ABSTRACT
Old interpretations no longer accord with the present, and the demands upon history to legitimate the rights of the Prussian monarchy and the Prusso-German state are irrelevant. No historian would now interpret the past in terms of later events. The fact that Frederick saw Prussia as an incomplete and insecure state can already be gathered from his letter to Karl Dubislaw von Natzmer, although this was never made public. The first evidence of Frederick's political self-confidence could be found in his letter to von Natzmer in February 1732. Composed as a hypothetical examination of Prussia's peculiar historical situation, it claimed that only two options were open in Berlin's future foreign policy. To Frederick, military cooperation with the French was of the utmost importance, as their intended task was to push back the advancing Austrians as far as Alsace or even the outlying areas of Lorraine and to reconquer Bavaria.
