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The Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm I Tried To Make An Army of Super Tall Soldiers · Ridiculous History

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: to the show Ridiculous Historians, and thank you for tuning in.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: My name is Ben. I've got a question. Do you
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: guys remember the band they Might be Giants? Maybe certainly do. Yeah,
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: I was doing a bit because it's like they might
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: be giants. I might remember they might be giants. I'm
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: no old. By the way, Who are you? Oh, I'm
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: bet I said that? Yeah, I see. I can never
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: remember if you said it or not. That's super producer
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: Casey Pegram. Hello, Casey, you said you remember they might
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: be Giants? Yeah? I remember the Istanbul song. I remember
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: Particle Man, Birdhouse in your Soul. Yeah, yeah, all the
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: stuff that kind of made us way into animanias so
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: and Animaniacs had some great music going on in general. Right,
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: that song where they name all the countries. I was
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: just thinking about that. That's that's the one that's actually
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: since we're talking a bit about nostalgia, that is the
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: song that inspired me as a child to learn one
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: of my many useless skills, which is uh naming all
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: you and recognized countries in the world, which I which
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: I can do, uh, And you know is is completely useless.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: No one cares. And see how I can pull up
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: a little lyric sheet of of the song and if
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: you see, I can even do it. So it's you nit,
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: says Canada. I'm actically Panama Hatiti Jam makeup au public
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: dominic onback cover on Greenland No Salvador too, that's the song. Yeah,
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: I just wanted to see if I can the syllable. Absolutely,
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: you nailed it. So we're talking about they might be
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: Giants in a little bit of nostalgia, mainly because it's
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: such a creative band name, right, but also because today's
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: episode is about people who actually were giants, or they
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: were called giants. Specifically, they were called the Potsdam or
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: Potsdam giants. So here's the here's the stick. Today's story
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: takes place in Prussia. Prussia at the time, and this
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: is around the is leading up to the early eighteenth century,
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: so just before then. Prussia at the time, it was
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  Speaker 1: a military state, but it was poor. It didn't have
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: a huge population, The land wasn't super fertile. They didn't
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  Speaker 1: have a ton of resources, you know, like mines or
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  Speaker 1: natural fisheries, and they didn't have many natural borders like rivers,
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: or mountains and so on. It kind of blended into
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  Speaker 1: other German states in the west and then sort of
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: washed into a gradient of Poland in the east. And
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: this meant that it was pretty easy to invade. Turns
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  Speaker 1: out no connection to Russia whatsoever, completely different etymology. Yes, yeah,
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: And now I mean you you may be like, where's Prussia?
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: What's Prussia about? Prussia no longer a thing, But there
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: is a city in Pennsylvania called king of Prussia and
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: it's got a pretty nice outBut mall, yes, yeah, king
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  Speaker 1: of Prussia always baffled me as far as names go. Actually,
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  Speaker 1: you know what, folks, while we're listening to today's episode,
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: just if it occurs to you, will you please write
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: to us and let us know your favorite weird town names.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: There's Batman Australia. That's a real thing. Uh, King of Prussia,
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  Speaker 1: I don't know. That's one of the best ones we
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: have here for sure. And now you're putting me on
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: the spot. I definitely have one that's to go to.
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: But it's it's escaping right now. See if I can
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: comeup with it by the end of the episode. But
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: today we are talking about obsession, We are talking about
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: the need to separate yourself from the herd, you know,
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: like to kind of like rise above the ranks, shall
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: we say, And that is exactly what King Frederick William
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  Speaker 1: the First of Prussia tried to do, uh and what
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: ended up being a pretty creepy, kidnappy kind of weird way. Yes,
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  Speaker 1: so here's here's how we got here, so we said,
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: where we're setting the stage leading up to the eighteenth century.
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  Speaker 1: Since the fifteenth century or so, it was tough to
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  Speaker 1: it was tough to be in charge of this thing
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  Speaker 1: called Prussia. However, they had a skilled family of rulers.
