Future Frederick the Great, Here 9 Years Old, Writes His King Father, William I, King of Prussia, Hoping to Come Visit

Theirs was a famously combative relationship; Frederick would attempt to flee to Britain 9 years later

In his early youth, Frederick lived with his mother and sister Wilhelmine, although they regularly visited their father’s hunting lodge at Königs Wusterhausen. Frederick and his older sister formed a close relationship, which lasted until her death in 1758. Frederick was educated to speak both French and German, and many of his tutors were French Calvinists.

The relationship between Frederick the Great and his father Frederick William I was deeply strained and often hostile. Frederick William I was a rigid, militaristic ruler who valued discipline, obedience, and a strong army above all else, while his son was drawn to music, literature, and French Enlightenment culture. The King saw these interests as weak and unmanly, and he frequently criticized and even physically punished Frederick in an attempt to force him into a more soldierly mold.

Their conflict reached a peak in 1730 when Frederick attempted to flee Prussia to escape his father’s control. The plan failed, and Frederick William I reacted harshly—he had Frederick arrested and forced him to watch the execution of his close friend, Hans Hermann von Katte, who had helped in the escape attempt. Although Frederick later became a brilliant military ruler, the emotional distance between father and son never fully disappeared. In fact, Frederick’s later embrace of culture and philosophy can be seen partly as a reaction against his father’s severity.

Wusterhausen was an important royal residence in early 18th-century Prussia and played a key role in the upbringing of Frederick the Great. In the early 1720s, when Frederick was still a child, he spent time there with his father, Frederick William I, who used the palace as a retreat from Berlin. The site was known for the King’s informal “Tobacco Parliament,” where political and military matters were discussed. For the young Frederick, Wusterhausen symbolized the strict, militaristic environment imposed by his father, which sharply contrasted with his own developing interests in culture, music, and Enlightenment thought—tensions that would later shape his character and reign.

Autograph letter signed, in old Germanic script, from then Prince Frederick to the King, “My dear Papa”, “in September 1721.” The General mentioned is likely Johann Matthias von der Schulenburg.

“I hope that my dear Papa is still doing well, and I am longing very much to go to Wusterhausen. I am constantly hoping that my dear Papa will order for me to come. I am awaiting with the greatest impatience to see my dear Papa. I am humbly requesting my dear Papa that he may let me come to Wusterhausen. I remain my dear Papa’s Most obedient servant and son, Frederich.”

“The general Schulenburg has told me that my dear Papa is still doing well, about which I am very glad, and he also asked me to be godfather.”