Frederick the Great (1712-1786)

Frederick II (in German: Friedrich II), the Hohenzollern King of Prussia, went on to become known as Frederick the Great (Friedrich der Große). His governess and mother spoke French around him, and they reminded Frederick that French was the language of culture, while German was used by inferior people. They included his father in that category. So Frederick spoke French as his mother tongue and spoke German with difficulty all his life, in spite of the fact that he eventually ruled over a German-speaking realm.

Interested primarily in music and philosophy during his youth, Frederick unsuccessfully attempted to flee from his authoritarian father. He and his gay lover, Hans Hermann von Katte (portrait at right), were caught and imprisoned, and Frederick was then forced to watch his lover's decapitation. This was his father’s way of teaching him a lesson about his “unmanly, lascivious, female pursuits highly unsuitable for a man.” Frederick’s father whipped and caned him to humiliate him in front of servants and officers in an attempt to break his will. Frederick held out, refusing his father’s desire that he give up his right to succession in favor of his younger brother. As is turned out, the father was no match for his exceptionally intelligent and able son.

Later forced to enter into a marriage arranged by his father, Frederick mostly ignored his wife (they had no children), preferring the company of his sister on the rare occasions when female company was desired. Frederick had told his sister that he found his fiancé “repugnant; we have neither friendship nor compatibility, and she dances like a goose.” He gave his wife her own palace, refusing her entry to his other residences, and visited her only a few days a year at Christmas.

The conversation of the inner court circle around him was peppered with homoerotic banter. Voltaire, whom Frederick had invited to come live with him at Sans-Souci, a rococo summer palace he built in Potsdam, was accused of anonymously publishing “The Private Life of the King of Prussia”, exposing Frederick's homosexuality and parade of male lovers. After Voltaire had left Prussia, Frederick neither admitted nor denied the contents of the book. Regardless, Frederick was a gay man surrounded by an all-male society at Sans-Souci in which he judged people on their intelligence and skills, not royal or noble privilege. He wrote poetry, played a mean flute (see painting below), entertained by throwing lavish balls, and staged plays, avoiding the hunting, drinking, gambling and womanizing as practiced by his father. Frederick wrote and performed music and had his own personal orchestra. When his father died, Frederick was 28, and Prussia found itself with a gay king.

Frederick concentrated on becoming the best monarch possible. He soon managed to transform Prussia from a European backwater to an economically strong and politically reformed state. Although he loathed his father’s militarism, he went on to conquer neighboring lands to unify his scattered holdings, each time improving the economy, infrastructure, government, education, agriculture and industry of his acquisitions. He abolished torture and corporal punishment. The icing on the cake was his long-held policy of religious tolerance of both Catholics and Protestants, thus becoming one of the great reformers of Europe. He encouraged Jews along the border with Poland to perform trade, affording them all protections and support given to other Prussian citizens in an effort to integrate them into his realm. 

Frederick frequently led his military forces personally and had six horses shot from under him during battle. Frederick is often admired as one of the greatest military tactical geniuses of all time, especially for his usage of the oblique order of battle. Even more important were his operational successes, especially preventing the unification of numerically superior opposing armies and being at the right place at the right time to keep enemy armies out of Prussian core territory.

An example of the place that Frederick holds in history as a ruler was evidenced in Napoleon Bonaparte*, who regarded the Prussian king as a great military strategist. After Napoleon's victory of the Fourth Coalition in 1807, he visited Frederick's tomb in Potsdam and remarked to his officers, "Gentlemen, if this man were still alive, I would not be here." Frederick and Napoleon are perhaps the most admiringly quoted military leaders in history. Frederick is praised particularly for the quick and skillful movement of his troops.

*Napoleon Bonaparte also had a sexual taste for men, especially his own soldiers. See entry in sidebar.

Upon his death in 1786 (peacefully at age 74 in an armchair in his library at Sans-Souci) Frederick had wished to be buried next to his beloved 11 greyhounds on the vineyard terrace on the side of the palace’s court of honor. It took more than 200 years to grant his request, since his brother had him buried next to their father. Hitler had his coffin moved to an underground bunker, then to a salt mine to protect it from destruction. US Army soldiers subsequently discovered it and relocated it twice. After German reunification in 1989, Frederick’s casket, covered by a Prussian flag, lay in state at Sans-Souci on August 17, 1991, the 205th anniversary of his death. After nightfall, Frederick’s body was at last laid to rest according to his request in his 1757 will: “without pomp and at night” (“ohne Prunk, ohne Pomp und bei Nacht”).

Sources: Wikipedia, N.  Mitford's Frederick the Great, J. D. Steakley's Sodomy in Enlightened Prussia, Susan Henderson's Frederick the Great of Prussia

David Hockney

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Baron von Steuben

(Update at end of post) I’ve written about gay king Frederick the Great of Prussia. However, I just learned that a former aide of his had to flee Prussia amid allegations of taking familiarities with young boys. Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben, an experienced military officer, made his way to America with the aid of Benjamin Franklin, who was based in Paris at the time while trying to convince the French to come to our aid in fighting the British. George Washington asked for the Baron’s assistance in bringing order to the tattered Continental troops serving in the Revolutionary War. General Washington sent him to Valley Forge in February, 1778.

