Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
Speaker 1: to the show Ridiculous Historians, and thank you for tuning in.
Speaker 1: My name is Ben. I've got a question. Do you
Speaker 1: guys remember the band they Might be Giants? Maybe certainly do. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was doing a bit because it's like they might
Speaker 1: be giants. I might remember they might be giants. I'm
Speaker 1: no old. By the way, Who are you? Oh, I'm
Speaker 1: bet I said that? Yeah, I see. I can never
Speaker 1: remember if you said it or not. That's super producer
Speaker 1: Casey Pegram. Hello, Casey, you said you remember they might
Speaker 1: be Giants? Yeah? I remember the Istanbul song. I remember
Speaker 1: Particle Man, Birdhouse in your Soul. Yeah, yeah, all the
Speaker 1: stuff that kind of made us way into animanias so
Speaker 1: and Animaniacs had some great music going on in general. Right,
Speaker 1: that song where they name all the countries. I was
Speaker 1: just thinking about that. That's that's the one that's actually
Speaker 1: since we're talking a bit about nostalgia, that is the
Speaker 1: song that inspired me as a child to learn one
Speaker 1: of my many useless skills, which is uh naming all
Speaker 1: you and recognized countries in the world, which I which
Speaker 1: I can do, uh, And you know is is completely useless.
Speaker 1: No one cares. And see how I can pull up
Speaker 1: a little lyric sheet of of the song and if
Speaker 1: you see, I can even do it. So it's you nit,
Speaker 1: says Canada. I'm actically Panama Hatiti Jam makeup au public
Speaker 1: dominic onback cover on Greenland No Salvador too, that's the song. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I just wanted to see if I can the syllable. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: you nailed it. So we're talking about they might be
Speaker 1: Giants in a little bit of nostalgia, mainly because it's
Speaker 1: such a creative band name, right, but also because today's
Speaker 1: episode is about people who actually were giants, or they
Speaker 1: were called giants. Specifically, they were called the Potsdam or
Speaker 1: Potsdam giants. So here's the here's the stick. Today's story
Speaker 1: takes place in Prussia. Prussia at the time, and this
Speaker 1: is around the is leading up to the early eighteenth century,
Speaker 1: so just before then. Prussia at the time, it was
Speaker 1: a military state, but it was poor. It didn't have
Speaker 1: a huge population, The land wasn't super fertile. They didn't
Speaker 1: have a ton of resources, you know, like mines or
Speaker 1: natural fisheries, and they didn't have many natural borders like rivers,
Speaker 1: or mountains and so on. It kind of blended into
Speaker 1: other German states in the west and then sort of
Speaker 1: washed into a gradient of Poland in the east. And
Speaker 1: this meant that it was pretty easy to invade. Turns
Speaker 1: out no connection to Russia whatsoever, completely different etymology. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: And now I mean you you may be like, where's Prussia?
Speaker 1: What's Prussia about? Prussia no longer a thing, But there
Speaker 1: is a city in Pennsylvania called king of Prussia and
Speaker 1: it's got a pretty nice outBut mall, yes, yeah, king
Speaker 1: of Prussia always baffled me as far as names go. Actually,
Speaker 1: you know what, folks, while we're listening to today's episode,
Speaker 1: just if it occurs to you, will you please write
Speaker 1: to us and let us know your favorite weird town names.
Speaker 1: There's Batman Australia. That's a real thing. Uh, King of Prussia,
Speaker 1: I don't know. That's one of the best ones we
Speaker 1: have here for sure. And now you're putting me on
Speaker 1: the spot. I definitely have one that's to go to.
Speaker 1: But it's it's escaping right now. See if I can
Speaker 1: comeup with it by the end of the episode. But
Speaker 1: today we are talking about obsession, We are talking about
Speaker 1: the need to separate yourself from the herd, you know,
Speaker 1: like to kind of like rise above the ranks, shall
Speaker 1: we say, And that is exactly what King Frederick William
Speaker 1: the First of Prussia tried to do, uh and what
Speaker 1: ended up being a pretty creepy, kidnappy kind of weird way. Yes,
Speaker 1: so here's here's how we got here, so we said,
Speaker 1: where we're setting the stage leading up to the eighteenth century.
