is a terrible combo. But Frederick believed that they were nutritious and delicious and sensible to grow. And so he played a sort of psychology trick. Bodhi, what does he do? He actually gets royal guards to stand guard over potato plantations

because then it makes people think, oh, these must be valuable. That's clever. It's quite a German thing, isn't it? Supposedly when George came over from Hanover in 1714, bringing his disreputable court and mistresses and so on, but he also dug up the palace gardens and planted potatoes. Oh, really? Shocked the British court. So obviously it's a thing. And then George III, who's king in England

by this time, I guess. You're talking about the 1770s, weren't you? He was known as the farmer king as well, wasn't he? Yeah, yeah. He used to publish pamphlets, I think, weren't you? He was known as the farmer king as well, wasn't he? Yeah, yeah. He used to publish pamphlets, I think, in agricultural magazines. He was really into it. So yes, so Frederick the Great, potato hero, along with the Frenchman Parmentier, who did something very similar, another reverse psychology trick with soldiers as well.

Hence the dish, potatoes parmentier, isn't it? Absolutely. And, Bodhi, just sticking with Sanssouci Palace, it was his great pleasure palace that he built it. So what were the parties like there? Well, it's filled almost exclusively with homosexual or bisexual men. He heavily discourages any of these men from marrying women. Women are not really allowed to visit at any point in time.

Dogs, on the other hand, are perfectly welcome. He loves his Italian greyhounds and they howl whenever they see a woman in their presence. So he starts building this in 1745. It takes a little while, but he spends a lot of his time there. And of course, the staff only speak French. Let's talk about Voltaire's stay, because it starts out great. Both men are fans of each other's work, but they soon bicker over politics and fall out. And after two years, Voltaire quits. He's done. And then an anonymous book appears in Europe called The Private Life of the King of Prussia. And through pure coincidence, it's written in a style suspiciously similar to Voltaire's own writing style.

What are the chances, eh? And in this book, we have some pretty scandalous stuff about what Frederick is allegedly doing. He's apparently the passive partner when he enjoys sex with men, and he puts the buff in breakfast buffet. Bode, would you like to elaborate on that? According to Voltaire, we're very much assuming that this is Voltaire, Frederick, and I quote here, summons two or three favourites, whether lieutenants from his regiment or pages or lackeys or young cadets. This is he invites them to breakfast.

Coffee is drunk. Whoever is thrown a handkerchief then spends a quarter of an hour in a tête-à-tête with the king. It might be tête-à-cool rather than tête-à-tête or tête-à-meat, if you know your French. So he was a power bottom, I suppose you would say.

Well, yes. Goodness me. Can we say that on Radio 4? I don't know. Maybe we can. Let's try. Wow. You heard it here first.

He's literally having soldiers with his eggs for breakfast. He's inviting them. Five-star bed and breakfast service, isn't it? And that the dunking is the other way round. Goodness me. Well, well. And this was published and freely available to all who could read, as it were, and who had the sum by copy.

And he didn't suppress it. Well, look, the question about his sexuality wasn't really a question at all. How widely read was this? Well, a lot. There were rumors that were circulated throughout Europe about Frederick's sex life that were, you know, sparked by this book, but not just this book. It was very noted, his relationship to women or his lack of relationship to women. And certainly his antagonism towards Maria Theresa in Austria, for example, did not go unnoticed among the crowned heads of Europe. And after he died, his physician actually was quoted as writing in his memoirs that innumerable Frenchmen and Germans, so they're apparently the only ones who matter, but almost all the friends and enemies of Frederick, almost all the princes and great men of Europe, and even his servants, even the confidants and friends of his later years were of the opinion that he had loved, as it is pretended, Socrates loved Alcibiades.

He had loved, as it is pretended, Socrates loved Alcibiades. So basically everyone kind of knew. And if they didn't know, they guessed, they assumed. And on top of that, we mentioned Francesco Algarotti before. And we mentioned that Frederick enjoys writing. He enjoys writing poetry. And he enjoys writing particularly homoerotic poems. Do you have an example? Yes, we do.

Oh, excellent. Stephen, would you like to read a few lines for us? Oh. This is a poem called The Orgasm. Oh, gracious. And it is written by a young Frederick about his Italian lover. I think it's rather lovely, but it's pretty obvious what's happening in this poem. Here is the poem.

From Königsberg to Monsieur Algarotti, swan of Padua. This night, vigorous desire in full measure, Algarotti wallowed in a sea of pleasure. A body not even a Praxiteles fashions, Redoubled his senses and imbued his passions. Everything that speaks to eyes and touches hearts Was found in the fond object that inflamed his parts. Transported by love and trembling with excitement,

In Cloris' arms he yields himself to contentment. The love that unites them heated their embraces and tied bodies and arms as tightly as laces. Divine sensual pleasure. To the world, a king. Gracious. Beautifully read. Well, my word. Can I ask a very shallow question? Do you have any evidence of what Frederick looked like and Algarotti looked like? Were they a handsome couple? Would I have looked at them and thought,

oh, you know, nice. Oh, that's a terrible thing. I told you it was shallow, but just out of curiosity. Oh, that's a judgment question. It is a bit, isn't it? But was Algarotti painted? Algarotti is gorgeous. He is gorgeous, good.

