Frederick II and the crisis of legitimacy of the traditional monarchy

During 46 years of his reign in Prussia (1730-1786), Frederick II Hohenzollern was very successful in destroying the divine foundations of legitimacy of traditional monarchy. Treating his state as pure 'machine' and describing the unity of himself with his subjects as organism or family Frederick set the pace for the search for the new explanation of the political community and the new legitimation pattern. Although his solution proved to be unsatisfactory, it indicated the shaping of the two most important topics û Machtpolitik and ethnical organicsm û within the modern nationalist justification of the absolute power