Speaker 1: Since the fifteenth century or so, it was tough to
Speaker 1: it was tough to be in charge of this thing
Speaker 1: called Prussia. However, they had a skilled family of rulers.
Speaker 1: The oh, it's my turn for this one. Huh, the
Speaker 1: hohenzollerns h O h e n z o l l
Speaker 1: e r n s oh a second age huh. Interest
Speaker 1: I deferred to your and I would have thought it
Speaker 1: would have been like an e with an umlaut. But
Speaker 1: it's a saw. I think you did a better job
Speaker 1: I gave. I gave it my my best. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: you also used to live in Germany so as a
Speaker 1: as a small German child. So it has since escaped
Speaker 1: me that all of the culture and beautiful tradition of
Speaker 1: the German people you still have the German shining. I
Speaker 1: believe in her. So these rulers held Brandenburg since the
Speaker 1: fifteenth century, and over time, through their diplomacy and political maneuvering,
Speaker 1: they came to possess other dominions, including the original region
Speaker 1: which was called Prussia and the East. And in the
Speaker 1: seventeenth century it was just another part of this thing
Speaker 1: called the Holy Roman Empire, great name, very dramatic, crazy
Speaker 1: little thing called the arominem Yes exactly. And in sixteen sixty,
Speaker 1: guy named Frederick William of the House of how do
Speaker 1: we say? Oh? Yes, uh, this guy, Frederick William, he's
Speaker 1: the grandfather of the main character of our story. He
Speaker 1: inherited all of the all of the houses possessions, and
Speaker 1: he said, look, we can't rely on this economy built
Speaker 1: on agriculture and natural resources because you don't really have
Speaker 1: enough of that. We can't count on natural borders like
Speaker 1: mountains to protect us because we don't have those either, right,
Speaker 1: So he said, we need to become a militaristic state. Interesting,
Speaker 1: by the way, there's gonna be a lot of Frederick's
Speaker 1: going on here. And this leneing is not the most
Speaker 1: creative namers of humans. Ah that's a shame. We'll get
Speaker 1: him back eventually, though, I promise. So, yeah, it's true.
Speaker 1: Frederick William William. I'm gonna go with the American pronunciation
Speaker 1: so I don't sound like a tool. Frederick William. Uh yeah,
Speaker 1: of the house. Um, he like he said, he got
Speaker 1: all of this stuff and decided, okay, Uh, it's he's
Speaker 1: gonna start this obsession a generation before his son William
Speaker 1: of becoming this kind of militaristic state. And this really
Speaker 1: carries over. Okay, so let's let's let's go back to
Speaker 1: grandfather who decides to assemble this army. Prussia was able
Speaker 1: to advance its position by saying, hey, will we'll send
Speaker 1: these troops over for you to help you with your
Speaker 1: combat or with your you know, whatever you're doing in
Speaker 1: the east or the west or so on. Uh, and
Speaker 1: in return give some recognition. This comes to a head
Speaker 1: when Frederick William's son, another guy named Frederick, uses the
Speaker 1: military as leverage against the Emperor of the Holy Roman
Speaker 1: Empire in seventeen o one. The Emperor says, hey, Prussia,
Speaker 1: I need some I need some extra firepower in the
Speaker 1: War of Spanish Succession, and Frederick says Okay, yeah, we'll
Speaker 1: send you some of our awesome troops if you recognize
Speaker 1: us as a kingdom. And that's how he became King
Speaker 1: Frederick One of Prussia. Fast forward in seventeen, Frederick William,
Speaker 1: who was the son of Frederick One, a lot of Freds,
Speaker 1: you're right, ascends to the Prussian throne and pretty much
Speaker 1: immediately gets weird with it. He definitely doesn't. I want
Speaker 1: to point out one funny little distinction that I I've
Speaker 1: seen it printed a couple of different ways, but the
Speaker 1: original Frederick, if I'm not mistaken, and please ridiculous historian
Speaker 1: community taking a task on this, the original title was
Speaker 1: King in Prussia, not King of Prussia, and then it
Speaker 1: became replaced with the subsequent generation after they got a
Speaker 1: little more leverage, um with King of Prussia. The original
Speaker 1: one was almost more like sort of king in the
Speaker 1: North instead of King of the North. You know, it's
Speaker 1: like you're a king, you're in your zone, but you're
Speaker 1: not the king of it because the you know, there
Speaker 1: was the powers that be were still basically in charge, right,
Speaker 1: I see what you're saying, So you're you're kind of
Speaker 1: the uh, the head assistant exactly still that's fascinating. I
Speaker 1: didn't think about that, but that's an important distinction, man.
