Talk:Johann Friedrich Struensee

NPOV?
This article is quite biased - extremely negative and with a quite exaggerated language, especially from chapter "Rise to power" onwards. For example the following quote:

"The dictator's manners were even worse than his morals, He habitually adopted a tone of insulting superiority, all the more irritating as coming from an ill-informed foreigner; and sometimes he seemed deliberately to go out of his way to shock the most sacred feelings of the respectable people. Nor was this all. His system of retrenchment, on which he particularly prided himself, was in the last degree immoral and hypocritical, for while reducing the number of the public officials, or clipping down their salaries to starvation points, he squandered thousands upon balls, masquerades, and other amusements of the court, and induced the imbecile king to present him and his friend Brandt with 60,000 rix-dollars apiece."'

I hope someone with more historical knowledge can turn this into neutral point of view. esmi 13:09, 22 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I tend to agree. It's an interesting article and a good start, but it could use some editing and citations.  --Glitterspray 16:31, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

- I inserted a NPOV/disputed box - this section needs a rewrite by someone who knows the period and is willing write about it in a more unbiased way. --Agger 08:23, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
 * This article has been tagged as disputed for over a year now. Are there still concerns?  If so, let's work it out at talk.  If not, let's just delete any sections that are questionable, and then we can remove the tags. --Elonka 04:37, 3 August 2008 (UTC)


 * The section has remained unchanged since the NPOV tag, and it is still POV. The I view it the most problematical text is the 2 paragraphs:"Other criticisms of Struensee are that he did not respect native Danish and Norwegian customs...etc" and "The dictator's manners were even worse than his morals...etc", but various sentences from other paragraphs, like "But such was his contempt for the Danish people that he cared not a jot whether they approved or disapproved of his reforms" and "nobody seems to have believed that Christian VII was really mad", is also very disputable. Except for the clearly 19th century Victorian POV "manners worse than his morals", most of this is however a good example of how one of the views of Struensee was. There are others, and especially as there has been done some new scholarship (at least in Danish) that has reevaluated the views on him. So some of these sentences may be kept, if it is stated that this is the view popularly held by one school of thought, and then state the others. I can give some input on this.--Saddhiyama (talk) 11:17, 3 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I recommend just changing the article to what you think it should be. --Elonka 16:43, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

I've just now cleaned the article by deleting and limited rewriting. Many of the NPOV paragraphs were completely unencyclopedic, and were just trying to explain Struensees thoughts and motivation in a story-telling style. I don't think any facts have been lost in the deletions. How he was perceived by the public is still covered elsewhere. Carewolf (talk) 13:19, 4 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks! That was long overdue. ·:· Will Beback  ·:· 19:11, 4 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Given the major improvements made by Carewolf, I'm going to remove the POV tags. If there are still any problems we can apply fresh tags. ·:· Will Beback  ·:· 19:12, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Although this article has been much improved, there are still issues. Statements such as "Struensee, who had, in the meantime, created himself a count, now gave full rein to his licentiousness and brutality" and "...he was base enough to betray her, though she did all in her power to shield him" are anything but neutral (and the latter i also not a precise historical account by any means). -October 27th, 2009 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.6.80.161 (talk) 22:28, 27 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I have fixed the problematic sentences and added some further information. Curiously the statement about him betraying the Queen and her doing everything in her power to shield him is in fact quite the opposite. She at first denied any relationship with Struensee, but she lost all hope when she heard that he had also been arrested and "confessed" (though she later retracted her confession). There were also some other gross errors which I corrected. --Saddhiyama (talk) 11:20, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Neutrality is disputable
This article reflects a totally different view from Enquist in his book "Livlakarens Besok". I suggest the editor put out a "Neutrality Disputed" warning. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 84.229.40.121 (talk) 18:13, 6 January 2007 (UTC).

Language propaganda
"He was hampered, moreover, by not knowing a word of Danish." In that time it was very common that French was spoken at the Monarchs Court. That language assert is nothing but Danish nationalist propaganda against a great liberal reformer. -- grune45

Slander
"If, as we are assured, he publicly snubbed the queen, we may readily imagine how he treated common folk." -- grune45

The "Morality" issue
"The dictator's manners were worse than his morals" is not good form if you're aiming for neutrality. Also ridiculous, since Struensee was acting on behalf of a mentally unbalanced monarch "ordained by God", supposedly - benevolent or not, you can't get more dictatorial than an absolute monarch. This sounds like either Danish nationalist propaganda or (more likely) fanatical American religious conservative revisionist history with a Danish twist. This entire article needs to be rewritten. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.233.131.253 (talk) 18:07, 20 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Danish nationalist propaganda shouldn't be blamed for this one. All that crap was copied straight from the 1911 version of the Encyclopedia Britannica. Hemmingsen 16:28, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Ove Høegh-Guldberg Biography Also Biased
I believe the same author wrote the biography on Ove Høegh-Guldberg, so the same neutrality red flag needs to be added to that biography as well. Could somebody check that one out as well, as I'm not sure how to do that?

