The punishment of Dorothea Ritter
This is a real historical fact that took place in the Prussian kingdom in 1730.
At the court of King Frederick William I between him and his son, Crown Prince Frederick (future King Frederick II the Great), estrangement and conflict grew. Prince Frederick found solace only in communication with friends, among whom was Dorothea Ritter, the 16-year-old daughter of the theologian Matthias Ritter, the rector of the gymnasium in Potsdam. The relationship between Frederick and Dorothea was apparently purely friendly and limited to music, as Dorothea played the piano beautifully and sang. However, the king suspected that the girl had a bad influence on his son.
The catastrophe unfolded in the summer of 1730, when Prince Frederick firmly decided to flee to England, where the dynasty of his mother’s relatives from the Hanover House ruled. As a result, the escape failed. The prince was detained and sent to prison. His closest friend and assistant lieutenant Hans Hermann von Katte was sentenced to death. As for Dorothea Ritter, by the order of King Friedrich William, she received the following sentence:
"... morning, the cantor’s daughter, who is under arrest, shoud be flogged, and then she shoud be brought for ever to Spandau, in the workhouse; first she shoud be whipped in front of the town hall, afterwards in front of her father’s house, and then in every corner of the city.
– Potsdam, September 6, 1730. Fr. Wilhelm"
de.wikipedia.org
Thus, Doris was whipped publicly
six times (!), and after that, while in the workhouse, she was repeatedly subjected to corporal punishment, as might be supposed. [
Žena a výprask v průběhu věků (Woman and spanking through the ages), a Czech historical account]
In 1733 she was released from Spandau on a pardon request from her father. Finally she married the spice dealer Franz Heinrich Schommer and became the mother of three sons and three daughters. She last lived in Berlin and died in 1762. There seemed to be no further contact between Frederick and Dorothea Ritter.
A. de Granamour (Paul Little), a famous BDSM writer, in the book "Torture Of The Tawse" described this events in his own interpretation. So, the time of the events moved in 1739, in the last years of the reign of Friedrich William, and the girl's name is Gerda Hortkopf.
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