Speaker 1: Thank you for pointing that out. Sure thing. So, Frederick
Speaker 1: William the First at this point, has spent his entire
Speaker 1: life being told by everyone in a position of power
Speaker 1: that the most important thing their kingdom has is the military.
Speaker 1: As a result, armies are even more important to him
Speaker 1: than they have been to his father or his grandfather.
Speaker 1: And he got I said, he got weird with it, folks,
Speaker 1: it's not hyperbole. Casey. I asked if you wanted to
Speaker 1: hear the spoilers about this off air before we're recording,
Speaker 1: and Casey said, no, I want to want to hear
Speaker 1: it in real time. I'm a purist, you know, I wanna.
Speaker 1: I wanna hear it like the folks out there in
Speaker 1: podcast land here at Casey on the case perfect. So
Speaker 1: here we go, Casey, this is for you. When we
Speaker 1: say that armies were important to Frederick William One, we
Speaker 1: mean that he adored them on a personal level. He
Speaker 1: was always hanging out with the boys. He was popping
Speaker 1: open a cold one with the boys. Uh. He shrunk
Speaker 1: his own household budget and sold most of the horses, jewels,
Speaker 1: and furniture that belonged to his father, such that he
Speaker 1: cut his expenses by about three quarters and spent all
Speaker 1: the money he had saved on armies instead. Hain't the
Speaker 1: word we're looking for. Maybe a spartan. He existed in
Speaker 1: this very militaristic and no frills kind of way because
Speaker 1: he wanted to be respected by his guys. UM no
Speaker 1: real indication that he would fight alongside them or anything,
Speaker 1: but he definitely wanted to at least adopt that lifestyle. Um.
Speaker 1: He was kind of known for being something of a
Speaker 1: of a of a quack, uh a kuk An eccentric perhaps,
Speaker 1: and he was known. There's a really great article on
Speaker 1: rapid diffusion dot com that goes through some of history's
Speaker 1: most peculiar rulers, and I love it because it refers
Speaker 1: to Frederick and his tall blokes, which we're gonna get
Speaker 1: to in a minute. But Um, according to this article,
Speaker 1: he would roam the streets of Berlin in kind of
Speaker 1: like a worn uniform, UM, and he would actually just
Speaker 1: kind of like walk up to anyone that he thought
Speaker 1: wasn't um acting right, whatever that means, and UH would
Speaker 1: use this walking stick. He had to give them a
Speaker 1: good whacking if he felt they were behaving inappropriately. Right,
Speaker 1: seems like a really ill tempered kind of not a
Speaker 1: very friendly do. So. Can you imagine maybe you're out
Speaker 1: somewhere and you're you're partying, or you've had an argument.
Speaker 1: You know, you're somehow at a state of enhanced emotions, right,
Speaker 1: and maybe you're not behaving as normal, and then someone
Speaker 1: starts whacking the tar out of you with a cane
Speaker 1: or a stick, and you try to fight back and
Speaker 1: you realize, oh wait, never mind, that's the king, my
Speaker 1: bad my bad g or my bad f. So he's
Speaker 1: a complex character, right. He is attacking people in the streets.