They're a handsome couple. But presumably it was his military success and land conquest that allowed him, I suppose, to behave like that with what you might call impunity. So it was really the greatness of Frederick that allowed his personal habits to go unchallenged. Is that fair, do you think? Yes and no.

Again, the standard historian's answer, it's complicated. Prussians and Germans in particular understood masculinity in rather different ways than we might have expected. There were these so-called manuals of masculinity or guidebooks of governing principles, the so-called Hausfederliteratur, the housefather's literature, which would lay down what the epitome of a man should be like, what a man should do. And sex is never part of that. It may sort of be taken as a given, but it's never actually explicitly mentioned in the text. But what you have instead is that to be a good housefather and to sort of manage the ökonomiik, the economy of the household, a good man needs to know how to serve beer.

He needs to know stuff about poetry. He needs to know stuff about the latest music. He needs to know how to garden. And the gardening here is actually quite important because if a man can't tend to a rose garden and keep the order in his rose garden, how can he keep order in a household? And therefore, how can he keep order over a state such as Prussia? So really, in this sense, sure, everyone thinks that Frederick is often having sex with men and is, as Greg said, as Voltaire says originally, he plays the passive part. We might have expected that in the 18th century, this is a disqualifying factor. But in actual fact, he's sort of ticking

the boxes of everything that's meant to be the epitome of Junker masculinity in Prussia. That's very interesting. We're coming to the end of the episode, which means, of course, we're coming to the end of Frederick himself. He dies in 1786, aged about 74. His last order was for a cushion for one of his dogs to rest on, which I think is rather charming. He'd ruled for 46 years. He'd, of course, been unhappily married that whole time as well. And 60,000 people attended his coffin during a state funeral in Potsdam. Against his wishes, Frederick was buried next to his abusive dad, which is rather sad. But he was moved in 1991 to be buried next to his three favourite Italian greyhounds.

Much better. Now, Frederick the Great obviously has left a huge legacy. He made Prussia a military power. He doubled its lands, its armies. He modernised and liberalised culture. He increased literacy rates. He probably fostered the development of Germany's artists, musicians, writers, scientists, philosophers. But so much blood had to be spilled to do it. And sadly, today, we all know what happens when military strongmen attack their neighbours. And then,

of course, we have the tragic childhood to ponder, his sexuality, the racism we talked about. I mean, it's a lot to process. So, Stephen, how do you feel now about this complex figure, Frederick the Great of Prussia? I'm going to say he deserves his title great. I mean, of course, there are certain aspects to him that I deprecate enormously as a Jew. Naturally, his anti-Semitism doesn't endear me to him. But, you know, given the age and so on,

I'm not saying I overlook it, but I mean, you know, what position I'm in to change it anyway, or to change the tenor of the times. But I suppose the thing that appeals most to a 21st century mindset is a word that one might use, his authenticity, is that he clearly was not a man who pretended to be anything other than what he was, both sexually and in terms of his intellectual pursuits and interests, even in his relationship to his own language. Most kings of any country would pretend to a patriotic adoration and the bigging up of their language and their culture. So to have the, you know, he told his truth, as we say now. You know, he really was an authentic figure. And I think for that time, it's an astounding achievement. And whether we can call him a gay icon or a gay

hero I don't know but you know because that's a such a modern way of looking at identity but it's certainly true that the courage to be yourself is as admirable in a king as it is in a peddler or a tinker because it's never easy in any circumstances. In some respects, it's harder as a king because a king also has to bear the weight of so much symbolic representation of his nation. And yet through that, he managed to shine a personality and a sense of preference and his own will and so on. And I think that's fantastically admirable.

The nuance window! I think that's fantastically admirable. The Nuance Window! Dr. Bodie, it's time now for The Nuance Window. This is where Stephen and I sit back and have a little listen, and you have two minutes to tell us something we need to know about Frederick the Great and perhaps his legacy or his reputation or how we should think about him. So without much further ado, please take it away.

Well, I'm going to say yet again that I'm really glad that Stephen brought something up just before I speak because it's set the stage really nicely. The authenticity here of Frederick, I think, is absolutely something that is vital for historians and students of history to really engage with effectively. So at the top of the episode, you all heard that I'm a queer historian, or rather, well, I am a queer historian and a historian of queer history. And one of the things that I very often say, even to my students in the classroom, is that all history is queer history, because queer people have existed since forever. Of course, the vocabulary has changed. The language has changed in the way that we discuss this. And Stephen's quite right to say, you know,

can we talk about Frederick as a gay icon or a gay hero? Because this is very modern conceptualization. But one thing that is absolutely necessary in engaging with someone like Frederick the Great is that he is a queer man. He is a gay man. He is someone who, again, as Stephen says, was very authentic in his sexual life. But more so than that, it was part of who he was. And I know that we're beyond, in many ways, the era where we talk so much about great man history. And yet here I am talking about a man literally called the Great. But at the same time, we do need to take this very much into account in its entirety. He's not Frederick the Great because he is gay. But being gay is part of what makes him Frederick the Great, and it

therefore is an integral part of our understanding of Prussia at this time of European history, at this time of history in general. And this is absolutely something that continues to need to be integrated into general curricula, I would say. And that would be my nuance window. I'm just thrilled at this history lesson. It's given me so much to think about. And I, of course, will now try and dive in and find a biography. If you can recommend a good one, I'd be very grateful. Tim Blannings is very good. Okay. Tim Blannings is 650 pages. It's very enjoyable. Wow. I shall do my best to dive in. So what do you know now?

