1740 and All That

By now, enough intriguing contradictory sources have turned up on the matter of Christian Friedrich Glasow, hussar, valet and possible spy/wannabe assassin, that it's worth a separate post collecting them all.



Glasow first shows up in Lehndorff's diaries in the summer of 1755, where he's listed, without further comment, as the sole person travelling with the King on the incognito trip Fritz made to the Netherlands. (The same trip where Fritz would also encounter his later reader Henri de Catt.) However, in September 29th, Lehndorff makes another entry, reflecting: (I) do believe that the King, even if he were a private man, must be very good company, and that one would have to be delighted to travel with such an amiable master. At least I find his facial features alone so interesting that I, if I had met him in Amsterdam and among a thousand strangers, would immediately have had the most vivid interest in him.

Which is worth bearing in mind, along with the fact that his dead end up as EC's chamberlain and his not being noticed by the King was a constant frustration for Lehndorff for many years.

Glasow next shows up in Lehndorff's journal in an entry from 1757, 9 - 12th April. The Seven-Years-War has started in the previous autumn, and Lehndorff reports sensational gossip:

Easter Holidays. One enters church and leaves it. One only talks of the Glasow matter. This fellow, the son of a soldier from the Brieger Garnison, had been hired as the King's batman a while ago. The King has overwhelmed him with kindness and even made him his valet, so he could come and go into the King's rooms whenever he wanted. The villain has now abused his gracious master's kindness by doing nothing but steal and rob, and even more, he's betrayed the King's secrets by making copies of all the writings he could get his hands on. There's even talk of him having tried to poison the King. At last, his villainy was uncovered by his servant, and he was caught red-handed. They found a lot of money and jewelry with him; rumor also has it he was the Countess Brühl's spy. This lady has been brought across the Polish border a few days after her arrest. There's also a rumor that Count Wackerbart has been arrested and has been brought to Küstrin. In short, we live in extrarordinary times.

The Countess (Marianne von) Brühl, originally a (Catholic) Bohemian noble and thus a subject of MT's, with her mother having been a lady-in-waiting to MT's mother, was the wife of Saxony's first minister, the fabulously wealthy Heinrich von Brühl in whose palace Fritz had made his headquarters after invading and taking over Saxony in the autumn of 1756. As opposed to her husband, the Countess remained in Dresden until these April of 1757 events, which was when she was sent out of the country by Fritz and rejoined her husband in Warsaw. According to Poniatowski's memoirs and this article, the Brühls were a Rokoko power couple, with Brühl, very unusual for a powerful man of the time, not cheating on her and being utterly broken by her death a few years into the war.

The last time Lehndorff mentions Glasow is when Lehndorff meets the already very sick and retired Fredersdorf (who has only a few more months to live, but Lehndorff of course does not know this when writing his entry) in October that same year; you can read the entire entry here, the Glasow-relevant sentence is: His ill health, his jealousy of the famous Glasow, his riches and especially his desire for a quiet life have caused him to beg the King long enough so that the King allowed him to resign his positions..

Then there's Alexander von Münchow, who was of interest to us mainly due to his controversial testimony regarding Katte's execution which he may or may not have witnessed as a child when his father was a key player at Küstrin, and who served for a while as page to Fritz years later.




Münchow, in the part of his letter printed in the magazine Minerva which isn't about Katte, writes on page 9 of said letter: The great good King (...) had the habit to often joke with his people of the chamber while getting dressed, and play little pranks, such as this, that when the presented coffee seemed to be too hot to him, he gave the servant closest to him a tea spoon of this in the mouth, (...) and if that fellow did not want to open the mouth, he poured the coffee from the spoon onto his breast.

If we recall this and the story of the poisoned coffee in Dresden, (...) then I say it is possible that the good King was inclined to play this prank again, and that thus the godless man, in order not to have to swallow the poison himself, was prompted by his conscience to confess his evil deed.