Speaker 1: He's not killing them for sport, but he is, as
Speaker 1: you said, and only he's whacking them. Uh. He also
Speaker 1: doesn't think the treasury should be a source of personal revenue,
Speaker 1: and that's something a lot of politicians across the world
Speaker 1: could learn from today. And he greatly emphasized the importance
Speaker 1: of the military. Between his accession to the throne in
Speaker 1: seventeen thirteen and his death in seventeen forty. He expanded
Speaker 1: the size of the Prussian army from thirty eight thousand
Speaker 1: men to eighty three thousand men, and eventually, according to
Speaker 1: a couple of different sources, one in every nine men
Speaker 1: in Prussia was a soldier and another forty thousand were
Speaker 1: foreign mercenaries. This is why he became known as the
Speaker 1: soldier King. And he went through these military projects that
Speaker 1: paved the way for his son, who was also spoiler
Speaker 1: alert named Frederick Frederick the Great UH, to turn Prussia
Speaker 1: into a great European power. But the thing he loved
Speaker 1: the most out of all of his almost one hundred
Speaker 1: thousand soldiers, out of all of his military trappings, was
Speaker 1: a personal regiment that he designed that we know today
Speaker 1: as the Potsdam Giants, also known as the Potsdama reason
Speaker 1: God Rising, or the long Guys or the giant are
Speaker 1: of pot stump Um. And this was not a coincidence.
Speaker 1: This was that these men were were so stately um
Speaker 1: he recruited them uh and dare we say went even
Speaker 1: further than that eventually, um for this very effect. So
Speaker 1: he maintained and had trained this unit of the tallest
Speaker 1: men around. Some rumored that one I think a Swedish
Speaker 1: recruit was even like up to eight ft tall. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The only requirement for joining this regiment was that you
Speaker 1: had to be over six ft tall. That doesn't sound
Speaker 1: especially difficult today, and these are modern ages because people
Speaker 1: are tending to get taller, But back then that was
Speaker 1: freakish lye tall, you know what I mean. They were
Speaker 1: given these great uniforms, they were given these weird caps
Speaker 1: that were I think eighteen inches high to make them
Speaker 1: look even taller. And then they were given the best rooms,
Speaker 1: in the best food, and they also got paid. But
Speaker 1: they got paid in a weird way. They didn't get
Speaker 1: paid by seniority, they didn't get paid by experience. No,
Speaker 1: they got paid like literally for their height. And let's
Speaker 1: not forget that these this regiment never really saw a battle.
Speaker 1: It was will get into more about how it became
Speaker 1: this kind of like you know, optical thing, this bargaining chip.
Speaker 1: But now their their rate of pay was very specifically
Speaker 1: tied to their height. So if you're six one, that
Speaker 1: guy next to you that six three is making bank.
Speaker 1: You already know you are, you can tell. So despite
Speaker 1: all these privileges, a lot of these giants, so called giants,
Speaker 1: were very unhappy because they were reluctant soldiers and their
Speaker 1: entire lives hinged on the whims of Frederick William. If
Speaker 1: it was like, for comparison, imagine that you are the
Speaker 1: favorite entourage member of a a Saudi prince or something,
Speaker 1: someone who's literally beyond the law now, and they say
Speaker 1: they like whatever they think is a cool idea at
Speaker 1: the time, you have to make it happen. And you know,
Speaker 1: let's say, for instance, Casey, he's let's see, he's in
Speaker 1: the entourage of a Saudi prince and they want they
Speaker 1: want you to just be on call seven, to show
Speaker 1: up and and just say things in French because they
Speaker 1: think French sounds very pleasing to the ear. You would
Speaker 1: spend the rest of your life never knowing when the
Speaker 1: phone was gonna ring, never really being able to be
Speaker 1: too far away, and never knowing when this guy in
Speaker 1: charge would say, you know, pronto, make with the French.
Speaker 1: That's what they were doing, show up and be tall
Speaker 1: whenever the king wants. And I think it went even
Speaker 1: further than what we're talking about. I mean, he was
Speaker 1: so obsessed with the recruiting the tallest of the tall
Speaker 1: that he like there was word out that Okay, if
Speaker 1: you're a teacher in Prussia, you're supposed to keep an
Speaker 1: eye out for particularly tall children. And then just you know,
Speaker 1: give him up to the regiment. Uh. Babies even were
Speaker 1: like marked with a red scarf if they were seen
Speaker 1: by the doctor as being in a particularly high height
Speaker 1: and weight percentile or whatever you know. Uh, and that
Speaker 1: was the thing. People sold their children, People sold their children.
