prussian in this case.
Tim Blanning, former professor of Modern European History at Cambridge, has already written brilliantly about Germany in books such as The Culture of Power and The Triumph of Music. His latest is a 625-page biography of Frederick II (a hero in his lifetime to many Englishmen), which also illuminates Berlin, Potsdam and Prussia in the 18th century. It is sure to be the standard English-language account for many years. It instructs; it entertains; and it surprises. Blanning shows that this hereditary monarch, born in Berlin in 1712, could be more radical than most leaders today. Atheist and homosexual, he called Christianity an 'odd metaphysical fiction', and Jesus the 'Ganymede' of the Apostle John.
readers learn that the Prussian royal family was so odious that it makes the House of Hanover, to whom it was closely related (Frederick the Great was a cousin, namesake and role model for Frederick, Prince of Wales), seem normal. Frederick’s father, Frederick William I, was a screaming psychopath who traumatised his son by forcing him to witness the execution of his lover, Lieutenant von Katte:
After his accession, in Blanning's words Frederick 'came out'. He spent most of his time far from prying eyes in Potsdam, south- west of Berlin, and enjoyed ‘intimate relations’ with young officers, as well as his first valet Fredersdorf. The king called him 'du' and he acted as an unofficial prime minister. Frederick commissioned a fresco of Ganymede and filled his parks with statues of Antinous or pairs of male lovers. His poems 'The Orgasm' and 'Palladion', the first written for his handsome Italian favourite Count Algarotti, praise 'glorious heroes, responding both actively and passively to their lithe and obliging friends'.
After Frederick's accession in 1740, he became, in his turn, the tormentor of the family.
Far from being 'the first servant of the state' as he sometimes claimed, in reality he was driven by desire for what he called 'the aggrandisement of my house', 'the glory of the House of Brandenburg', however much he hated its members; also for personal glory, to surpass his father and win the admiration of foreigners and posterity.
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