Frederick the Great, a Misogynist?

Red Baron was inspired to write this blog by a television documentary about the great Frederick, in which he was portrayed as a misogynist.

There is no doubt that he was a glory-seeking war criminal, but did he hate women?

In the past, historians whispered that Frederick was probably gay, but today some of them openly say that he lived out his homosexual desires. Whatever.

As the heir to the Prussian throne, Frederick enjoyed a strict upbringing by the Soldier King, who sought to mold his son into a tough guy. Frederick complained, "Every day I am beaten, I am treated like a slave, and have not the slightest rest. I am forbidden to read, listen to music, study science, I am not allowed to talk to anyone, I am surrounded by guards."

One day, the aesthete Frederick could no longer bear his father's harshness and fled the Prussian court. But this was high treason, for which his friend Katte paid with his head in 1730, while the heir to the throne, stripped of all his titles and honors, was sentenced to imprisonment in a fortress.

My German reading friend might enjoy reading the full story here.

When Frederick William demanded that his son marry Elisabeth Christine of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel-Bevern in 1732, he complied but complained that "every peasant must be happier than I am." He said he would "rather take the greatest whore in Berlin" for his wife.

With Frederick's consent to this dynastically important marriage, the father-son conflict was outwardly settled, and the son was rehabilitated as crown prince, but "I do not love the princess. On the contrary, I dislike her and our marriage will not be a good one."

Lieutenant Colonel Fritz, over whose head the sword had hovered not so long ago, was now once again a beloved son and became head of a regiment in Neuruppin with the name Cronprintz (crown prince).

In 1736, King Frederick William set up Rheinsberg Castle for the young couple. Here, the crown prince flourished, but without his wife: "I will leave her as soon as I am my own master."

Frederick holds his anti-Machiavelli up to the bust of Machiavelli.
Idealized engraving by Adolph Menzel.

In contrast, "My whole mind is focused on philosophy. It serves me well. I am happy because I am much calmer than before." He wrote his anti-Machiavell, "Examen du Prince de Machiavell, "Il principe [is] one of the most dangerous works ... that are spread on earth. Now, I believe that humanity is worth more than all the qualities of a conqueror."

After the death of the Soldier King, Frederick summarized his father's will in an idiosyncratic manner: "The first concern of a prince must be to assert himself, the second to enlarge himself," and quickly invaded Austria's granary, Silesia.

Baron Acton's dictum, "Power tends to corrupt," applies to Frederick in its most extreme form: "and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

Maria Theresia

In his memoirs, Frederick writes, "I had quick-witted troops, a well-filled treasury, and a lively temperament: these were the reasons that led me to wage war against Theresa of Austria, Queen of Bohemia and Hungary ... Ambition, my advantage, and the desire to make a name for myself were the deciding factors, and war was declared."

Thus, in December 1740, the 28-year-old Frederick launched the first War of the Austrian Succession, also known as the Silesian War, against the even younger 23-year-old Maria Theresa, sending 28,000 Prussian soldiers to die on the fields of Silesia.

Before setting off, Frederick addressed his officers at the Berlin garrison: "I am embarking on a war, gentlemen, in which I have no allies other than your bravery and your goodwill. My cause is just, and I seek assistance from fortune... Medals and rewards await you to be earned through your brilliant deeds. Set out for your rendezvous with glory," i.e., Frederick's glory.

Tsarina Elisabeth

Actually, he waged the Silesian Wars against a triumfeminate consisting of Maria Theresa, the Tsarina of Russia, Elisabeth, and Madame de Pompadour of France.

Official chief mistress of King Louis XV, Madame de Pompadour

It was unthinkable to Frederick that women had a say at court. Frederick spoke less than gallantly of a "petticoat conspiracy". He referred to his female opponents as "the three arch whores of Europe", which was certainly not true of the young Maria Theresa.