Speaker 1: Frederick William made it clear to his political allies that
Speaker 1: they could just bestow upon him the gift of tall
Speaker 1: soldiers for his unit, rather than like, you know, giving
Speaker 1: him gifts or lands or anything like that. Absolutely myopic
Speaker 1: about this whole thing. Um and what hey know, what
Speaker 1: happened if they didn't want to go if these if
Speaker 1: these tall people, I don't imagine anything good. No was
Speaker 1: did did he just say? Did Frederick William just say, well,
Speaker 1: you know, I respect your autonomy in your opinion. No,
Speaker 1: kings don't do stuff like that. Do they know? What
Speaker 1: did they do? Um? He yeah? Of course if if
Speaker 1: he couldn't legally acquire these uh, these larger than average humans,
Speaker 1: he would just have them kidnapped in the night, Which
Speaker 1: is crazy. What at one time he tried to kidnap
Speaker 1: and Austrian diplomat, which flies in the face of how
Speaker 1: diplomacy is supposed to work. Right. I mean this is
Speaker 1: really going into the territory of like fetishism instead of
Speaker 1: actual kind of like functional tactics, you know, because again
Speaker 1: did never see battle. It was just like for the
Speaker 1: optics of having a bunch of very tall, you know,
Speaker 1: super soldier looking men that were at his back and
Speaker 1: call it's clearly it's it's clearly if not fetishization, it
Speaker 1: is it is an obsession. There's no way around it.
Speaker 1: He even had people lured to his kingdom under false
Speaker 1: pretenses sort of the way that you know, that's an
Speaker 1: ongoing tragedy in the world today. There are thousands and
Speaker 1: thousands and thousands of people who are trafficked to different
Speaker 1: countries because they're told they're going to be you know,
Speaker 1: domestic workers, or they're going to work in construction. In
Speaker 1: the Baden switch happens, yeah, and that's what Frederick william
Speaker 1: was doing. He had, for instance, a guy named James
Speaker 1: Kirkland who was seven ft and one inch tall, which
Speaker 1: is huge for this time, it's pretty tall now, and
Speaker 1: he was Irish. He was given a job as a
Speaker 1: footman from one Baron Bork, who was the Prussian ambassador
Speaker 1: to London. Good old Baron Bork. It sounds like that's
Speaker 1: the brand name of some kind of canned meat problem products.
Speaker 1: Barren Borts, Boston baked beans, bean bars, bean bars. Its
Speaker 1: interested Yeah, yeah yeah, And that job was of course
Speaker 1: a trap. Yeah. He was sent to the ship that
Speaker 1: was moored in Portsmouth and then he was grabbed, tied
Speaker 1: up and gagged and pretty much press ganged into the
Speaker 1: tall blokes. Absolutely insane, the long guys. But they were
Speaker 1: given some special treatment. You know, they got to eat
Speaker 1: really well. Uh you know, in terms of like their
Speaker 1: position within the military. They were treated um with the
Speaker 1: utmost care because they were you know, Williams special special Boys,
Speaker 1: Special long boys, bringing my long boys. But god, he
Speaker 1: seems like a real megalomaniacal. It seems yeah, not good.
Speaker 1: It's it's like something the musician Prince would do, it
Speaker 1: does It does seem like that, only I don't know Prince.
Speaker 1: Probably Prince would ever take it this far. He might
Speaker 1: just have like, you know, really tall lamas or something.
Speaker 1: You might have like one long Lama exactly the long Llama.
Speaker 1: But yeah, a lot of these potsdam giants, uh, deserted,
Speaker 1: ran away or tried to kill themselves. Yeah, it seems
Speaker 1: like a joke, known because so much time has passed,
Speaker 1: But this is a really tough life. They were more
Speaker 1: or less these oddities. This this personal circus for the king.
