Peter Karl Christoph from Keith

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Peter Karl Christoph von Keith (engraving: Meno Haas )

Peter Karl Christoph von Keith (born May 24, 1711 on his father's estate Poberow in Western Pomerania ; † December 27, 1756 ) was a close confidante of the Prussian Crown Prince Friedrich (later King Frederick the Great ). He came from a branch of the Scottish clan Keith who had come to Pomerania via Sweden.

Keith had become friends with the Crown Prince as the page of King Friedrich Wilhelm I. The king thought Keith's influence on Friedrich was fatal and therefore transferred him as a lieutenant to the infantry regiment (No. 31) of Colonel Friedrich Wilhelm von Dossow in Wesel . A younger brother of Keith moved up to the page. Despite the transfer, Keith maintained contact from Wesel to Friedrich, who in 1730 intended him to be a helper in the planned escape to England. After their failure, Friedrich warned him with a note that read : " Sauvez Vous - Tout est decouvert " ( Get yourself to safety - everything is revealed). Keith then fled to The Hague . He saved himself from his pursuers who were forwarded to him with the help of the English ambassador Chesterfield . During a storm he was able to cross over from Scheveningen to England in a fishing boat on August 18, 1730 . From there he went with Admiral Norris at the suggestion of King George II , who wanted to take the lead from an expected extradition request from his intimate enemy Friedrich Wilhelm, to Portugal , where he became major of the cavalry . He later lived in London . In Wesel he had meanwhile been hanged in effigy because of his involvement in Friedrich's escape plans and as a deserter .

After Frederick's accession to the throne, Keith returned to Prussia in 1740 and married Adriane von Knyphausen , the daughter of the former Minister Friedrich Ernst zu Innhausen and Knyphausen . Friedrich appointed him stable master and lieutenant colonel and in 1744 an honorary member and 1747 curator of the Academy of Sciences , but kept him away from himself. Keith found himself insufficiently rewarded by this and by an annual salary of 1200 thalers. A later suggestion from the English side to send Keith as ambassador to London, Friedrich rejected because of his diplomatic inexperience.

Keith's younger brother was involved in the escape project in Steinsfurt in 1730. In Mannheim he was supposed to secretly order post horses. However, out of a conscience he threw himself at the king's feet after the common Sunday service on August 6, 1730 in Mannheim and revealed to him what had really happened in Steinsfurt and what Friedrich had instructed him to do. Friedrich Wilhelm I waived punishment and transferred him as a fusilier to the body company of the infantry regiment of the Moselle , for which Keith thanked the king in a letter dated November 1, 1730. Neither the full name nor his further fate of this brother Keith have been handed down.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. Reinhold Koser : History of Frederick the Great . Cotta, Stuttgart, Berlin 1912, vol. 1, p. 32 (transfer to Wesel), 42–44 (the Crown Prince's attempt to escape and desertion to England).
  2. Reinhold Koser: History of Frederick the Great . Cotta, Stuttgart, Berlin 1912, vol. 1, p. 217.
  3. Reinhold Koser: History of Frederick the Great . Cotta, Stuttgart, Berlin 1912, vol. 1, p. 41.