Generations of Germans believe Frederick the Great brought the beloved potato to Germany. But the legend, which includes ...

Generations of Germans believe King Frederick the Great brought the beloved potato to Germany. But the legend, which includes ...

Johann Sebastian Bach’s May 1747 encounter with Prussia’s Frederick the Great was not an accident. Bach’s son, C.P.E. Bach, was a musician employed in Frederick’s Potsdam palace. However ...

A woman takes a photo of herself as she places a potato on the grave stone of King Frederick II of Prussia, in the park of Sanssouci Palace in Potsdam, Germany, June 17, 2025.

But the fable has deep roots, and the myth makes money. To this day, visitors to Frederick’s summer home of Sanssouci Palace in Potsdam, outside Berlin, leave raw potatoes and paper crowns on ...

Frederick's great-grandfather, Elector Frederick William, introduced it to the Brandenburg area of Prussia in the 1650s, but only because he liked the aesthetics of the plant's leafy greens.

A woman takes a photo of herself as she places a potato on the grave stone of King Frederick II of Prussia, in the park of Sanssouci Palace in Potsdam, Germany, June 17, 2025.

Generations of Germans believe Frederick the Great brought the beloved potato to Germany. But the legend, which includes guards surrounding the palace crop and the rebranding of the monarch as Der ...

Generations of Germans believe Frederick the Great brought the beloved potato to Germany. But the legend, which includes guards surrounding the palace crop and the rebranding of the monarch as Der ...