Speaker 1: This is a true story, folks. If the king was sad,
Speaker 1: he would and he's done us more than once, he
Speaker 1: would assemble two hundred to three hundred of his giants
Speaker 1: and have the march around for him. They were perceived
Speaker 1: by tall people with turbans, playing symbols and trumpets and
Speaker 1: an enormous bear that was the mascot of the giants
Speaker 1: and France from Boys. Exactly because I have Frederick Willi,
Speaker 1: you know, like I'm sorry, I just the guy really
Speaker 1: sounds like a monster. And this happened a lot when
Speaker 1: he was ill. If the doctor I can see the
Speaker 1: scene right when he was feeling poorly, this mini parade
Speaker 1: would march through his bedroom and he would also paint
Speaker 1: pictures of his favorite giants from memory. So it's exactly
Speaker 1: like you're describing all the picture. The doctors saying, you know,
Speaker 1: your highness, you must have meloncolic cumas or something, and
Speaker 1: he's saying, oh, silence the bear, here's the bear. Watch
Speaker 1: the bath. So this is this also goes into eugenics.
Speaker 1: I was about to say, when are we gonna get it?
Speaker 1: When we're gonna start dropping the E word? This is
Speaker 1: the turn, casey, can we get a things take a
Speaker 1: dark turn? Sound? Yeah? Things that were already pretty dark
Speaker 1: taking even darker turn. Yeah. So Frederick William had the
Speaker 1: means and the motive to create more tall people, so
Speaker 1: he began to experiment with what we today call eugenics.
Speaker 1: He paired the tallest of his soldiers with the tallest
Speaker 1: women he could find and ordered them to breed. This
Speaker 1: was somewhat effective. As a result, the town was littered
Speaker 1: with unusually tall men by the end of the eighteenth century.
Speaker 1: And that's not all he did. He also tortured these
Speaker 1: people to make them taller. Well, I mean to make
Speaker 1: them taller. I roll city, right, I mean, you're either
Speaker 1: tall or you ain't. If you're getting stretched on the
Speaker 1: rack is just gonna mess up your bones and make
Speaker 1: you render you ineffective as a soldier in Dialet. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he would stretch these men on the rack in the
Speaker 1: hopes of making them taller. It's just another, like, you know,
Speaker 1: example of how people didn't understand how science worked back
Speaker 1: in the day. Um and yeah, they of course people
Speaker 1: were deserting and attempting suicide. You're not tall enough, you know,
Speaker 1: or like maybe if I'm only a little taller, he'll
Speaker 1: like me better and I'll get a little more money. Sure,
Speaker 1: I'll submit myself to the rack, yeah or whatever exactly. Um.
Speaker 1: And if anyone attempted to get out of any of
Speaker 1: this stuff, Um, we talked about how he would, you know,
Speaker 1: stoop so low as to stage kidnappings. If anyone who
Speaker 1: was in his company and in his regiment, refused any
Speaker 1: of this stuff, including the rack, they would be killed. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The punishment was death. There was no in between. Probably
Speaker 1: one of the only upsides of being a soldier in
Speaker 1: this regiment was that you would never actually be in
Speaker 1: battle because the king thought you were far too valuable
Speaker 1: to waste. I can't send my tall boys out, I know. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: real pill. So we don't know even today whether they
Speaker 1: had any military value. If you think about it at
Speaker 1: the time, being that tall might have been a disadvantage
Speaker 1: on the battlefield. You're more of a target to hit, right.
Speaker 1: And Frederick also barely fought any wars during his lifetime
Speaker 1: in comparison to other monarchs. By the time he died
Speaker 1: in seventy he was fifty one, he had had a
Speaker 1: total of two thousand, five hundred tall blokes and his son,
Speaker 1: when we mentioned earlier, the one we called Frederick the Great,
Speaker 1: he thought these guys were useless. He probably felt a
Speaker 1: little bad for him to Frederick the Great got the
Speaker 1: name of Frederick the Great because he ended up being
Speaker 1: a much greater military leader than his father. Yeah, good point.
Speaker 1: It's not ironic, and it's not like little job Or.
Speaker 1: And he he basically like conquered a large swath of
Speaker 1: of the area of the region. Yeah, exactly. And because
Speaker 1: he saw this this tall blokes thing as relatively useless,
Speaker 1: he decided that these men were actually soldiers and he
Speaker 1: would use them as actual soldiers. So he sent most
Speaker 1: of them to active combat units. And the Pots and
Speaker 1: Giants regiment itself wouldn't be fully dissolved until eighteen o six,
Speaker 1: but by this point the story was notorious throughout Europe.
