Frederick william the great biography

A General Survey. New York: Macmillan Publishers. Ritter, Gerhard []. Frederick the Great: A Historical Profile. Translated by Peter Paret. Berkeley: University of California Press. Sainte-Beuve, Charles Augustin []. Translated by Mathews, William. Schieder, Theodor []. Edited and translated by Berkeley, Sabina and Scott, H. New York: Addison Wesley Longmann.

Schui, Florian Schweizer, Karl W. Edwin Mellen Press. Scott, Hamish The Emergence of the Eastern Powers — Shaw, William Arthur Showalter, Dennis E. By Asprey, Robert B. The Wars of Frederick the Great. Frederick the Great: A Military History. Simon, Edith. The Making of Frederick the Great. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. Snyder, Louis In Snyder, Louis ed.

Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall. Stollberg-Rillinger, Barbara Stone, David Herndon, VA: Potomac Books. Strachan, Hew In Blanning, T. The Oxford History of Modern Europe. Szabo, Franz. The Seven Years' War in Europe. Teter, Magda Tuttle, Herbert History of Prussia. Waite, Arthur Edward []. A New Encyclopedia of Freemasonry. New York: Wings Books.

Journal fredericks william the great biography [ frederick william the great biography ]. Aarsleff, Hans History of the Human Sciences. S2CID Ashton, Bodie Archived from the original PDF on 16 July Bourke, John JSTOR Cajori, Florian The American Mathematical Monthly. Carruth, William H. With illustrations from Adolf Menzel".

The Open Court. Archived from the original on 20 March Fay, Sidney B. The American Historical Review. Forment, Bruno Cambridge Opera Journal. Hagen, William W. Central European History. Haworth, Paul Leland April Israel, Jonathan Which Enlightenment? Klippel, Diethelm Proceedings of the British Academy. Archived from the original PDF on 2 March Retrieved 2 March Kloes, Andrew Harvard Theological Review.

German Journal of Human Resource Management. ISSN Langhof, Jan G. Journal of Management History. Loewy, Andrea Kapell College Music Symposium. Oleskiewicz, Mary Fall The Flutist Quarterly. Archived from the original PDF on 14 May Paret, Peter Historically Speaking. Pulver, Jeffrey The Musical Times. Ropes, Arthur R. Transactions of the Royal Historical Society.

Rose, J. Holland a. The English Historical Review. Holland b. The Historical Journal. Spencer, Frank Terne, Claudia FriedrichColloquien in German. ISSN X. Archived from the original PDF on 12 September Terrall, Mary History of Science. Bibcode : HisSc. Valentin, Viet New Series. Weil, Herman The American Journal of Legal History. Walthall, Charles Fall Archived from the original PDF on 27 February Dissertations [ edit ].

Smeall, Cheryl Lynn McGill University. Archived from the original on 29 April Storring, Adam Lindsay Cambridge University. Archived from the original PDF on 12 November Online [ edit ]. Alings, Reinhard Archived from the original on 29 June Les citations historiques : Mirabeau et la Prusse in French. Archived from the original on 2 December Archived from the original on 30 July Retrieved 2 June Deutsche Bundesbank Eurosystem.

Archived from the original PDF on 5 April Das Gupta, Oliver 24 January Archived from the original on 21 December Donoghue, Steve Christian Science Monitor. Archived from the original on 15 March Gaffney, Thomas L. Colorado Council of Kadosh Oration. Archived PDF from the original on 16 May Retrieved 21 December Hedwigs-Kathedrale" [History of St.

Hedwig's Cathedral]. Sankt Hedwig Mitte in German. Archived from the original on 19 July Retrieved 4 September Heilbrunn, Jacob 12 September The New York Times. Archived from the original on 19 September Archived from the original on 3 February Krysmanski, Bernd University of Heidelberg: arthistoricum. Archived PDF from the original on 9 December Jones, Tamara 18 August Los Angeles Times.

Archived from the original on 8 November Lau, Karlheinz Archived from the original on 17 August Retrieved 17 September Die Welt in German. Archived from the original on 2 January Robinson, Matt Berlin Experiences. Archived from the original on 11 December Sgard, Jean. Dictionnaire des Journalistes — in French. Archived from the original on 10 November Sontheimer, Michael [in German] March Their Struggle for Power Split the Empire].

Der Spiegel. Archived from the original on 12 July Audiovisual [ edit ]. BBC Sounds Podcast. Primary sources [ edit ]. However, a political shift in St. Petersburg saved Prussia. Frederick II was a leading military figure of his time, outlining his strategic and tactical principles in several works. His strategy emphasized maneuverability and surprise attacks.

