Anton Webercus

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Anton Webercus is a fictional person who made it into the Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie as a fake .

The short article written by Hermann Arthur Lier in 1896 has the following wording:

Webercus: Anton W., actually Weber, born in Stuttgart on January 1st, 1701, † the very same on April 1st, 1803, an adventurer who was distinguished by his size and strength and is not without interest due to his peculiar life stories. He lived in subordinate positions at the courts of Stuttgart, Berlin, Petersburg, Vienna and Paris, where he caused a sensation because of his length and finally died at the rare age of 103 years in poor circumstances.

Lier cited the detailed description in Constantin von Wurzbach's Biographical Lexicon of the Austrian Empire as the source , which in turn was based on Jakob Otzen Hansen's Der Riese von Stuttgart (in: Das Buch für Alle, Stuttgart 1880/81, Issue 9, pp. 210 ff. ) related. The long-forgotten bookseller and librarian Hansen was known for his innumerable short stories and stories, which he published in many entertainment magazines.

The text ultimately comes from the Stuttgart city bell , which appeared from 1844 to 1848 and is notorious for its invented legends. The printer Johann Gottlieb Munder, editor of the magazine, or his brother, the pastor Wilhelm Friedrich Munder, are considered to be the authors of the stories that appear in sequels.

Klaus Graf comments in his book Sages around Stuttgart (1995):

“Indeed, Munder's paper offered exciting entertainment and historical instruction in that it presented long, sequential narratives with 'mostly local and patriotic-historical content'. It started with the diary of a centenarian, which presented itself as a contribution to the moral history of the 18th century, especially in Württemberg, and reviewed the most important events of the century in the form of an experience report. Its alleged author, Anton Weberous, has even found its way into an otherwise rock-solid collective work, the 'Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie'. In reality it is not a historical source, but a made-up text. At that time, such historical-patriotic stories from 'prehistoric times' were an extremely popular and well-read genre. More lively than dry history books, they took them back to ancient times and satisfied the public's need to portray touching human fates. At the end of the 'Diary', with a twinkle in the eye, the 'diary' itself reveals that it sent its readers to April. The protagonist Weberous dies on April 1st while counting an order for 500 washing pegs. "

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ In a correction note, the local researcher and literary historian Julius Hartmann stated in 1910 that the name Webercus was correctly "Weberous" and that the name should be deleted from the ADB because it was invented.
  2. ↑ See Franz Brümmer, Deutsches Dichterlexikon 1877

Web links

  • Article by Klaus Graf about the town bell legends