Speaker 1: Everybody knew about this. They also knew about the breeding program.
Speaker 1: And this leads us to, you know, an even darker turn.
Speaker 1: We see the consequences of what was as an eccentric obsession,
Speaker 1: possibly a fetish the Nazi government in Germany. The Nazi
Speaker 1: regime had its root their their attempts to create so
Speaker 1: called aryan master race had their roots in this Prussian
Speaker 1: militarism along with, you know, their own take on Darwinism.
Speaker 1: Even though that was clearly Frederick William the First that
Speaker 1: was more responsible for that image. Frederick the Great becoming
Speaker 1: a much more successful military leader kind of got stuck
Speaker 1: with some of that too. Not saying he was, you know,
Speaker 1: a perfect man or anything, um, but he has a
Speaker 1: really interesting backstory because his father, remember the walking stick,
Speaker 1: uh he you know, it was a notorious crank who
Speaker 1: would like beat up his son with this walking stick,
Speaker 1: And when he found out that his son had a
Speaker 1: male lover, he had them both thrown in jail and
Speaker 1: had the lover executed in front of his son, Frederick
Speaker 1: Frederick the Great. So once his father died, I mean,
Speaker 1: he definitely had an acts to grind, and it seems
Speaker 1: like he had like a fire in his belly that
Speaker 1: kind of made him want to really like prove himself.
Speaker 1: And I'm just speculating here a little bit, but he
Speaker 1: definitely proved to be more effective than his father in
Speaker 1: terms of conquering right, so he ruled Frederick the Great.
Speaker 1: Frederick too ruled the Kingdom of Prussia from seventeen forty
Speaker 1: when his father passed away, until seventeen eighty six, so
Speaker 1: that's a reign of forty six years. That makes him
Speaker 1: the longest reigning of any hohen z O king. He
Speaker 1: reorganized the Prussian armies, He was a patron of the
Speaker 1: arts and the enlightenment. He really earned his name with
Speaker 1: his success in the Seven Years War. He was the
Speaker 1: last monarch titled king in Prussia and he declared himself
Speaker 1: King of Prussia Boom. So he's the reason the name changed.
Speaker 1: His leading military power, and he was nicknamed deir Alti
Speaker 1: Fritz or the Old Fritz by the Prussian people and
Speaker 1: eventually the rest of Germany. So he did a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff his forefathers were unable to do in terms
Speaker 1: of political and military organization, for sure. So despite his successes,
Speaker 1: and he was definitely an imperfect person as well, Frederick
Speaker 1: the Great was unfairly associated with the Potsdam giants. It's
Speaker 1: you know, they mixed up their Frederick's right. Charles Darwin
Speaker 1: even refers to the Potsdam Giants. By the way, he says,
Speaker 1: unlike livestock, human beings have never been forcibly bred for
Speaker 1: select characteristics. Quote except in the well known case of
Speaker 1: the Prussian grenadiers the Potstum giants. Oh where where are
Speaker 1: we at? Now? What? What is the legacy of these
Speaker 1: Potsdam giants? Or maybe you're listening to this and you're
Speaker 1: not completely on the same page as us. Maybe you think,
Speaker 1: I don't know, guys, this sounds pretty cool. I'd like
Speaker 1: to see that that march. I love bears and symbols
Speaker 1: and trumpets. Fun. Well, Lucky for you, if you go
Speaker 1: to Langa dash Carrass dot d e, you can hire
Speaker 1: Potsdam giant reenactors to march around your very bedroom. Not
Speaker 1: sure if that includes a bear, but this is an
Speaker 1: association UH in Potsdam, Germany that tries to kind of
Speaker 1: carry on the legacy of the tall boys Um and
Speaker 1: you can get them to perform this authentic military drill
Speaker 1: at your family picnic. I don't think they have a
Speaker 1: bear though, that's one note. One difference. Would this have
Speaker 1: been a dancing bear, like like I'm picturing it balancing
Speaker 1: on a ball circus style, or would it have been
Speaker 1: like a big lumbering scary bear it was. It was
Speaker 1: probably trained to do some things without going too far
Speaker 1: down the rabbit hole. I would not be surprised if
Speaker 1: Frederick William maybe had the bear trained to do like
Speaker 1: rough reenactments of military drills, you know, give it a
Speaker 1: stick at plays with or something. So this concludes our story.