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: The oh, it's my turn for this one. Huh, the
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  Speaker 1: hohenzollerns h O h e n z o l l
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: e r n s oh a second age huh. Interest
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  Speaker 1: I deferred to your and I would have thought it
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  Speaker 1: would have been like an e with an umlaut. But
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: it's a saw. I think you did a better job
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  Speaker 1: I gave. I gave it my my best. Well, you know,
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  Speaker 1: you also used to live in Germany so as a
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: as a small German child. So it has since escaped
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: me that all of the culture and beautiful tradition of
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: the German people you still have the German shining. I
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  Speaker 1: believe in her. So these rulers held Brandenburg since the
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  Speaker 1: fifteenth century, and over time, through their diplomacy and political maneuvering,
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  Speaker 1: they came to possess other dominions, including the original region
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  Speaker 1: which was called Prussia and the East. And in the
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  Speaker 1: seventeenth century it was just another part of this thing
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  Speaker 1: called the Holy Roman Empire, great name, very dramatic, crazy
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: little thing called the arominem Yes exactly. And in sixteen sixty,
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  Speaker 1: guy named Frederick William of the House of how do
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: we say? Oh? Yes, uh, this guy, Frederick William, he's
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  Speaker 1: the grandfather of the main character of our story. He
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  Speaker 1: inherited all of the all of the houses possessions, and
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  Speaker 1: he said, look, we can't rely on this economy built
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: on agriculture and natural resources because you don't really have
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  Speaker 1: enough of that. We can't count on natural borders like
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  Speaker 1: mountains to protect us because we don't have those either, right,
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  Speaker 1: So he said, we need to become a militaristic state. Interesting,
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: by the way, there's gonna be a lot of Frederick's
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: going on here. And this leneing is not the most
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  Speaker 1: creative namers of humans. Ah that's a shame. We'll get
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: him back eventually, though, I promise. So, yeah, it's true.
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  Speaker 1: Frederick William William. I'm gonna go with the American pronunciation
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  Speaker 1: so I don't sound like a tool. Frederick William. Uh yeah,
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  Speaker 1: of the house. Um, he like he said, he got
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  Speaker 1: all of this stuff and decided, okay, Uh, it's he's
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  Speaker 1: gonna start this obsession a generation before his son William
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  Speaker 1: of becoming this kind of militaristic state. And this really
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  Speaker 1: carries over. Okay, so let's let's let's go back to
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  Speaker 1: grandfather who decides to assemble this army. Prussia was able
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  Speaker 1: to advance its position by saying, hey, will we'll send
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  Speaker 1: these troops over for you to help you with your
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  Speaker 1: combat or with your you know, whatever you're doing in
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  Speaker 1: the east or the west or so on. Uh, and
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  Speaker 1: in return give some recognition. This comes to a head
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  Speaker 1: when Frederick William's son, another guy named Frederick, uses the
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  Speaker 1: military as leverage against the Emperor of the Holy Roman
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  Speaker 1: Empire in seventeen o one. The Emperor says, hey, Prussia,
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  Speaker 1: I need some I need some extra firepower in the
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  Speaker 1: War of Spanish Succession, and Frederick says Okay, yeah, we'll
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  Speaker 1: send you some of our awesome troops if you recognize
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  Speaker 1: us as a kingdom. And that's how he became King
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  Speaker 1: Frederick One of Prussia. Fast forward in seventeen, Frederick William,
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  Speaker 1: who was the son of Frederick One, a lot of Freds,
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  Speaker 1: you're right, ascends to the Prussian throne and pretty much
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: immediately gets weird with it. He definitely doesn't. I want
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: to point out one funny little distinction that I I've
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: seen it printed a couple of different ways, but the
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  Speaker 1: original Frederick, if I'm not mistaken, and please ridiculous historian
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: community taking a task on this, the original title was
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: King in Prussia, not King of Prussia, and then it
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  Speaker 1: became replaced with the subsequent generation after they got a
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  Speaker 1: little more leverage, um with King of Prussia. The original
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  Speaker 1: one was almost more like sort of king in the
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  Speaker 1: North instead of King of the North. You know, it's
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  Speaker 1: like you're a king, you're in your zone, but you're
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  Speaker 1: not the king of it because the you know, there
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  Speaker 1: was the powers that be were still basically in charge, right,
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  Speaker 1: I see what you're saying, So you're you're kind of
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  Speaker 1: the uh, the head assistant exactly still that's fascinating. I
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  Speaker 1: didn't think about that, but that's an important distinction, man.