The soldiers were unaccustomed to the Baron’s – well, let’s call it "style". Von Steuben showed up in a grandiose sleigh (sporting 24 jingling bells) pulled by black Percheron draft horses. The Baron was wearing a robe of silk trimmed with fur, all the while petting his miniature greyhound, Azor, who was curled up on his lap. Behind him were his retinue of African servants, a French chef, his French aide-de-camp Louis de Pontière and the Baron’s 17-year-old lover/secretary Pierre-Étienne du Ponceau.

Impressive, if not entirely appropriate.

However, von Steuben proved his worth and soon shaped a hundred soldiers into a model company that, in turn, trained others in Prussian military tactics. He was a mere captain, but was so invaluable to Washington, that he was promoted to Major General.  In 1781, he served under the Marquis de Lafayette in Virginia when the British General Charles Cornwallis invaded. He also served at the siege of Yorktown, where he commanded one of the three divisions of Washington's army.

Steuben spoke little English, and he often yelled to his translator, "Hey! Come over here and swear for me!" Steuben punctuated the screaming of his translator with fierce-sounding shouts in German and French. In an effort to codify training, Steuben wrote a Revolutionary War Drill Manual, which became the standard method for training army troops for over thirty years. It addresses the arms and accoutrements of officers and soldiers, formation and exercise of a company, instruction of recruits, formation and marching, inspection, etc., etc.

Steuben became an American citizen by act of the Pennsylvania legislature in March 1784. In 1790, Congress gave him a pension of $2,500 a year, which he received until his death, and an estate near Utica, NY, granted to him for his military service to our nation.

But wait, that’s not all. Steuben legally adopted two handsome soldiers (one of them, William North, became a U.S. Senator). A third young man, John Mulligan, considered himself a member of the stable of Steuben’s “sons.” Before moving in with Steuben, Mulligan had been living with Charles Adams*, the son of then-Vice President John Adams. Adams was concerned about the intense “closeness” between his son and Mulligan, insisting that they split up, so Mulligan wrote to Von Steuben with his tale of despair. Actually, Von Steuben offered to take both men into his arms home. Charles Adams, the handsomest son of one president and brother of another (John Quincy), resided with Von Steuben and Mulligan for a while. The 19-year-old Mulligan received – how shall we say – a very warm welcome. Von Steuben was a 62-year-old bachelor at the time. Hmmm.

Adams left the cozy love nest after a short while, but Mulligan stayed on for several years, serving as Von Steuben’s “secretary” until the Baron’s death. Mulligan inherited von Steuben’s library, maps and $2,500 cash, a considerable amount at the time, especially considering that the Baron was not a wealthy man.

Every year since 1958 the German-American Steuben Parade has been held in New York City. It is one of the city’s largest parades and is traditionally followed by an Oktoberfest celebration in Central Park. Similar events take place in Chicago and Philadelphia. Chicago’s Steuben Day Parade was featured in the movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off. To further honor von Steuben, the Steuben Society was founded in 1919 as an educational, fraternal, and patriotic organization of American citizens of German background. In the difficult post-WW I years the Society helped the German-American community reorganize.

Steubenville, Ohio, is named in the Baron’s honor. As well, numerous submarines, warships and ocean liners were named after him. A statue of the Baron stands in Lafayette Square opposite the White House in Washington, DC*. Even one of the cadet barracks buildings at Valley Forge Military Academy and College is named after Von Steuben. Really.

Steuben was cited by Randy Shilts in his book, Conduct Unbecoming, as an early example of a valuable homosexual in the military.

*I traipsed over to Lafayette Park yesterday afternoon to inspect the statue of Baron von Steuben. It’s a tall bronze life-size statue placed upon a high stone pedestal. The statue shows von Steuben in military dress uniform surveying the troops at Valley Forge. The monument, which stands opposite the White House, was erected in 1911 and sculpted by Albert Jaegers. At the rear of the pedestal is a medallion with the images of von Steuben's adopted aides-de-camp, William North and Benjamin Walker, facing one another.  It says:  "Colonel William North - Major Benjamin Walker - Aides and Friends of von Steuben". On each side of the pedestal are bronze Roman soldiers. Above the carved words “military instruction” on one side is a seated, helmeted Roman soldier “instructing” a naked youth (photo at left). Appropriate, no?

Check it out the next time you come to Washington DC.

*In 1796 Charles Adams was one of a group of men who frequented the theater in New York City and wrote critiques of what they saw for further distribution. Others in the group, called the Friendly Club, were John Wells, Elias Hicks, Samuel Jones, William Cutting and Peter Irving. This is noted in William Dunlap's "History of the American Theatre," published in 1832 (p. 193). Adams, whose father vowed never to see him again after Charles abandoned his wife and two daughters, drank himself to death in 1800, succumbing to alcoholism at the tender age of 30. Some scholars believe this was caused by his inability to deal with his homosexual leanings. Charles Adams, who streaked naked across the campus of Harvard during his student days, had a reputation as a rogue and renegade, and his family's wall of silence after his death may support that theory. Charles certainly spent much time in the company of men who engaged in homosexual activity. In researching this post, I enjoyed a cheap smile over the fact that the law office of young Adams was located on Little Queen Street (since renamed Cedar St. in the financial district).

Update: There is an extended article in SMITHSONIAN magazine (September/October 2025 issue) that mentions rumors of von Steuben's homosexuality but does not give any credence to those charges. It does not mention Steuben's legal adoption of two young soldiers (North and Walker), nor does it mention their depiction on the Steuben statue in Lafayette Park (Washington DC).