Voltaire and Frederick in front of the Sans Souci Palace

After the Second Silesian War in 1749, Frederick wrote in a letter to Voltaire: "I am a friend of philosophy and verse" and distinguished between the statesman and the philosopher, "Let it be said that one can wage war of pure reason, be a statesman out of duty, and be a philosopher out of inclination.

In keeping with Louis XIV's thinking, he added: "It is the constant ambition of princes to enlarge themselves as far as their power allows."

In 1740, Frederick the Great sent his unloved wife Elisabeth Christine to live in a castle on the outskirts of Berlin, saying, "Settle down here, you can live nicely here."*

*in German, "Hier lass dich nieder, hier kannst du schön hausen" (You can reside well here). The witty Berliners referred to the residence as Schönhausen Palace.

During Frederick's absences during his wars, Elisabeth Christine held the fort in Berlin, hosting diplomatic receptions, balls, and dinners. For these activities, Frederick was grateful to his wife.

Although when Frederick returned to Berlin after years of absence, his only comment was, "Madame has become more corpulent."

It is obvious that Frederick did not love women but only hated them when they were his adversaries.

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Kirche in Not

i.e., Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) dates back to 1947 when, after the Second World War, Premonstratensian Father Werenfried van Straaten called for reconciliation with the former enemy and organized aid in Belgium and the Netherlands for their German neighbors.

©Christinger/Wikipedia

Fourteen million displaced persons from the former German eastern territories poured into the four zones occupied by the Allied forces. There was too little shelter, food, and clothing, and Father Werenfried (nicknamed "Bacon Priest") and colleagues asked for material to help the Germans.

With his "Chapel Car Campaign," Father Werenfried provided spiritual support to the displaced persons, too. This Ostpriesterhilfe (Aid to Priests in the East) was launched in 1950.

Father Werenfried van Straaten preaching in front of a "chapel wagon." (©Mucci/Wikipedia)

In 1952, the organization began working to help persecuted Christians behind the Iron Curtain. Today, its focus is on pastoral assistance for persecuted, oppressed, and needy Christians around the world.

Every two years, ACN publishes an exhaustive report on the state of religious freedom. The report highlights cases of persecution and examines religious freedom as a whole, rather than limiting its analysis to Christian or Catholic communities.

The most recent report was published in 2023 and found that "persecution has increased since January 2021, while impunity continues to be the rule when it comes to attackers, including oppressive governments."


In 2025, the annual gathering of ACN took place in Rome. When a friend asked me if I wanted to join her, we had no idea that Pope Francis would die. On the morning of May 7, while we were on our flight from Frankfurt to the Holy City, a conclave convened in the Sistine Chapel.

Suddenly, the entire schedule of planned events was disrupted, especially since a visit to the site of the conclave was no longer possible.

When stepping out of our hotel in Rome, we had a magnificent view of St. Peter's Basilica.

As pilgrims, we wore a red scarf.

More than 1,300 people from around the world assembled for the welcome reception in the vast gardens of the Casa Generalizia del Passionisti (Congregation of the Passion of Jesus Christ) on the morning of May 8  and listened to several welcoming speeches, sermons, and prayers that were translated into another major language.

At the rostrum is a Cardinal, too old to vote in the conclave, flanked by ACN's Executive President, Regina Lynch.

         Was I dozing? (©RA)

These translations took their time, so the penitential procession was shortened.

We were on the grounds of the Congregation of the Passion of Jesus Christ, so our procession passed Jesus in a grotto praying, "Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done." An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him. And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground (Luc 22, 42-44)

©RA

The procession ended in front of tables laden with delicious food. 

Buses took us to the ACN International opening event at the venerable Lateran Basilica, where a celebratory Mass was scheduled for us, the pilgrims.

All spiritual leaders of the pilgrim groups from various countries concelebrated Mass in festive vestments. Among them was our bearded Father Hubka, who looked at Red Baron, the photographer, with some disapproval. 