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  Speaker 1: Thank you for pointing that out. Sure thing. So, Frederick
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  Speaker 1: William the First at this point, has spent his entire
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  Speaker 1: life being told by everyone in a position of power
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  Speaker 1: that the most important thing their kingdom has is the military.
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  Speaker 1: As a result, armies are even more important to him
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  Speaker 1: than they have been to his father or his grandfather.
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  Speaker 1: And he got I said, he got weird with it, folks,
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  Speaker 1: it's not hyperbole. Casey. I asked if you wanted to
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  Speaker 1: hear the spoilers about this off air before we're recording,
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  Speaker 1: and Casey said, no, I want to want to hear
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  Speaker 1: it in real time. I'm a purist, you know, I wanna.
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  Speaker 1: I wanna hear it like the folks out there in
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: podcast land here at Casey on the case perfect. So
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  Speaker 1: here we go, Casey, this is for you. When we
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: say that armies were important to Frederick William One, we
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  Speaker 1: mean that he adored them on a personal level. He
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  Speaker 1: was always hanging out with the boys. He was popping
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  Speaker 1: open a cold one with the boys. Uh. He shrunk
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  Speaker 1: his own household budget and sold most of the horses, jewels,
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  Speaker 1: and furniture that belonged to his father, such that he
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  Speaker 1: cut his expenses by about three quarters and spent all
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  Speaker 1: the money he had saved on armies instead. Hain't the
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: word we're looking for. Maybe a spartan. He existed in
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  Speaker 1: this very militaristic and no frills kind of way because
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: he wanted to be respected by his guys. UM no
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  Speaker 1: real indication that he would fight alongside them or anything,
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  Speaker 1: but he definitely wanted to at least adopt that lifestyle. Um.
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  Speaker 1: He was kind of known for being something of a
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  Speaker 1: of a of a quack, uh a kuk An eccentric perhaps,
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  Speaker 1: and he was known. There's a really great article on
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  Speaker 1: rapid diffusion dot com that goes through some of history's
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  Speaker 1: most peculiar rulers, and I love it because it refers
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  Speaker 1: to Frederick and his tall blokes, which we're gonna get
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  Speaker 1: to in a minute. But Um, according to this article,
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  Speaker 1: he would roam the streets of Berlin in kind of
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  Speaker 1: like a worn uniform, UM, and he would actually just
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  Speaker 1: kind of like walk up to anyone that he thought
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  Speaker 1: wasn't um acting right, whatever that means, and UH would
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  Speaker 1: use this walking stick. He had to give them a
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: good whacking if he felt they were behaving inappropriately. Right,
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  Speaker 1: seems like a really ill tempered kind of not a
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: very friendly do. So. Can you imagine maybe you're out
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: somewhere and you're you're partying, or you've had an argument.
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: You know, you're somehow at a state of enhanced emotions, right,
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  Speaker 1: and maybe you're not behaving as normal, and then someone
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  Speaker 1: starts whacking the tar out of you with a cane
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  Speaker 1: or a stick, and you try to fight back and
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  Speaker 1: you realize, oh wait, never mind, that's the king, my
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: bad my bad g or my bad f. So he's
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  Speaker 1: a complex character, right. He is attacking people in the streets.
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  Speaker 1: He's not killing them for sport, but he is, as
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  Speaker 1: you said, and only he's whacking them. Uh. He also
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: doesn't think the treasury should be a source of personal revenue,
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: and that's something a lot of politicians across the world
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  Speaker 1: could learn from today. And he greatly emphasized the importance
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  Speaker 1: of the military. Between his accession to the throne in
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  Speaker 1: seventeen thirteen and his death in seventeen forty. He expanded
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  Speaker 1: the size of the Prussian army from thirty eight thousand
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  Speaker 1: men to eighty three thousand men, and eventually, according to
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  Speaker 1: a couple of different sources, one in every nine men
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  Speaker 1: in Prussia was a soldier and another forty thousand were
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  Speaker 1: foreign mercenaries. This is why he became known as the
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  Speaker 1: soldier King. And he went through these military projects that
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  Speaker 1: paved the way for his son, who was also spoiler
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  Speaker 1: alert named Frederick Frederick the Great UH, to turn Prussia
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  Speaker 1: into a great European power. But the thing he loved
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  Speaker 1: the most out of all of his almost one hundred
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  Speaker 1: thousand soldiers, out of all of his military trappings, was
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  Speaker 1: a personal regiment that he designed that we know today
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  Speaker 1: as the Potsdam Giants, also known as the Potsdama reason
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  Speaker 1: God Rising, or the long Guys or the giant are
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: of pot stump Um. And this was not a coincidence.