Worth bearing in mind: Münchow is just speculating, in his his old age (of 78 or 80, depending on whom you believe), without having witnessed the event in question (nor does he claim to), but if you've only heard the story that Glasow tried to poison Fritz in the early 1757 winter quarters in Dresden and you were, as a page, witness to the spoon "prank", then it's a plausible guess to make.

Now, neither Lehndorff nor Münchow doubt Glasow was, in fact, guilty of what he's been accused of. Imagine, therefore, my intrigued surprise when I read the memoirs of Friedrich Adolf von Kalckreuth, as dictated to his son, translated into German (Kalckreuth had dictated in French), and printed also in Minerva (clearly the magazine for 19th century history lovers), and they turned out to contain a passionate defense of Glasow.

Credibility of witness: Kalckreuth met Heinrich shortly before the war, became his AD and favourite from 1758 onwards, and remained his favourite until he was ousted by Kaphengst in the mid 1760s. His last attempt to hold to his position involved making a pass at Heinrich's unfortunate wife. He then ended up in a couple of deadbeat assignments in the provinces (where Lehndorff reencounters him in the 1770s and can't help indulging in some Schadenfreude, more here), until Fritz dies and nephew FW2 gets on the throne, which is when Kalckreuth resumes his career and makes it to Field Marshal in the Napoleonic wars. Being dumped by Heinrich in favour of Kaphengst left him with an ongoing grudge and the tendency to claim that all of Heinrich's military success during the Seven-Years-War was really due to him, which historians have taken less than seriously (especially given that Kalckreuth hadn't been with Heinrich in the early war years and was not always present during the later events). However: whether or not Glasow was guilty is absolutely immaterial to Kalckreuth's reputation, he has no horse riding on this, and he was, though not as Heinrich's AD, present in the Dresden winter quarters of 1756/1757, and so it's absolutely worth noting that he thinks Glasow was completely innocent. Here's what Kalckreuth, in old age - just like Münchow - dictated to his son:



In Dresden, the unfortunate event with Glasow happened, which the public has distorted so much. This is the truth: This Glasow had been the King's husar of the chamber, i.e. a valet dressed up as a hussar, and very much in favour. Antinous could not have been more beautiful. He had started out as a tambour in the Regiment Schwerin. During the earlier winter quarter, the Countess Brühl had asked him twice to take a cup of chocolate with her, in order to sound him out whether there wasn't a means to soothe the King's anger against Saxony, and he'd accepted the invitation. It was quite ridiculous that the Countess Brühl, a universally respected lady, wanted to discuss such matters with a fop. Glasow had been wrong to keep this tete-a-tete from the King, admittedly.
Later, in the spring, the Countess got exiled to Warsaw. Back then, Glasow had a servant, a disgusting creature, and at the same time the King had a page named Wulnitz, who wasn't able to love Glasow. The page became an officer in the regiment Garde du Corps - footnote: this was Kalckreuth's own original regiment before becoming Heinrich's AD - and took into his service the same villain whom Glasow had employed as a servant the previous winter. This same miserable creature was sent into town and encountered Glasow, who probably was harsh to him due to his bad conduct earlier. At once, he complained to his new master and added that he could ruin Glasow if he were to denounce Glasow's rendezvous to the King. It is said his new master encouraged him to do so. At once, Glasow was arrested and sent to Spandau, where he was locked up with the common criminals. With his weakened body, he soon died. My worthy commander and myself were indignant, because Glasow had been a good egg, and hadn't harmed anyone. The public, which is prone to only believe the most stupid versions, deduced from this that the Countess Brühl had invited Glasow to seduce him into poisoning the chocolate he was serving to the King every morning.

Now, this version by itself is actually quite plausible. Anyone rising quickly in royal favour, which Glasow undoubtedly did, is bound to evoke jealousy and resentment among the rest of the staff. And if favourite sister Wihelmine having lunch with Maria Theresia in the last phase of the previous war caused spectacular royal displeasure in her brother, then a mere valet hanging out with the wife of Saxony's PM (whom Fritz despised and presented in the blackest colours in his later history of the 7 Years War) was bound to suffer severe consequences.

