- History of Frederick II of Russia Called Frederick Great (archive.org)
IN April 1945, in the fastness of the Führerbunker in the Reich chancellery in Berlin, Goebbels read aloud to Hitler from the latter’s favorite book, Carlyle’s Frederick the Great. What he read were those pages dealing with the desperate and, apparently, hopeless posture of the Prussian king toward the end of the even Years’ War, just before the sudden and unexpected death of the Czarina Elizabeth which resulted in the elimination of Russia from the alliance against Frederick, and thus his seemingly miraculous salvation. Goebbels reported that “tears stood in the Führer’s eyes” during this reading. When Franklin D. Roosevelt died, a few days later, Hitler thought that another, similar miracle was about to occur. But the analogy proved to be inexact. By the end of April both Hitler and Goebbels were dead, and the thousand-year Reich had collapsed.