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  Speaker 1: This was that these men were were so stately um
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  Speaker 1: he recruited them uh and dare we say went even
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: further than that eventually, um for this very effect. So
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  Speaker 1: he maintained and had trained this unit of the tallest
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  Speaker 1: men around. Some rumored that one I think a Swedish
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  Speaker 1: recruit was even like up to eight ft tall. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: The only requirement for joining this regiment was that you
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: had to be over six ft tall. That doesn't sound
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  Speaker 1: especially difficult today, and these are modern ages because people
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: are tending to get taller, But back then that was
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: freakish lye tall, you know what I mean. They were
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: given these great uniforms, they were given these weird caps
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  Speaker 1: that were I think eighteen inches high to make them
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: look even taller. And then they were given the best rooms,
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: in the best food, and they also got paid. But
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: they got paid in a weird way. They didn't get
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: paid by seniority, they didn't get paid by experience. No,
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: they got paid like literally for their height. And let's
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: not forget that these this regiment never really saw a battle.
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: It was will get into more about how it became
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: this kind of like you know, optical thing, this bargaining chip.
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: But now their their rate of pay was very specifically
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: tied to their height. So if you're six one, that
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: guy next to you that six three is making bank.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: You already know you are, you can tell. So despite
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: all these privileges, a lot of these giants, so called giants,
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: were very unhappy because they were reluctant soldiers and their
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: entire lives hinged on the whims of Frederick William. If
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: it was like, for comparison, imagine that you are the
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: favorite entourage member of a a Saudi prince or something,
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: someone who's literally beyond the law now, and they say
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: they like whatever they think is a cool idea at
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: the time, you have to make it happen. And you know,
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: let's say, for instance, Casey, he's let's see, he's in
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: the entourage of a Saudi prince and they want they
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: want you to just be on call seven, to show
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: up and and just say things in French because they
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: think French sounds very pleasing to the ear. You would
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: spend the rest of your life never knowing when the
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: phone was gonna ring, never really being able to be
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: too far away, and never knowing when this guy in
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: charge would say, you know, pronto, make with the French.
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: That's what they were doing, show up and be tall
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: whenever the king wants. And I think it went even
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: further than what we're talking about. I mean, he was
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: so obsessed with the recruiting the tallest of the tall
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: that he like there was word out that Okay, if
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: you're a teacher in Prussia, you're supposed to keep an
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: eye out for particularly tall children. And then just you know,
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: give him up to the regiment. Uh. Babies even were
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: like marked with a red scarf if they were seen
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: by the doctor as being in a particularly high height
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: and weight percentile or whatever you know. Uh, and that
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: was the thing. People sold their children, People sold their children.
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: Frederick William made it clear to his political allies that
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: they could just bestow upon him the gift of tall
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: soldiers for his unit, rather than like, you know, giving
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: him gifts or lands or anything like that. Absolutely myopic
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: about this whole thing. Um and what hey know, what
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: happened if they didn't want to go if these if
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: these tall people, I don't imagine anything good. No was
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: did did he just say? Did Frederick William just say, well,
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: you know, I respect your autonomy in your opinion. No,
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: kings don't do stuff like that. Do they know? What
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: did they do? Um? He yeah? Of course if if
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: he couldn't legally acquire these uh, these larger than average humans,
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: he would just have them kidnapped in the night, Which
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: is crazy. What at one time he tried to kidnap
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: and Austrian diplomat, which flies in the face of how
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: diplomacy is supposed to work. Right. I mean this is
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: really going into the territory of like fetishism instead of
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: actual kind of like functional tactics, you know, because again
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: did never see battle. It was just like for the
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: optics of having a bunch of very tall, you know,
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: super soldier looking men that were at his back and
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: call it's clearly it's it's clearly if not fetishization, it
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: is it is an obsession. There's no way around it.