However, as stated before: Kalckreuth writes this decades after the fact. Turns out there's yet another source noting down the Glasow scandal, this one, like Lehndorff, right when it happened, but, unlike Lehndorff, not from far away Berlin but during the events itself in Dresden. It's none other than Kalckreuth's predecessor as Heinrich's AD, Victor Amadeus Henckel Graf von Donnersmarck. (If anyone reading this is a fan of the Oscar winning movie The Lives of Others, directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, yes, same family.) Credibility of witness: Henckel von Donnersmarck's war time diary from 1756 - 1758 is regarded an an important source on the early part of the 7 Years War. He's relentlessly critical of Frederick the Great, which earlier historians - to whom any criticism of the great national hero was suspect - blamed on his connection to Heinrich, but I haven't seen anyone calling him a liar for it. (Just prejudiced.) Henckel von Donnersmarck resented Kalckreuth which is why he ended up asking for a transfer once Kalckreuth also became Heinrich's AD. However, Henckel's (friendly - no biographer has described them as romantic) relationship with Heinrich survived this, and the war. When he died, Heinrich assumed responsibility for his widow and son. His grandson's memoirs are responsible for a couple of anecdotes about Heinrich in his last years of life, and Henckel himself is one of the 29 men honored by Heinrich on the Rheinsberg Obelisk.)

This same Victor Amadeus Henckel von Donnersmarck believes Glasow to be guilty as sin when noting down the sensational news:



On the 2nd (of April), the King had his valet and favourite put in chains. The valet had dismissed a servant who used to be employed by the page Willnitz who is now a Lieutenant at the Gardes du Corps. This servant went back to his former master, who sent him with some orders to Dresden. There, he had the misfortune of meeting Glasow (that's the name of the valet), who had him arrested and sent to the government of Spandau in the name of the King with orders to have him locked up in the Citadel. Herr von Willnitz, supported by von Oppen, wrote to the King in this matter, whereupon it was Glasow who got arrested and interrogated. In his trunk, there were found a thousand proofs of similar villainies. His good friend Wöllner, the King's footman and coffee maker, was also arrested, and condemned to running the gauntlet. (Spießruten laufen.)
Glasow had been so favoured that he'd become the tyrant and supreme master of the Royal Household. Promoted from simple soldier to Chamber Husar, he soon won the affection and the trust of his master, got rid of the treasurer Fredesdorf who thus was dismissed shortly before his death, and became Hofmarschall, stable master, treasurer, valet and the spoiled child of the monarch. He had the most pleasant facial features of the world, blond hair and beautiful colouring, an advantageous figure, in short, everything that pleased. One found in his trunck among other things two pistols and he admitted that he had planned on running away with the treasure box which was always in the King's room. One additionally accused him of having stolen papers and having sent them to the Queen of Poland and to the Countess Brühl. The King had him brought to him from the prison, regarded him up and down, gave him two slaps in the face and said that he would have him hanged. It would have happened, too, if the King hadn't in grateful memory of what Glasow had done for him had preferred mercy before justice.


So: what do we believe?

.


Not that Glasow before his fall got all of Fredersdorf's jobs, for starters. Here, Lehndorff, who is a chamberlain (to the Queen) himself and thus likely to know who did what in the royal households, strikes me as more reliable witness, and he only describes Glasow as the valet, albeit a highly trusted one with complete access as of the spring of 1757, when Fredersdorf resigns. It's also very unlikely that Friedrich, paranoid and thrifty to the max, in war time more than ever, handed the royal treasury over to a 22 years old whose only previous known success was going with ihm to the Netherlands without causing an international incident.

Now, both Lehndorff and Henckel think Fredersdorf's resignation was due to Glasow, but here we think they might have cause and effect backwards, i.e. that this was a rumor caused by the timing of the two events (Glasow's rise, Fredersdorf's resignation due to ill health).

mildred_of_midgard: As you point out, and as we've pointed out before, Fredersdorf has been chronically ill for years, and he stepped down only about 9 months before he died. I'm with you that people decided that Fredersdorf's stepping down must be a result of Glasow, because of the timing. And like you said, Glasow would have enemies, and that would probably contribute to gossip that he was so powerful and malicious that he drove Fredersdorf away.