Tactically, he employed the "oblique attack," which proved effective against Austrian, Saxon, and French forces but less so against Russian troops. He prioritized infantry fire and employed heavy cavalry in massed formations. Fortunately, his loathsome father left Frederick with a strong army and ample funds. InPrussia consisted of scattered territories across central Europe and few significant allies save for Great Britain.

He then proceeded to invade key areas, forcing Maria Theresa to cede almost all of Silesia by InAustria, backed by France and Russia, tried to regain control of Silesia. In a series of battles to the death, Frederick lost territory, then gained it, then lost it again. InAustro-Russian forces occupied Berlin, and Frederick, reduced to despair, considered suicide.

Although Frederick did not gain territory, the ensuing treaty allowed him to retain Silesia and made him popular throughout the many German-speaking territories. Prussia became one of the preeminent powers in Europe. Domestically, Frederick's Enlightenment influence was more evident. He reformed the military and government, established religious tolerance and granted a basic form of freedom of the press.

He bolstered the legal system and established the first German code of law. He stood close to the French Age of Enlightenment and admired above all its greatest thinker, Voltairewith whom he corresponded frequently. Voltaire referred to Frederick as, "great king, charming tease" and said, "For four years you have been my mistress Voltaire described their falling out as, "a lovers' quarrel: the harassments of courts pass away, but the nature of a beautiful ruling passion is long-lasting.

Immanuel Kant published religious writings in Berlin that would have been censored anywhere else in Europe. 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".

Many statesmen, including Heinrich Friedrich Karl Reichsfreiherr 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 by writing:. Well we had not much to say in favor 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 Near the end of his life Frederick grew increasingly solitary. When his longtime companion Fredersdorf sought marriage, Frederick cynically replied, "Have your marriage ceremony today rather than tomorrow if that will contribute to your care and comfort; and if you want to keep a little page and a little scout with you as well, do so.

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 greyhounds, [6] whom he referred to as his 'marquises de Pompadour' as a jibe at Madame de Pompadour. Upon Frederick's death, his doctor, Johann Georg Zimmermann, published a book denying Frederick's reputation as a lover of men.

Zimmermann conceded that:. Zimmermann presented the theory that Frederick started this rumor to draw attention away from an accidental castration which happened during a gonorrhea treatment, but court physicians specifically noted that Frederick was in no way emasculated when they examined his body. Frederick remains a controversial figure in Germany and Central Europe.

Unlike many of his contemporaries, Frederick did not believe in the Divine Right of Kings and would often wear old military uniforms unlike the exaggerated French style; he merely believed the crown was "a hat that let the rain in. Frederick was both an enlightened ruler and a ruthless despot. Through reform, war, and the First Partition of Poland inhe turned the Kingdom of Prussia into a European great power.

Frederick believed that men of rank should be soldiers, thus the equation between Prussian identity and militarism. He saw himself as the people's watchman, with responsibilities towards them but he was no great supporter of democracy, suggesting that republics ended up with despotic governance. Religiously tolerant, although an unbeliever, he ended witchcraft trials and allowed freedom of worship.

Some argue that because he did not establish a strong Prussian state Church, this made it easy for Hitler to step into a void with his version of German Christianity. His reform of the civil service laid the foundation of an efficient bureaucracy. Previously, nobles had served as regional functionaries. Frederick allowed Nobles to serve in administrative posts but not in their own ancestral localities.

Pay was moderate but bonuses became increasingly available for loyal and efficient service. Frederick used spies to ensure efficiency and honesty and also spied on his spies by regularly touring his departments. It has been suggested that Adolf Hitler was able to use this existing network to enforce conformity and loyalty. New World Encyclopedia writers and editors rewrote and completed the Wikipedia article in accordance with New World Encyclopedia standards.

This article abides by terms of the Creative Commons CC-by-sa 3. Credit is due under the terms of this license that can reference both the New World Encyclopedia contributors and the selfless volunteer contributors of the Wikimedia Foundation.

Frederick william the great biography

To cite this article click here for a list of acceptable citing formats. The history of earlier contributions by wikipedians is accessible to researchers here:. Jump to: navigationsearch. Previous Frederick Douglass. Next Frederick I of Prussia. Did you know? Frederick the Great was an eighteenth century king of Prussia also nicknamed "der alte Fritz" "Old Fritz".

Harvard University. Retrieved May 24,