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: He even had people lured to his kingdom under false
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: pretenses sort of the way that you know, that's an
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: ongoing tragedy in the world today. There are thousands and
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: thousands and thousands of people who are trafficked to different
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: countries because they're told they're going to be you know,
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: domestic workers, or they're going to work in construction. In
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: the Baden switch happens, yeah, and that's what Frederick william
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: was doing. He had, for instance, a guy named James
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: Kirkland who was seven ft and one inch tall, which
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: is huge for this time, it's pretty tall now, and
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: he was Irish. He was given a job as a
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: footman from one Baron Bork, who was the Prussian ambassador
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: to London. Good old Baron Bork. It sounds like that's
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: the brand name of some kind of canned meat problem products.
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: Barren Borts, Boston baked beans, bean bars, bean bars. Its
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: interested Yeah, yeah yeah, And that job was of course
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: a trap. Yeah. He was sent to the ship that
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: was moored in Portsmouth and then he was grabbed, tied
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: up and gagged and pretty much press ganged into the
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: tall blokes. Absolutely insane, the long guys. But they were
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: given some special treatment. You know, they got to eat
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: really well. Uh you know, in terms of like their
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: position within the military. They were treated um with the
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: utmost care because they were you know, Williams special special Boys,
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: Special long boys, bringing my long boys. But god, he
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: seems like a real megalomaniacal. It seems yeah, not good.
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: It's it's like something the musician Prince would do, it
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: does It does seem like that, only I don't know Prince.
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: Probably Prince would ever take it this far. He might
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: just have like, you know, really tall lamas or something.
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: You might have like one long Lama exactly the long Llama.
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: But yeah, a lot of these potsdam giants, uh, deserted,
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: ran away or tried to kill themselves. Yeah, it seems
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: like a joke, known because so much time has passed,
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: But this is a really tough life. They were more
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: or less these oddities. This this personal circus for the king.
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: This is a true story, folks. If the king was sad,
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: he would and he's done us more than once, he
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: would assemble two hundred to three hundred of his giants
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: and have the march around for him. They were perceived
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: by tall people with turbans, playing symbols and trumpets and
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: an enormous bear that was the mascot of the giants
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: and France from Boys. Exactly because I have Frederick Willi,
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: you know, like I'm sorry, I just the guy really
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: sounds like a monster. And this happened a lot when
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: he was ill. If the doctor I can see the
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: scene right when he was feeling poorly, this mini parade
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: would march through his bedroom and he would also paint
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: pictures of his favorite giants from memory. So it's exactly
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: like you're describing all the picture. The doctors saying, you know,
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: your highness, you must have meloncolic cumas or something, and
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: he's saying, oh, silence the bear, here's the bear. Watch
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: the bath. So this is this also goes into eugenics.
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: I was about to say, when are we gonna get it?
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: When we're gonna start dropping the E word? This is
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: the turn, casey, can we get a things take a
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: dark turn? Sound? Yeah? Things that were already pretty dark
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: taking even darker turn. Yeah. So Frederick William had the
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: means and the motive to create more tall people, so
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: he began to experiment with what we today call eugenics.
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: He paired the tallest of his soldiers with the tallest
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: women he could find and ordered them to breed. This
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: was somewhat effective. As a result, the town was littered
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: with unusually tall men by the end of the eighteenth century.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: And that's not all he did. He also tortured these
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: people to make them taller. Well, I mean to make
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: them taller. I roll city, right, I mean, you're either
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: tall or you ain't. If you're getting stretched on the
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: rack is just gonna mess up your bones and make
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: you render you ineffective as a soldier in Dialet. Yeah,
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: he would stretch these men on the rack in the
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: hopes of making them taller. It's just another, like, you know,
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: example of how people didn't understand how science worked back
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: in the day. Um and yeah, they of course people
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: were deserting and attempting suicide. You're not tall enough, you know,
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: or like maybe if I'm only a little taller, he'll
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: like me better and I'll get a little more money. Sure,
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: I'll submit myself to the rack, yeah or whatever exactly. Um.