So what do you know now? Time now for the So What Do You Know Now? This is our quickfire quiz for Stephen to see how much he has learned. And let's be honest, I mean, Stephen, you are a renowned brain. You were the honorary president of the Cambridge University Quiz Society. So frankly, 10 out of 10 is a necessity here, surely. This is the trouble with being considered the fastest gun in the West, is every gunslinger shouts, draw.

OK, well, we've talked about an awful lot. I will let you off if you don't remember all the details. Let's see what's gone in. OK, so question one. In what year was Frederick the Great born? I think we settled on 1712. We did. Question two.

Which language did Frederick primarily write and speak in? Well, I guess French. It was French. Question three. What was the name of Frederick's wife, which I badly mispronounced? Ah, Elisabeth Christina... I can't...

Von... By... Byvern? Yeah. Close enough. Bayvern. Bayvern, sorry, Bayvern. Frederick loved music very much.

What instrument did he play? Anything rhyming with fruit. The fruit, the lute, but notably the flute. That's true. Name one of the big, big European wars that Frederick got involved in. There's the War of the Austrian Succession and the Seven Years' War with them. That's right, absolutely. In 2011, in Berlin, in an archive in Berlin, a poem was found, which was an erotic poem.

What was its name? Oh, goodness. I haven't just read it. I know it was addressed to the Swan of Padua. It was, yes. But I can't remember the actual title. Isn't that awful of me? It was called The Orgasm.

Oh, that's right. Of course it was. You told me that. The Orgasm. The Juisance, I think, was the French. I knew it would come to me. Hey! During the Seven Years' War,

Frederick was rescued from strategic disaster by becoming pals with which Russian czar? He was Peter III. It was Peter III. It was Peter III. Question eight. Frederick shrewdly promoted the growing of which nutritious, delicious vegetable? It was the Erdapfel, also known as the Kartoffel, the potato. Question nine.

Which philosopher came to live with Frederick for two years and then probably wrote The Private Life of the King of Prussia? Voltaire. It. Voltaire. It was Voltaire. And this for 9 out of 10, although frankly I think it was 10 out of 10, but I'm being mean. Frederick's great big building project of a Coco style palace was named Sanssouci, which translates to... Without Care.

That's right. Wonderful stuff. Thank you so much, Stephen Fry. 9.6 out of 10 for my final judgment. Thank you. It was a real joy, honestly. What a treat. And listener, if today's episode has you ravenous for more royal history,

then check out our episode on King James VI of Scotland. Or if you're curious to hear more, have a listen to our episode on LGBTQ history. Or actually, just listen to the King James VI of Scotland episode, because, you know, same thing. All our episodes are on BBC Sounds. And remember, if you've enjoyed the podcast, please leave a review, share the show with your friends, and make sure to subscribe to You're Dead to Me on BBC Sounds

so you never miss an episode. All that's left for me now is to say a huge thank you to our guests. In History Corner, we've had the brilliant Dr. Bodhi Ashton from the Universitat Erfurt. I'm so sorry. Thank you, Bodhi. Universitate. The Universitate Erfurt. I'm so sorry. Thank you, Bodhi. Universität. The Universität Erfurt. Okay.

Look, I know that Frederick's favourite language wasn't German and it certainly wouldn't have been spoken like this up in Prussia at the time, but I spent some time in Lower Bavaria and one of their greetings is Habideri, which is Ich habe die Ehre, the honour is mine. And it truly has been an honour. So thank you so much.

Thank you, Pody. And in Comedy Corner, we have the simply sensational Stephen Fry. Thank you, Stephen. But I want to thank you all so much for an education and all for the rest of your podcast series, because I'm a long-time listener, first-time caller, as they say. Thank you so much, Stephen. It's been an absolute pleasure.

Thank you and farewell. Tschüss. And to you, lovely listener, join me next time as we quick march into another period of global history. But for now, I'm off to go and enjoy some egg with my soldiers. No, not like that. Get your mind out of the gutter, honestly. Bye.

Your Dead to Me was a production by the athletic for bbc radio 4 the research was by claudia treacher this episode was written and produced by emma naguse and me the assistant producer was emmy rose price goodfellow the project manager was cypher mio and the audio producer was abby patter Uncanny is back. The hit paranormal podcast returns with a summer special that will chill you to the bone. It was a real dream holiday, really. The family trip of a lifetime

becomes the holiday from hell. Whoever was in that room wanted to do us harm. They wanted to frighten us. The Uncanny Summer Special. Out now. What do you think was in that house? Six very frightened tourists

and something else that didn't want us there. Subscribe to Uncanny on BBC Sounds.