What happens if a person who rejects all rules and conventions finds himself in the position of the ruler? The Prussian ‘Soldier King’ Frederick William I (1688-1740), father of Frederick the Great, is a legendary figure of German history. He is known for state reforms, the vast expansion of his army, and for almost sentencing his son to death. Frederick William I demonstratively challenged almost all political, legal, moral, and aesthetic norms of the time: he humiliated the elites, distrusted his officials, avoided the company of women, and traumatized his son. Contemporaries such as Montesquieu regarded him as a ridiculous outsider and a pathological despot. Later historians, however, transformed him into the ‘educator of the German people.’ This bizarre case can serve as an example of the social logic of autocracy and the power of retrospective rationalization.

Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger was, from 1997 to 2021, Professor of Early Modern History at the University of Münster, where she led collaborative research groups on ‘Symbolic Communication and Social Value Systems’ and ‘Religion and Politics.’ Since 2018 she is Rector of the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin/Institute of Advanced Study. She is a member of various academies and a Fellow of the British Academy. Her field of research is the constitutional, political and cultural history of Europe from the 16th century to the 18th, especially the Holy Roman Empire. Her main research focus is on political rituals and procedures, metaphors and symbols.