The Mass ran overtime and was followed by prayers, testimonies, and a one-hour Adoration.

 

My friend and I took a taxi and headed for the famous Scalinata di Trinità dei Monti (Spanish Steps). 

©Caffè Greco

We ended up at the nearby Antico Caffè Greco, a historic café where famous literary figures, including Goethe, Lord Byron, and even Casanova, once enjoyed their coffee.

They want to keep the commonplace tourists out. We paid through the nose for the due espressi and the two miserable cupcakes.

 
On the way back, our taxi driver told us, "Habemus Papam."

 

As we got out in front of our hotel, St. Peter's Basilica seemed to shine with a very special glow.

The following morning, we waited at the Piazza Pia near the Castel Sant'Angelo.

With a pilgrim's staff and scarf. Did I see the heavens open? (Acts 7:56) (©RA).

We were Pilgrims of Hope

Starting the joint procession on the pilgrimage route to St. Peter's Square.

Our group was approaching while other pilgrims were already waiting for their entry.

They handed out to us pilgrims the L'Osservatore Romano, with Leo XIV on the title page. Read my blog about my encounter with the new Pontiff here.

Now it was our turn to pass through the Holy Gate into St. Peter's Basilica.

The view into the dome is breathtaking.

Could we say with Schiller, "Who counts the nations, spells the names, that piously (?) gathered here?" Well, it was sightseeing, and some Germans were there.

©RA

Jesus presents Pope Pius VIII while Peter and Paul watch.

©RA

I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 16:19), but here St. Peter holds the one key to the Basilica.

©RA

The photo is blurred because La Pietà is protected by armoured glass.

On our way out, our group was guided through the basement of St. Peter's Basilica. We passed the tombs of several defunct popes and lingered for a moment at Pope Benedict XVI's gravestone.

 

In the entrance hall, the one who started it all. Constantine the Great is banned from the Basilica's interior. His lifestyle wasn't quite Catholic. Read more about the guy who gave us Christians the Apostolic Creed in German.

Passing again through the Holy Gate? Our attention was instead drawn to the gate's bronze relief.

Stay tuned to a blog on the Vatican Museum.

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A Black Hole Universe?

Somebody had to do it. In an innocently sounding paper, Enrique Gaztañaga and colleagues got rid of the Lambda Cold Dark Matter model, and seiner vermaledeiten Hilfsgrößen (its dammed auxiliary quantities), dark matter and dark energy.

The standard ΛCDM model describes the Big Bang hypothesis.

Remember: Red Baron blogged about two papers that either got rid of dark matter (MOND, MOdified Newtonian Dynamics) or did away with dark energy (Timescape).

In their paper, Enrique Gaztañaga and colleagues from the University of Portsmouth ask, "What if the Big Bang wasn't the beginning? What if our Universe had emerged from something else, something more familiar and yet radically different?"

"Our calculations suggest that the Big Bang was not the beginning of everything, but rather the result of a gravitational collapse that generated a massive black hole followed by a 'bounce' inside, which means that our Universe may have emerged from the interior of a black hole formed within a larger parent universe."

"Rather than the birth of the Universe being from nothing, it is the continuation of a cosmic cycle shaped by gravity, quantum mechanics, and the deep interconnections between them."

 
Professor Gaztañaga explains, "The Big Bang model begins with a point of infinite density where the laws of physics break down. This is a deep theoretical problem that suggests the beginning of the Universe is not fully understood."

"We've questioned that model and tackled questions from a different angle - by looking inward instead of outward. Instead of starting with an expanding Universe and asking how it began, we considered what happens when an overdensity of matter collapses under gravity."

"We've shown that gravitational collapse does not have to end in a singularity (as in the Big Bang) and found that a collapsing cloud of matter can reach a high-density state and then bounce, rebounding outward into a new expanding phase."

So the collapse of an earlier universe leads to the formation of a cloud of matter, but its energy density cannot go to infinity. Why is that so?