As to the key charge? On the one hand, Glasow, as favoured new valet of Fritz, heading the royal household, could be seen as having little to gain and everything to lose by spying for the occupied Saxons, or even trying to poison the King who was after all the sole source of his new power and status. Yes, the Brühls were very wealthy, but the Countess would not have had access to that money in occupied Dresden where Fritz had already thrown her out of her own palace, commandeered her husband's property and sold the famous Dresden porcellain manufactory to the town's Jews in order to help himself to more money for his war effort.

On the other hand, as Mildred points out, Fritz was anything but a dream boss.

mildred_of_midgard: There are many people who start out thinking working for Fritz is going to be a sweet deal and then it...isn't. Algarotti! I think it was Preuss who said that Fritz had a habit of hitting his valets (not Fredersdorf, I assume) and other servants when he was in a bad mood. Even if not, he is not nearly chill enough for this to be a slam-dunk as a "sweet deal" two or three years into the gig. Especially if you consider:

- gossip notwithstanding, Glasow *doesn't* have Fredersdorf's status, and isn't likely to get it any time soon,
- he started out with a boss in peacetime and ended up with wartime Fritz.

Now, I'm not sure it was the life-risking that's the problem here. Wasn't he supposed to have been in the army when Fritz picked him up? Or was that an unreliable source? But, anyway, wartime Fritz is notoriously in a bad mood, and the people around him take the brunt of it. Some people are exceptions, some people manage just fine, some people consider the price worth the benefits, some people flee, some people decide working for him is the ABSOLUTE WORST.

I would get the hell out of that job if I had the opportunity, and if I were bitter enough, I might decide to bring him down while I was at it.

As to what the occupied Saxons had to offer: I mean, it depends on what Glasow's been bribed to do. If nothing else, they could offer to be more chill. (That wouldn't be hard.) But if Glasow *is* going to do something that's going to harm the Prussian war effort, they could offer to be extremely grateful when they're *not* occupied.

Idk, I can see why you might love Fritz until your dying breath, and also why you might wake up every morning wanting to kill him, or at least get the hell out, depending on your relationship with him.

gambitten added another key bit of evidence, directly from the Secret Prussian State Archive, here:



According to the database, BPH, Rep. 47, Nr. 644 contains:
"Court affairs, personalities, embezzlement of Glasow, news from the king and the army
Contains:
- Correspondence of Chamberlain Fredersdorf with Chamberlain Leining, Secretary Gentze, Chamberlain Glasow, Chamberlain Anderson as well as with Baron v. Trackenberg, b. from Kameke (widow)"

The summary of the content of said correspondance as given online by the State Archive reads as follows:

On April 3rd 1757, Johann Wilhelm Leining informs Michael Gabriel Fredersdorf in a letter that he has succeeded the recipient in his office and "caracteur", and thus is the new Geheime Kämmerer. (Secret Chamberlain). (Letters to the Secret Chamberlain Fredersdorf, GSTA PK, BPH Rep 47, Nr. 644.) This meant the administration of the royal purse now was up to Leining, who therefore has a few questions for his predecessor. Moroever, the writer saw himself confronted with an extraordinary problem:one of the King's valets, Glasow (complete name most likely: Christian Friedrich Glasow) had made himself a signet by using a wax copy of Fredersdorf's. In order to clear up the extent of the fraud, thorough investigations began. Among Glasow's papers, various bills were found, though it is not clear whether they had already been paid. Secretary Gentze who used to work for Fredersdorf and now for Leining, thinks he can recall that atleast some of the bills were paid by using money form the royal purse in September 1756. Therefore, the new Secret Chamberlain asked the old one with the plea to "check the purse bill from September a.p. (= 1756) as well as of the succeeding months, and to kindly tell the results to me (i.e. Leining). (archive signature of the letter follows).
Whether Fredersdorf was supposed to check individual bills, receipts or the registry to check this isn't clear anymore. What is certain, hoever, is that most of the documents of the purse were preseved - not least so they could be revisited for control purposes - and that the secret chamberlain could use them later. The Berlin palace seems the most likely place they were archived at, as the current secret chamberlain always worked there. Keeping bills, receipts and the registry was necessary for another reason as well: the King who had to make the ultimate decision whether or not to pay couldn't or wouldn't always immediately balance requests. Thus, the bills for books were kept unpaid for a considerable time (see Krieger, page 192, and in 1757, there was a list with "old debts for the wardrobe" (archive signature follows). The unpaid bills attached to this list would have been also preserved by the current secret chamberlain.