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: And if anyone attempted to get out of any of
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: this stuff, Um, we talked about how he would, you know,
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: stoop so low as to stage kidnappings. If anyone who
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: was in his company and in his regiment, refused any
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: of this stuff, including the rack, they would be killed. Yeah.
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: The punishment was death. There was no in between. Probably
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: one of the only upsides of being a soldier in
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: this regiment was that you would never actually be in
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: battle because the king thought you were far too valuable
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: to waste. I can't send my tall boys out, I know. Yeah, yeah,
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: real pill. So we don't know even today whether they
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: had any military value. If you think about it at
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: the time, being that tall might have been a disadvantage
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: on the battlefield. You're more of a target to hit, right.
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: And Frederick also barely fought any wars during his lifetime
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: in comparison to other monarchs. By the time he died
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: in seventy he was fifty one, he had had a
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: total of two thousand, five hundred tall blokes and his son,
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: when we mentioned earlier, the one we called Frederick the Great,
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: he thought these guys were useless. He probably felt a
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: little bad for him to Frederick the Great got the
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: name of Frederick the Great because he ended up being
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: a much greater military leader than his father. Yeah, good point.
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: It's not ironic, and it's not like little job Or.
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: And he he basically like conquered a large swath of
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: of the area of the region. Yeah, exactly. And because
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: he saw this this tall blokes thing as relatively useless,
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: he decided that these men were actually soldiers and he
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: would use them as actual soldiers. So he sent most
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: of them to active combat units. And the Pots and
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: Giants regiment itself wouldn't be fully dissolved until eighteen o six,
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: but by this point the story was notorious throughout Europe.
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: Everybody knew about this. They also knew about the breeding program.
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: And this leads us to, you know, an even darker turn.
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: We see the consequences of what was as an eccentric obsession,
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: possibly a fetish the Nazi government in Germany. The Nazi
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: regime had its root their their attempts to create so
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: called aryan master race had their roots in this Prussian
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: militarism along with, you know, their own take on Darwinism.
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: Even though that was clearly Frederick William the First that
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: was more responsible for that image. Frederick the Great becoming
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: a much more successful military leader kind of got stuck
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: with some of that too. Not saying he was, you know,
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: a perfect man or anything, um, but he has a
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: really interesting backstory because his father, remember the walking stick,
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: uh he you know, it was a notorious crank who
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: would like beat up his son with this walking stick,
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: And when he found out that his son had a
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: male lover, he had them both thrown in jail and
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: had the lover executed in front of his son, Frederick
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: Frederick the Great. So once his father died, I mean,
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: he definitely had an acts to grind, and it seems
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: like he had like a fire in his belly that
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: kind of made him want to really like prove himself.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: And I'm just speculating here a little bit, but he
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: definitely proved to be more effective than his father in
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: terms of conquering right, so he ruled Frederick the Great.
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: Frederick too ruled the Kingdom of Prussia from seventeen forty
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: when his father passed away, until seventeen eighty six, so
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: that's a reign of forty six years. That makes him
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: the longest reigning of any hohen z O king. He
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: reorganized the Prussian armies, He was a patron of the
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: arts and the enlightenment. He really earned his name with
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: his success in the Seven Years War. He was the
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: last monarch titled king in Prussia and he declared himself
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: King of Prussia Boom. So he's the reason the name changed.
