WORLD IN BRIEF : GERMANY : King Frederick Rites Go Forward

The remains of King Frederick the Great of Prussia set out for a gala reburial ceremony near Berlin that has sparked fears of a militarist revival in united Germany. A military honor guard escorted the coffins of Frederick II, one of history’s great battle strategists, and his father from a family castle at Hechingen, in southwest Germany, to a railway station for the 500-mile train trip to Sans Souci Palace in Potsdam. During his reign, which lasted from 1740 to 1786, Frederick II turned Prussia into a major European power. The coffins were removed from Sans Souci at the end of World War II to escape the Communist takeover in East Germany.