End of archive text. As you might imagine, this caused further salon discussion, if held against the previous quotes from contemporaries about Glasow.

selenak: Of these, Henckel von Donnersmarck gives April 2nd as the day when Glasow was arrested. Lehndorff, who is in Berlin, not with the army, writes about it in his April 9th - 12th entries. Kalckreuth, who writes about the affair in his memoirs, doesn't give an exact date. While all of them mention the money stealing/embezzlement accusation, they all consider the accusation Glasow might spied for the Countess Brühl, or tried to poison the King, a much bigger deal - which this description of Leining's letter to Frederdorf doesn't mention at all. Lehndorff thinks "jealousy of Glasow" might have been one of the reasons why Fredersdorf retired from his offices, Henckel thinks Glasow actively got rid of Fredersdorf; none of them, however, mention Glasow copied Fredersdorf's signet. Otoh Henckel giving the date of April 2nd as the arrest fits with Leining writing to Fredersdorf on April 3rd about what they've discovered among Glasow's papers, so it looks like Henckel was the best informed of the contemporaries (which makes sense since as Heinrich's AD he was with the army - as were Fritz and Glasow - when the arrest happened). At least in terms of the timing; Henckel is obviously wrong with his assumption that Glasow got given all of Fredersdorf's old jobs. ("Valet to the King" seems to be the only one of these he actually did get.) As Leining - the actual successor - writing proves. Also, this description of Leining's letter doesn't sound as if he's under the impression Fredersdorf resigned either in disgrace or otherwise not in favor.

mildred_of_midgard: That was exactly my reaction too.

selenak: IKR? And the guy actually taking over the key job (among the many ones Fredersdorf had) ought to know. Incidentally, if Glasow felt the need to forge Fredersdorf's signet, this also would argue that the claim that he had complete run of the Royal household and could do whatever he liked was exaggarated (otherwise he'd have helped himself to money from the Royal purse in his own right).

mildred_of_midgard: Exactly! And agreed re the money. Also, while I'm not on board with solitary confinement and no trial, this does make it look like Glasow was at least guilty of *something*, does it not?

selenak: It does indeed. Also, if Leining asks Fredersdorf specifically to check the bills for Glasow-related forgeries starting with September 1756, I note this coincides with the war. I.e.the army leaves Berlin in August to invade Saxony. At which point Glasow, who's with Fritz as his valet, moves out of Fredersdorf's orbit, since Fredersdorf stays at home. This to me suggests he might have thought he wouldn't get away with it as long as Fredersdorf was still around, but with the war going on, and Fredersdorf sick in Berlin, hundreds of miles away, he probably thought nobody would look at those bills more closely.

Yet another take on the Glasow affair is offered by Friedrich Nicolai in his six volume collection of Frederician anecdotes, "Anekdoten von König Friedrich II. von Preußen, und von einigen Personen, die um ihn waren", which got published between 1788 and 1792:



Glasow was the son of a "Zeugleutnant" of a Zeughaus in Brieg, Silesia. He had joined the infantry regiment at Brief when still a very young man of 16 years. The King took him out of it due to his advantageous form, made him a chamber hussar and planned to educate this young man, whom he also had taught by various teachers. He liked him enormously, and thus usually called him by his first name: Karlchen. *

*"Karlchen". Glasow's first two names were Christian Friedrich, without a "Carl" (or Karl). However, there was, of course, Carl "Carel" Friedrihc von Pirch, the favoured page, and I suspect in the retellings, he and Glasow might have gotten mixed up somewhat. (It was also Carel who got the teachers.)

