Frederick the Great place of death Potsdam
Later years and death
Near the end of his life, Frederick grew increasingly solitary. His circle of close friends at Sanssouci gradually died off with few replacements, and Frederick became increasingly critical and arbitrary, to the frustration of the civil service and officer corps. Frederick was immensely popular among the Prussian people because of his enlightened reforms and military glory; the citizens of Berlin always cheered him when he returned from administrative or military reviews. Over time, he was nicknamed Der Alte Fritz (The Old Fritz) by the Prussian people, and this name became part of his legacy. Frederick derived little pleasure from his popularity with the common people, preferring instead the company of his pet Italian greyhounds, whom he referred to as his "marquises de Pompadour" as a jibe at the French royal mistress. Even in his late 60s and early 70s when he was increasingly crippled by asthma, gout and other ailments, he rose before dawn, drank six to eight cups of coffee a day, "laced with mustard and peppercorns", and attended to state business with characteristic tenacity.On the morning of 17 August 1786, Frederick died in an armchair in his study at Sanssouci, aged 74. He left instructions that he should be buried next to his greyhounds on the vineyard terrace, on the side of the corps de logis of Sanssouci. His nephew and successor Frederick William II instead ordered Frederick's body to be entombed next to his father, Frederick William I, in the Potsdam Garrison Church. Near the end of World War II, German dictator Adolf Hitler ordered Frederick's coffin to be hidden in a salt mine as protection from destruction. The United States Army relocated the remains to Marburg in 1946; in 1953, the coffins of Frederick and his father were moved to Burg Hohenzollern.On the 205th anniversary of his death, on 17 August 1991, Frederick's coffin lay in state in the court of honour at Sanssouci, covered by a Prussian flag and escorted by a Bundeswehr guard of honour. After nightfall, Frederick's body was finally laid to rest in the terrace of the vineyard of Sanssouci—in the still existing crypt he had built there—without pomp, in accordance with his will.
Visitors to his grave often place potatoes on his gravestone in honour of his role in promoting the use of the potato in Prussia.
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