288 FINAL YEARS AND IMMORTALITY
track it down used to find Old Fritz lying on his side behind a wooden
fence, and the sight of those brazen eyes, staring so fiercely at such a
short distance, produced an effect directly comparable with that of
the human original.
In 1963 Frederick took the short journey to the Sans Souci
Hippodrome, where he was put on open display. Finally in 1980 he
was declared by the Politburo Secretaiy-General Erich Honecker to
be 'one of those works to whom the people have a right', and he was
restored to his place in the Unter den Linden. Ingrid Mittenzwei's
biography of Frederick had just been published, the first of its kind in
the GDR, and the public was told that there had been elements of
compromise and flexibility, even in the way that Frederick had set
out to preserve the old order. In the eastern provinces of Germany
today the dialectics of the thing are of little interest to those quiet,
decent and friendly folk who were the root stock of Frederick's
musketeers and grenadiers. However, the fire and the enthusiasm
enkindled by the very mention of Old Fritz, who has been dead these
two hundred years, will give the traveller some inkling of what it was
that made these people the terror of Catholic Europe.