©Sabine Hossenfelder

When matter condenses, fermions follow the Pauli exclusion principle, meaning they cannot exist simultaneously in the same quantum state. Consequently, condensed matter resists further compression.

Professor Gaztañaga continues, "Crucially, this bounce occurs entirely within the framework of general relativity, combined with the basic principles of quantum mechanics. What emerges on the other side of the bounce is a Universe remarkably like our own. Even more surprisingly, the rebound naturally produces a phase of accelerated expansion driven not by a hypothetical field but by the physics of the bounce itself."

"We now have a fully worked-out solution that shows the bounce is not only possible - it's inevitable under the right conditions. One of the strengths of this model is that it makes predictions that can be thoroughly tested. And what's more, this new model has also revealed that the Universe is slightly curved, like the surface of the Earth."

This 'Black Hole Universe' presents a radically different view of cosmic origins, grounded entirely in known physics and observations.

The ARRAKIHS* ESA space mission may answer questions and test predictions of the new model.
*Wikipedia knows: The mission is named after a planet, Arrakis, from the science fiction novel Dune. The name is a backronym of "Analysis of Resolved Remnants of Accreted galaxies as a Key Instrument for Halo Surveys.

ARRAKIHS will detect ultra-low surface brightness structures in the outskirts of galaxies, regions where the fossil record of galaxy formation and dark matter assembly is preserved. Studying these faint features will reveal how galaxies grow and evolve. They may also hold clues to the nature of dark matter and the Universe's initial conditions, particularly if they differ from those predicted by the standard ΛCDM model.

Science remains exciting.

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Quo Vadis, Leo?

... or where is the Catholic Church headed?

As my loyal readers know, I was in Rome during the conclave and immediately took Pope Leo XIV to my heart.

He  hasn't disappointed me.

He is cool.*

*The slightly blueish characters are links. Click to open.

He has a soft, beautiful voice.

He invites all people into the Church. 

He is aware of the importance of social media.

Leo walks through the Holy Door in St. Peter's Basilica.

In fact, since the new pope took office, the Vatican has been flooding YouTube with shorts and reels about Leo's public appearances, where Jesus always plays the decisive role. 

This was a long preface to yesterday's panel discussion in the framework of Freiburg Religious Debates.

The projected image in lecture hall 1199

The panel discussed at length how, not only due to his poor health, Pope Francis had allowed many things to slip in the Church. The moderator even stated that Francis had undermined several things.

Indeed, the old pope has addressed simmering conflicts such as the treatment of homosexuals, celibacy, and the role of women in the Church, but he did not resolve them. The answers to these questions are essential for a Church in the 21st century.

However, they are difficult or perhaps even impossible to answer in a global Church with different ideas about how to move forward. Thus, a synod of bishops advising the pope was frequently brought into play. Is it merely symbolic that Leo, immediately after his election, gathered the cardinals to listen to them?

Can Leo draw the broad lines for unity in diversity? Raymond Burke, the traditionalist cardinal, warned, without mentioning Leo, that the Church is in danger of losing its soul.

 
All these considerations are well and good, but Red Baron sees Leo above all as the shepherd who, as an active Augustinian in Latin America, already knew how to gather his sheep. I see him as a pastoral Leo.

He is a missionary in a Church that is rooted in a world where membership numbers are declining in the wealthy countries of the North.

The panel then voiced the impression that the shift in emphasis observed under Francis, toward greater social justice and less preservation of creation (climate change), will intensify under Leo.

Recently, there has been considerable discussion about democratic developments within the Church. Here, Red Baron had to emphasize his personal experience in the debate.

I received my basic Catholic education in a village in the diocese of Paderborn and, in the post-war period in staunchly Catholic Westphalia, experienced the Church as extremely authoritarian.

Thank God, much has changed for the better in the course of my life, but the Church is still schizophrenic.