When the King had to take to the field in 1756, the Secret Chamberlain Fredersdorf couldn't join the King on his campaign due to his long term illness of which he did die not too long thereafter. So the King transferred everything to Glasow, whom he made his valet on this occasion, had tailored some very beautiful civilian clothing for him, and gave him his personal treasury and the supervision about his household, despite Glasow still being very young.

For a few days, the King told him personally how he had to run everything; especially, he taught him how to do the accounts about the income and expenditure of the royal household. Now there was a particular secretary in charge of this, but that one remained with Fredersdorf, and wasn't called to Dresden until the opening of the next campaign on the following year in the spring of 1757; until then Völker, who was a smart fellow, administrated this office together with Glasow.

(Not to spoil anything, but Völker will be the villain of this tale. A more thorough discussion of this follows below. Of the contemporary sources quoted so far, the only one including the coffee maker as an accomplice is Henckel von Donnersmark, and he presents him under the name of "Wöllner" and as an also-ran, not as the Big Bad.)


The King showed even more grace to Glasow, and often made him large presents; but Glasow was not always grateful. When the King had his winter quarters in Dresden in the winter of 1756, Glasow started to consort with two women. The King didn't like his people to have this kind of relationships at all; and in this particular case, additional circumstances were there why these relationships should be suspicious and dislikable to the King for political reasons.

(Interestingly, Nicolai does not name the Countess Brühl, as opposed to Henckel, Lehndorff and Kalckreuth. Possibly because they are nobles writing their diaries and dictating memoirs and thus not having to fear law suits, whereas Nicolai is a commoner writing for publication?)

He therefore strictly forbade Glasow this kind of consorting, but the later didn't stop doing it. Glasow, whom the King had sleeping in the room next to his, wasn't in his bed for entire nights, and when he was missing, the King could easily guess where he had to be spending his time. Now the man who encouraged young Glasow in this kind of loose living because he could take advantage from his wastefulness was the King's chamber footman and Treasurer Völker.

The King knew very well about the connection between these two men, and thus blamed Völker for Glasow's debauchings, as he knew Völker as an otherwise not at all foolish man, and held him to be the seducer of the young and inexperienced Glasow.

Now despite the King tried to improve his valet's behavior through harsh reprimands, threats and punishments, his affairs grew steadily worse when the King near the end of March 1757 took his main quarters at Lockwitz, a small mile away from Dresden. Glasow continued to keep up his relationships in Dresden. Nearly every night, he rode to Dresden. The King couldn't fail to notice this and grew even more disgruntled. However, as Glasow otherwise was still in favor with the King, it was all too understandable that no one dared the tell the King about the exact nature of the consorting this favourite was doing.

Glasow took into his service a fellow named B*** who until then had been in service with an officer from the Garde du Corps who lived near Berlin, but then kicked him out in disgrace some time later. This B*** subsequently went to his old master. B*** now started to talk very loudly about Glasow's suspcious relationships in Dresden, and that Völker was seducing him into them, and added that if the King only knew the true circumstances, whom he should be told about, both of them would suffer evil consequences.

Völker knew that what this fellow was saying was the truth, and he grew greatly afraid that through either him or his master the King should find out the true circumstances. He therefore persuaded Glasow that it was necessary to get rid of this fellow for their shared safety's sake.

Through Völker's persuasions, the young and inconsiderate Glasow was seduced to start a very serious enterprise worthy of punishment. Völker wrote an order of arrest to the commander of Magdeburg in the name of the King, Glasow used the King's small seal, B*** was arrested, and sent via transport to Magdeburg.