Rewriting Urgently Needed
I agree with the previous comments on the obvious lack of neutrality here. This page is atrociously biased, and has a tone no historian would use. "The dictator's manner were worse than his morals" alone should make the whole page questionable but it is just one of many great flaws. WendyB12 20:33, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Category:German of Danish descent is wrong
Struensee was not of Danish descent. He was born in Halle in Germany by German parents. --Saddhiyama (talk) 12:46, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Conflicts on Dates Need to be Straightened Out
The article as it exists today provides conflicting dates for Struensee's appointment as "Maître des requêtes": (a) 18 December; (b) 17 September; (c) 8 December (or possibly thereafter, as the language is arguably ambiguous).

Perhaps someone with access to reliable sources could resolve the conflict? Nandt1 (talk) 03:00, 29 October 2012 (UTC)


 * I have looked through the sources in Danish and it is no wonder there is a bit of a confusion of the dates in the article, since it seems the historians of the standard works on the subject are conflicting. Bech Struensee og hans tid (1. ed., 1972), p. 230 says that Struensee abolished the council of state on the 8th of December and became maître des requêtes "a few days later", however Edvard Holm, both in Dansk Biografisk Lexikon, 1. ed., vol. XVI, p. 496 and his major opus Danmarks-Norges Historie, vol. 4 part 2, p. 27 says that he dismissed all member of the council of state on the 10th appointed himself maître de requêtes 18th of December. I would consider Holm the more reliable of the two historians and accept the 18th as the real date. And after all, Bechs statement could be taken to mean the 18th as well with a bit of stretching ("a few days" meaning 10 days). --Saddhiyama (talk) 09:44, 29 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks for taking care of this in such a prompt and diligent manner! Nandt1 (talk) 15:48, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

Age of Enlightenment, French Revolution, American Indendence
Today user Maunus has deleted the following passage


 * Struensee was influenced by the Age of Enlightenment. These same ideals would establish the United States of America and provoke the French Revolution in 1789, a few years after his death. As a representative of the ideals, it seems quite likely, that the leading revolutionaries were aware of his ultimate fate, potentially influencing and altering some of their decisions.

as unsourced speculation. I'd say, it rather shows the influence of the same ideas in a close timely proximity and this should be mentioned in any way! The passage doesn't speculate about certain deeds of the French revolutionaries but mentions the likelihood, that the leading people were aware of his fate. It seems, that only the last words may be an issue. But are words like "potentially influencing ..." really a speculation? If yes, perhaps somebody can rewrite this sentence. 149.172.67.253 (talk) 20:05, 25 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes, if you can find a source that links Struensee and the American revolutionaries then be my guest. But without a source it is pure Original Research. The fact that both Struensee and teh revolutionaries were influenced by enlightenment thinking is not isçtself enough to merit a section.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 16:46, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

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Confessions?
Why does the article not mention the confessions of Struensee and the queen? It's almost implied by this: "...at first...he denied that their liaison had ever been criminal." This is followed by him being condemned and beheaded. There's no mention of the fact that he did eventually confess, a confession that apparently was secured via torture, and that faced with his signed confession the queen also confessed and tried to take responsibility, likely in the hope of saving his life.

I don't know the history well enough, or have the resources needed, to correct this section appropriately, but would think these details are important. The confessions certainly clinched Struensee's execution and likely kept Caroline Matilda from being accepted back on British soil, a move that might have saved her from an early death. Can someone give it a whirl? History Lunatic (talk) 08:26, 24 June 2020 (UTC)History Lunatic

Role of Enevold Brandt
Brandt is introduced with an offhand reference and no explanation of his background, so it comes as a surprise many paragraphs later when it seems that he has become the keeper of the king on a par with Struensee. Or explanation is needed.

“The unhappy king was little more than the butt of his environment, but occasionally the king would put up a show of obstinacy and refuse to carry out Brandt's or Struensee's orders. And once, when he threatened his keeper, Brandt, with a flogging for some impertinence, Brandt ended up in a struggle with the king, and in the course of this he struck the king in the face.” Tjobrien.seoul (talk) 21:54, 5 July 2022 (UTC)