 
Where the Church is absolutely dominant, it remains authoritarian; where it lives in the diaspora and is exposed to hostility or even persecution, the Church demands freedom of religion.

Democratization would be good for the reputation of the Church and its believers. The extent of such democratization is not crucial to me. What is essential, however, is that the universal Church speaks always with the same universal democratic voice everywhere.

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Pistorius

This blog doesn't address Germany's popular Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, but Johann Pistorius the Younger, who, after his birthplace Nidda in Hesse, called himself Niddanus throughout his life.

Red Baron listened to a lecture by Dr. Hans-Jürgen Günther: Johannes Pistorius Niddanus (1546-1608), eine bedeutende Persönlichkeit des Reformationsjahrhunderts im Breisgau (an important figure of the Reformation century in Breisgau.

Pistorius's universities

Pistorius the Younger attended the Latin school in Nidda and studied law and medicine from 1559 to 1567 in Marburg, Wittenberg, Tübingen, Padua, and Paris, before returning to Marburg, where he received his doctorates in law and medicine in 1567.

The dispute within the Reformed Church between the Philippinians, followers of Melanchthon, and the Gnesiolutherans, advocates of strict Lutheranism, as well as the spirit of optimism in the Catholic Church after the Council of Trent, led Pistorius to convert from Lutheranism to Catholicism in 1588.

Pistorius's house in Freiburg

His turbulent life story eventually led him to Freiburg im Breisgau in 1589, where he bought a house in the suburb of Neuburg.

From 1590 to 1591, he studied at Freiburg's theological faculty, earned his third doctorate, and was ordained a priest in 1592.

He then published polemical works such as Anatomia Lutheri (Cologne, 1595) against Protestantism, Luther, and contemporary Protestant controversial theologians. His writings are characterized by enormous expertise and thorough knowledge of Luther's printed works as well as archival evidence of church history during the Reformation. Pistorius was clear in his arguments and, when provoked, responded with sharpness and polemics.

A witch paralyzes a peasant.

The end of the 16th century was also the time of the witch trials.

Johann Jacob Renner

In 1603, Johann Jakob Renner, Freiburg's Obristzunftmeister (Master of military guild), urged Andreas Flader, a city councilor acting as mayor, to accuse 25 women suspected of witchcraft and have them tortured. Thirteen of them were sentenced to death, beheaded, and their bodies burned.
The last one, in August 1603, was Ursula Gatter, a laundress from Waldkirch, who had a daughter, just under 14 years old, named Agatha.

The girl admitted that she had not only been present at witch gatherings with her mother on ten occasions, but had also renounced God and his saints and had slept with the devil on two separate occasions.

How to deal with such a case? A legal scholar at the university recommended that Agatha be kept in custody until the age of 16. Still, if the suspicion of witchcraft persisted, she should be subjected to a new, benevolent or painful inquisition through torture and, after the misdeed had been determined, the beloved iustitiam should be administered and executed.

On November 17, 1603, Pistorius told the city council that he wanted to interrogate the girl again. As a doctor and lawyer, he felt compelled to prove her confession absurd.

In the court reports we read, because he (Pistorius) cannot sufficiently ascertain from the girl whether she has lost her virginity and been deflowered, it is necessary, first of all, to have such matters examined by sworn midwives and women, as is customary. Once it has been determined whether she has been deflowered or not, appropriate measures must be taken.

Three days later, meanwhile, it has been learned from Mr. Keder's report that Agathe, the captive girl, has been examined and found not to have been deflowered or injured. This should be reported to Dr. Pistorio, who, with the help of the parish priest, should consider what to do with her and where she should be taken.

In the end, the girl was pardoned, the strict law set aside, and with the advice of the learned and spiritual Dr. Johann Pistory ... sent to a woman in Constantz to be brought up and educated. ... Thus she was taken away on Monday, January 12, 1604.

Pistorius' intervention had a lasting effect: in the following seven years, there were no more witch burnings in Freiburg.

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