The commander in Magdeburg thought the order of arrest which hadn't been signed by the King to be suspicious. Some claim that it had been signed by the King's name, but in an unreadable fashion. The Commander now sent the original arrest warrant to the King, and asked whether the King truly wished the arrestant to be brought to this fortress.

The King was not a little amazed about this turn of events. He investigated further, and Vöker's own handwriting testified against him, and proved he had seduced Glasow into such a punishable abuse of the royal authority. The King was incensed. He ordered that the prisoner was to be released at once. He sent Glasow for a year to the fortress Spandau, and Völker had to run the gauntlet twentyfour times, and later was put into the third bataillon of the guard as a common soldier. The type of punishment alone proves enough that a crime such a poisoning can't have beeen an issue. Also, people who are well informed have testified the complete truth of all of the above named circumstances to me.

The King had to punish the irresponsible abuse of his authority by Glasow, but he still kept being fond of him, as he seemed to be convinced that Glasow as a young man had simply been seduced, and hadn't acted out of malice. He even asked how (Glasow) was doing during his imprisonment. If Glasow had survived the time of his arrest, there can't be any doubt that he'd been accepted back into the King's favour, and might even have been put back on his old posts. However, he died in Spandau three weeks before his term of imprisonment was over. When the King heard about his death, he cried a few tears, and was even more angry with Völker, whom he saw as the seducer of the poor young man.

Völker accepted his fate, and during the war became a sutler. After the war, he found opportunity to leave the army through the fact hat he could create Russian leather, got his dismissal, and started to work in the Russian leather factory of the manufacturer Schneider in Berlin. As he didn't have luck in this art, he then found a way to get a job in Prussia via the recently installed tobacco administration. Carelessly, he signed a report which ended up being read by the King. The King noticed the name. He asked, and when he learned that this was the same man who had been in his service, he had him casheered at once and ordered to put im into a garnison regiment, where Völker died only a few years ago.


This ends the Nicolai version of the tale of Glasow (and Völker). I'll do a separate post on Nicolai one of these days, but suffice to say for the purpose of this matter that he usually names his sources, though not in this particular case, which is interesting. He just says they are "trustworthy". The other pro-Glasow source we have is Kalckreuth, but Kalckreuth blames Glasow's dismissed servant for wrongly accusing him and doesn't say anything about Völker/Wöllner at all, so I don't think Kalkreuth is Nicolai's source. (My other reason for doubting it is that Heinrich doesn't get mentioned once in six volumes of anecdotes, and I think if Nicolai had an in with Heinrich's former boyfriend AD, there's be some stories at least co-starring him.)

A more likely source is former Chamber Hussar Schöning, about whom more here, who is the named source of a somewhat similar version of the story as given in the anecdote collection by Anton Friedrich Büsching, "Charakter Friedrichs des zweyten, Königs von Preussen", which was published in 1788, and somewhat elaborated upon in Büsching's later "Zuverlässige Beiträge", which was published in 1790.

The (much briefer) tale of Glasow shows up right after Büsching's account of the tale of suicidal (and kicked) Kammerhussar Deesen, aka the other handsome hussar who committed suicide over Fritz (and since Fredersdorf had been dead for decades, he really can't have been the cause); you'll find the story here. Which is why Büsching starts with "another" in this version of the Glasow tale:





Another favourite of the King, named Glasow, whom he had in Saxony with him in 1756 or 1757, was of a very amorous nature, and allowed himself to be talked into stealing a letter from the King's pocket by a woman and to hand it over to her. When this became known, the King sent him to Spandau, where he died after half a year. It is said that (the King) had intended to release him around the time of his death, and was sad about this.

No mention of an accomplice here, or of the financial shenanigans which according to the archive letters to Fredersdorf definitely were an issue; the seducing is being done by "a woman". One thing that both Nicolai and Büsching feature is that it was a one time only offense by Glasow; with Nicolai, the forging and sealing of a letter (to arrest servant B.), with Büsching, the stealing of a letter. Meanwhile, all three contemporary accounts (Lehndorff, Kalkreuth, Henckel ovn Donnersmarck) as well as the archive letters talk about repeated offenses.

