Venohr, W. Fridericus Rex. Friedrich der Große. Porträt einer Doppelnatur

During his lifetime, numerous legends surrounded the person of the Prussian king who went down in history as Frederick the Great. Over the past centuries, Frederick's image has changed repeatedly, and his person has been appropriated for a wide variety of political purposes. But who was this art-loving Prussian king really?

When the twenty-eight-year-old crown prince came to power at the beginning of June 1740, the world looked to him full of expectation, for he explicitly professed the humanitarian ideas of the Enlightenment. His first official acts seemed to fulfil these expectations: Among other things, Frederick abolished torture during interrogations, restricted corporal punishment in the army, relaxed press censorship and allowed the free practice of religion.

On the other hand, the Prussian king was the power politician whose political credo was to make the good of the state the guiding principle of all action. This maxim prompted Frederick to expand Prussia territorially by annexing Silesia.

In his biography of Frederick, which impresses with its vividness, Wolfgang Venohr attempts to illuminate the personality of Frederick II in all its facets, beyond all legends and glorifications, to work out the contradictions in his character and to draw a portrait of this man that leads to a new picture oriented towards the historical facts.