Friedrich Wilhelm I was born in Berlin on this day in 1688, and raised by a Huguenot governess named Marthe de Roucoulle whom he later employed to raise his boy Frederick The Great.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marthe_de_Roucoulle
Fred pere, known as the Soldier King, more than doubled the size of the Prussian army, and imposed the taxes needed to pay for it. He expanded military obligations for the peasant class while replacing mandatory military service among the middle class with an annual tax.
The wikipedia coverage of him is fawning and complimentary like so much of the German history articles, but even it has to be frank (ha ha) about Fred's personality:
"Frederick William had a perpetually short temper which sometimes drove him to physically attack servants (or even his own children) with a cane at the slightest perceived provocation. His violent, harsh nature was further exacerbated by his inherited porphyritic disease, which gave him gout, obesity and frequent crippling stomach pains. He also had a notable contempt for France, and would sometimes fly into a rage at the mere mention of that country, although this did not stop him from encouraging the immigration of French Huguenot refugees to Prussia."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_William_I_of_Prussia
His wife Sophia Dorothea feared his unpredictable and violent temper and resented him, both for allowing her no influence or independence at court, and for refusing to marry her children to their English cousins. She also abhorred his cruelty towards their son and heir Frederick The Great (with whom she was close). They had fourteen children.
During WWII, Adolf Hitler had both Freds' coffins hidden. After the war, American forces reburied them at the cathedral in Marburg. In 1953 Fred sr.'s coffin was moved to Hohenzollern Castle, where it remained until 1991, when it was moved again to rest on the steps of the altar in the Kaiser Friedrich Mausoleum in the Church of Peace on the palace grounds of Sanssouci. The original black marble sarcophagus collapsed at Burg Hohenzollern—the current one is a copper copy.
The whole notion of naming a Prussian church The Church of Peace is a fine example of German dark humour.