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: His leading military power, and he was nicknamed deir Alti
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: Fritz or the Old Fritz by the Prussian people and
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: eventually the rest of Germany. So he did a lot
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: of stuff his forefathers were unable to do in terms
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: of political and military organization, for sure. So despite his successes,
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: and he was definitely an imperfect person as well, Frederick
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: the Great was unfairly associated with the Potsdam giants. It's
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: you know, they mixed up their Frederick's right. Charles Darwin
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: even refers to the Potsdam Giants. By the way, he says,
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: unlike livestock, human beings have never been forcibly bred for
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: select characteristics. Quote except in the well known case of
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: the Prussian grenadiers the Potstum giants. Oh where where are
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: we at? Now? What? What is the legacy of these
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: Potsdam giants? Or maybe you're listening to this and you're
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: not completely on the same page as us. Maybe you think,
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: I don't know, guys, this sounds pretty cool. I'd like
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: to see that that march. I love bears and symbols
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: and trumpets. Fun. Well, Lucky for you, if you go
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: to Langa dash Carrass dot d e, you can hire
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: Potsdam giant reenactors to march around your very bedroom. Not
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: sure if that includes a bear, but this is an
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: association UH in Potsdam, Germany that tries to kind of
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: carry on the legacy of the tall boys Um and
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: you can get them to perform this authentic military drill
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: at your family picnic. I don't think they have a
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: bear though, that's one note. One difference. Would this have
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: been a dancing bear, like like I'm picturing it balancing
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: on a ball circus style, or would it have been
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: like a big lumbering scary bear it was. It was
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: probably trained to do some things without going too far
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: down the rabbit hole. I would not be surprised if
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: Frederick William maybe had the bear trained to do like
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: rough reenactments of military drills, you know, give it a
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: stick at plays with or something. So this concludes our story.
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: Casey have to ask, was this was this worth learning organically?
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: We didn't string you along. Do you feel like you
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: got your time's worth? I absolutely got way more than
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: I bargained for. So yeah, good job. So say we
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: all on the case, Acy on the case, and thank
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: you so much for tuning in. We want to hear remember,
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: we want to hear the weird town names in your
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: neck of the Global Woods. And uh, where do we
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: go with this? I will tell you one thing. When
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: I was originally starting to research this, I just googled, uh,
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: super soldiers or Frederick super soldier, something like that, and
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: a bunch of YouTube videos came on about this notion
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: of are there super soldier nephelem like angels in the
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: United States military? Oh yeah, yeah, I've I'm familiar with
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: that idea as well. It's a little bit out there.
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: Oh it was way out there. But you know what,
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: let us know if you were listening to this episode
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: and you are a Nephelim super soldier, either in the
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: U S we're abroad, we would love to hear your story.
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: Tell us about the great battle for good and evil.
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: You can write to us at Ridiculous at my heart
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: radio dot com. You can hit us up on our
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: Facebook group that is the Ridiculous Historians. All you have
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: to do is come up with either my name or
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: Ben's name. I really don't understand when people bother writing.
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: I don't know when they put their responses. I mean,
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: look it up. You really want to be a member
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: of the group, you could clearly look up minor Ben's name.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: They did. Just flabber against me a little bit, or
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: you know, do a clever diversion that like as a
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: reference to the show, or just make us laughing. Yeah,
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: just just make me laugh. Not an exclusive group. Also,
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: you know what, I love when people are sending out
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: T shirt ideas. I'm gonna say I'm interested in seeing
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: a design for Baron Bork's Boston Baked Being. I also
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: really want to do some straight seahorse teeth shirts because
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: I am surprised and amazed and honestly touched that that
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: phrase is taken off the way told you I mentioned
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: I told you on air. Sometimes you just know when
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: the idea is happening. It's true. If you want to
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: check me and Ben out in our personal private time lives,
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: you can hit me up on Instagram at how Now
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: Noel Brown. You can see me get kicked into and
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: out to various airports around the world. At Ben Bullen.
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: You can also always, as you said, right to us
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: with some T shirt ideas. And hey, let us know
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: if you would join the Potsdam Giants if you know
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: it sounds like it's not a bad gig for someone
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: who consented to be in it. Sure let us know.
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much to Christopher Hasiotis, friend of the show,
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: of course, thank you to Casey le buschegram for returning
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: from abroad. Thanks to our research associate Gay Lucier, Thanks
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: to Alex Williams who composed our theme, and as always,
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: thanks to you Ben for being such a dapper pal
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: and uh and co host on on this here show.
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: Likewise Noel LifeWise, Hey, Casey, can we get like a
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: little military music to play us out? Everyone tend to
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: be seven feet tall, Feel so Good? See Fox. For
• 32:09
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• 32:14
  Speaker 1: favorite shows.