The German Communists got a new spiritual comrade. He was the soldier-king Frederick the Great of Prussia (1740-86), a flute-playing ally of Empress Catherine the Great of Russia, and a fanatic military disciplinarian who could have made blintzes out of Joe Stalin's toughest commissars.
Berliners are proud of Frederick's bronze statue on Unter den Linden, which, since the start of World War II, had been encased in a brick shell to protect it against air raids. Recently, not fully realizing their kinship to the king, the Communists suggested that the statue be melted down for scrap. An outcry of protest...
To continue reading:
or
Log-In