Speaker 1: Casey have to ask, was this was this worth learning organically?
Speaker 1: We didn't string you along. Do you feel like you
Speaker 1: got your time's worth? I absolutely got way more than
Speaker 1: I bargained for. So yeah, good job. So say we
Speaker 1: all on the case, Acy on the case, and thank
Speaker 1: you so much for tuning in. We want to hear remember,
Speaker 1: we want to hear the weird town names in your
Speaker 1: neck of the Global Woods. And uh, where do we
Speaker 1: go with this? I will tell you one thing. When
Speaker 1: I was originally starting to research this, I just googled, uh,
Speaker 1: super soldiers or Frederick super soldier, something like that, and
Speaker 1: a bunch of YouTube videos came on about this notion
Speaker 1: of are there super soldier nephelem like angels in the
Speaker 1: United States military? Oh yeah, yeah, I've I'm familiar with
Speaker 1: that idea as well. It's a little bit out there.
Speaker 1: Oh it was way out there. But you know what,
Speaker 1: let us know if you were listening to this episode
Speaker 1: and you are a Nephelim super soldier, either in the
Speaker 1: U S we're abroad, we would love to hear your story.
Speaker 1: Tell us about the great battle for good and evil.
Speaker 1: You can write to us at Ridiculous at my heart
Speaker 1: radio dot com. You can hit us up on our
Speaker 1: Facebook group that is the Ridiculous Historians. All you have
Speaker 1: to do is come up with either my name or
Speaker 1: Ben's name. I really don't understand when people bother writing.
Speaker 1: I don't know when they put their responses. I mean,
Speaker 1: look it up. You really want to be a member
Speaker 1: of the group, you could clearly look up minor Ben's name.
Speaker 1: They did. Just flabber against me a little bit, or
Speaker 1: you know, do a clever diversion that like as a
Speaker 1: reference to the show, or just make us laughing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just just make me laugh. Not an exclusive group. Also,
Speaker 1: you know what, I love when people are sending out
Speaker 1: T shirt ideas. I'm gonna say I'm interested in seeing
Speaker 1: a design for Baron Bork's Boston Baked Being. I also
Speaker 1: really want to do some straight seahorse teeth shirts because
Speaker 1: I am surprised and amazed and honestly touched that that
Speaker 1: phrase is taken off the way told you I mentioned
Speaker 1: I told you on air. Sometimes you just know when
Speaker 1: the idea is happening. It's true. If you want to
Speaker 1: check me and Ben out in our personal private time lives,
Speaker 1: you can hit me up on Instagram at how Now
Speaker 1: Noel Brown. You can see me get kicked into and
Speaker 1: out to various airports around the world. At Ben Bullen.
Speaker 1: You can also always, as you said, right to us
Speaker 1: with some T shirt ideas. And hey, let us know
Speaker 1: if you would join the Potsdam Giants if you know
Speaker 1: it sounds like it's not a bad gig for someone
Speaker 1: who consented to be in it. Sure let us know.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much to Christopher Hasiotis, friend of the show,
Speaker 1: of course, thank you to Casey le buschegram for returning
Speaker 1: from abroad. Thanks to our research associate Gay Lucier, Thanks
Speaker 1: to Alex Williams who composed our theme, and as always,
Speaker 1: thanks to you Ben for being such a dapper pal
Speaker 1: and uh and co host on on this here show.
Speaker 1: Likewise Noel LifeWise, Hey, Casey, can we get like a
Speaker 1: little military music to play us out? Everyone tend to
Speaker 1: be seven feet tall, Feel so Good? See Fox. For
Speaker 1: more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the I heart
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
Speaker 1: favorite shows.