The King Of Prussia Hired, Kidnapped And Bred Giant Soldiers

The Potsdam Giants were a regiment of extremely tall men

King Frederick William I of the German kingdom of Prussia had big military plans. He became king in 1713 and for the next twenty-seven years, he set about massively expanding his army, from 38,000 soldiers to 83,000. The king paved the way for his son, Frederick the Great, to turn Prussia into a major military force.

However, Frederick William also had a strange obsession with tall men, going so far as to create a personal regiment of them, known as the ‘Potsdam Giants’. Some of these giants joined voluntarily but others were kidnapped or given as gifts. More disturbingly, the king even tried to ‘breed’ tall people in an early attempt at eugenics.

Who were the Potsdam Giants?

They were officially known as ‘The Grand Grenadiers’, but nearly everyone referred to them as the ‘Potsdam Giants’ or ‘Lange Kerle’ (The Long Guys). To join the regiment you simply had to be six Prussian feet tall (about six foot two or 1.88 meters) or above. The taller the better, as the soldiers were paid based on their height.

The ‘Giants’ came from all over the world and Frederick William obsessively obtained them by any means. Some volunteered and others were recruited from other armies. As his regiment and passion for tall soldiers grew, foreign leaders, such as Tsar Peter the Great and the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, sent several tall soldiers to improve relations.

However, others were sold, kidnapped or even more disturbingly, bred for the role.

Frederick William was always on the lookout for new recruits and he would pay fathers for any particularly lofty sons and buy tall farmhands from landowners. Even especially large newborn babies were tagged with red scarves in case they grew tall. People were keen to help as the king was rich and happy to pay.

Eugenics and kidnapping

The above options worked but didn’t satiate the king and his need for more and more tall men.

Frederick William consequently turned to eugenics, pairing his giants with particularly tall women in the hope of colossal offspring. By the end of the 18th century, Potsdam was full of unusually tall people. Even Charles Darwin commented on this in The Descent of Man stating that it was the only case where “certain male and female have intentionally picked out and matched”.

This experiment in forcing humans to breed for certain traits sadly did not end then. It has been argued that the Nazi ideal of creating a master Aryan race of tall, blond, blue-eyed Germans can be traced back to warped versions of Darwinism and the eugenics of the Potsdam giants.

The king, seemingly not troubled by morals when it came to his beloved regiment, had no qualms when it came to kidnapping either. On one occasion, he even tried to abduct a particularly tall Austrian diplomat. One of the tallest members of the regiment was an Irishman called James Kirkland who was reputedly over seven-foot tall. Kirkland had been hired as a footman for the Prussian ambassador to London — the superbly named Baron Borck. It had been a trap and the moment Kirkland set foot on a Prussian ship in Portsmouth, he was bound, gagged and conscripted to the Potsdam Giants.

Cases of tall men being abducted and sent to Prussia were common and such men formed a sizeable chunk of the king’s prized regiment.

What was the point of the regiment?

There were some attempts at justification for the regiment such as: loading a rifle was easier for a taller man. But the arguments were pretty flimsy with many saying that sheer size was actually an impediment.

It seems that the king, who was around five feet five inches (some sources say five foot three), was simply obsessed with them. He once admitted: “The most beautiful girl or woman in the world would be a matter of indifference to me, but tall soldiers-they are my weakness.”

The regiment had the best food and accommodation available. They were also ‘blessed’ with magnificent blue uniforms and a 45cm hat to make them appear even taller. The main bonus was that the regiment never actually had to do any fighting. At least not during Frederick William’s twenty-seven-year reign.

Their job was purely ceremonial, but in reality they were a weird obsession and not to be envied. The penalty for desertion was death and there was a reason for the severity of the punishment — lots of them wanted to leave. Life as a Potsdam giant wasn’t all that great.

Torture and degradation

One of the more notorious practices inflicted on the members of the regiment was an attempt to make the soldiers even taller. Frederick William had a special rack constructed in an attempt to stretch the men to yet higher heights. While the torture was underway, the king would watch while, apparently, eating lunch. Eventually, these procedures were stopped when too many of his beloved soldiers died.

The obsession, and treating the soldiers as freaks for entertainment, became more evident when the king was sad or sick. He would have a parade of several hundred of them march past, headed by turbaned Moors with musical instruments and the regimental mascot of a live giant bear.

Apparently, this cheered him up. Another of the king’s hobbies was to paint his soldiers’ portraits from memory. They were clearly not there for warfare purposes and no one was allowed to leave. Given that many were kidnapped or sold into the regiment, it was not a posting to be envied.

Eventual fate and dissolving of the regiment

Frederick William died in 1740 and by this point, the Potsdam Giants regiment numbered in the thousands — sources range from 2,500 to 3,200. It was clearly thousands too many for his son, Frederick the Great, who deemed them as window dressing and sent them to fight in normal combat units.

The regiment itself was eventually dissolved in 1806, much to the relief of tall men and women everywhere.