Two years later, in "Beiträge", Büsching elaborates a bit, and this time does mention Völker, as he's commenting on yet another collection of anecdotes, the "Sammlung" by Unger:

In the story of the attempted poisoning of the King (Sammlung 16, p. 69 f.) Völker has been confused with Glasow. (See my book about the King's character, p. 189 of the second edition.) Völker had been the coffee maker, but he didn't hand over the coffee to the King, that was done by chamber hussar Glasow, and the King only played the flute after having drunk coffee, not before. I put the story to Secret Councillor Schöning to judge, and his take is that Völker was much too smart to contribute something to an assassination attempt on the King, let alone to advise it. His crime supposedly consisted of playing secretary for Glasow and writing some orders in the name of the King which Glasow then sealed with the King's small seal, and through this, both of them caused their misery.

Unfortunately, Schöning joined Fritz' service only in 1766, which means he knew neither Glasow nor Völker personally, nor witnessed the events unfolding a good decade earlier. However, he presumably heard about them from surviving members of the staff and possibly from Fritz himself. In any case, it's notable that the only one insisting that Völker was behind everything, with Glasow his seduced tool, is Nicolai.

And then we have Manger in his history of the builders and architects of Potsdam, talking about the various valets and chamber hussars through which Fritz often interacted with said building folk, usually when he was too angry to talk with them directly. Manger joined the Potsdam Baukontor in 1753 in a lowly position; after the 7 Years War, he made Bauinspektor in 1763. So he might actually have known Glasow, at least from afar. His take:


Glasow, a fireworker's son from Berlin. His father later as a Zeugleutnant was transfered to Brieg in Silesia, took him along, and put him, presumably because he wasn't very obedient, into the garnison infantry regiment stationed there. There, King Friedrich spotted him in 1755, took him along to Potsdam where he made him a chamber hussar and distinguished him with a special red uniform. In the year 1756 shortly before the campaign, Fredersdorf was ill and the valet Anderson was in disgrace, so the King made Glasow valet, entrusted his purse to him from which at times money was sent to the building adminstration, and showed him great favor. But in the following year, 1757, he was imprisoned for proven treason and betrayal against the King and sent from Dresden to Spandau, where he died in 1758 already. No mention of any accomplices.)

As of July 2022, yet another take has come to our attention, through Gustav Volz's essay on the correspondence between August Wilhelm and Lehndorff ("Aus dem Briefwechsel des Prinzen von Preußen August Wilhelm mit dem Kammerherrn Graf Ernst Ahasverus Lehndorf (sic)", published 1905 in the "Masovia" magazine).


Apparantly Lehndorff asked AW, who at this point was still with Fritz and the army, what had happened with Glasow, and got this reply:

Mr. Glasow has forged several seals; he's opened letters addressed to the King, and which he answered; he was about to steal 100 000 Taler and to run off with them. He has reported all the news he could get his hands on to the Saxons, and when he was searched, two pocket pistols were discovered in his possession, which according to himself he only carried with him for the fun of it. Other than that, he didn't do anything.

mildred_of_midgard: Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?

LOL, wow. I guess AW is saying the poisoning accusations are unfounded?

selenak: Probably. The essay doesn't include Lehndorff's letter to AW about this, but that would have been an obvious question to ask given the rumors making the round in Berlin, and AW had the advantage of having been there and in the know. (As this predates Kolin and his command in the aftermath.) I note AW does not mention a fellow accomplice.

Gentle readers, we leave it up to you to decide whether Glasow was guilty or framed. If you want to know what happened to him: his father petitioned Fritz for his life, with the the petition in question reading like an eerie deja vu if you're familiar with the petitions Katte's father and grandfather wrote to Friedrich Wilhelm. Unlike his father, Fritz noted on the petition that whille "his son's crime was great, I have mitigated somewhat", and did not go for a death sentence. Glasow regardless died in prison in Spandau within that same year.