Charlotte Elisabethe Zobel

Charlotte Elisabethe Zobel (born September 29, 1774 in Heilbronn ; † January 15, 1806 there ) was a young woman in Heilbronn who was led by Dr. Eberhard Gmelin was treated. It was speculated whether it could have been the archetype of Kleist's Käthchen von Heilbronn .

Life

Charlotte Elisabethe Zobel was the youngest of eight children who came from the marriage of Heilbronn merchant Heinrich August Zobel (1727–1796) with Augusta Maria, born in 1759. Volz (1735-1805) emerged. It was Zobel's second marriage; his first wife Anna Magdalena, geb. Schniz (z) er, died of puerperal fever in 1757 . The family lived in house no. 352, later Kaiserstraße 30 , in Heilbronn.

Charlotte Elisabethe Zobel, almost the same age as Lisette Kornacher, who was also discussed as a possible Käthchen archetype, was friends with her and even once lived for a remedial sleep treatment by Dr. Gmelin at. This meeting took place on September 21, 1789. Remarkably, members of the Dertinger family, who is related to the prelate and the medical professor Oetinger, stood as witnesses at Lisette Kornacher's bedside: a niece of the Oetinger brothers, Rosina Dorothea Knör, widowed Schmidlin, née. Dertinger (1733-1809), and a great-nephew of the brothers: Christoph Friedrich Dertinger (1756-1799), who is also a consultant of Knight Canton At Odenwald of Franken Knights circle of the imperial knights in the near knightly place Kochendorf symbolizes important for Kleist knight spectacle vitality of chivalry, apparently one of his sisters ("Demoiselle Dertinger").

Dertinger later married the councilor's daughter Friederike Charlotte , born in 1793 . Aff (1774–1850), a cousin and friend of Elisabetha (“Lisette”) Klett, née Friedrich Dürr, who was once regarded by Friedrich Dürr as “Ur-Käthchen”. Kornacher (1773-1858). Friederike Charlotte Dertinger, b. Aff, like Elisabethea Gottliebin Kornacher, was a granddaughter of the rose landlord Johann Georg Uhl (1718–1790) and his wife, Maria Margarete Uhl, widowed Beicher, née. Ostrich.

Charlotte Elisabethe Zobel herself had also been a patient of Gmelin about a year earlier. The treatment was suggested by the Wertheim doctor Johann Adam Friedrich Zobel, a brother of the Heilbronn merchant Zobel. During a visit to Heilbronn, this Wertheim court advisor had talked to his brother about healing magnetism and showed great interest, whereupon he asked Gmelin whether he might not even attend a treatment. It was then agreed that the youngest daughter of the businessman Zobel, who had suffered from sweaty feet for several years , would be used as a demonstration object. Charlotte Elisabethe Zobel was "magnetized" by Gmelin for the first time on July 23, 1788, then on the following three days and again on August 12, 1788. A little later she fell ill with fever with chills and sweats and was treated with salmiac . After her recovery, it was found on October 15 of the same year that the annoying foot sweat no longer occurred.

During the sessions with Gmelin, Charlotte Elisabethe Zobels and one of her older sisters, Maria Christina Benigna Reuss (1760-1801), found a close, sympathetic connection , for example in the session of July 26, 1788: While she was holding their hand in sleep, she felt she had pain in the same place in her abdomen as her sister, who had given birth to a child a few weeks earlier, and when she was breastfeeding the child - it must have been Karl Christoph Reuss, who was born in Heilbronn on June 8, 1788, the magnetized tingling sensation Sensations on her own chest. She also had her sister order her to wake up from her hypnotic sleep at twelve o'clock and also commented on this obedience: Her sister's will could not be harmful to her. Gmelin described the sessions with the "little sable" extensively in the 19th story of his work New Investigations on Animal Magnetism .

Charlotte Elisabethe Zobel remained unmarried. At the age of 31 she fell victim to a typhus epidemic brought in by French soldiers .

The Käthchen theories

"Excellent invention" - the rhetorical term "inventio" as a possible equivalent for Kleist's term "invention"

In the summer of 1811, Kleist wrote in a letter to Marie von Kleist about his Käthchen drama: “It was an excellent invention from the start.” “Invention” is not to be understood as a fiction without an alternative , as the term is primarily used for The Berlin preacher, catechist and Graecist Samuel Heinrich Catel (1758-1838) poet trained in ancient language can also be an equivalent for the term heuresis in the rhetoric of Aristotle or Inventio in Cicero's rhetoric , where it means finding the material and the argumentation. Because of the ambiguity of the term “invention”, there is still scope in research to search for suggestions from historical female figures without a single “Ur-Käthchen” being able to or having to exclude all other suggestions. Even the invention of a literary figure cannot emerge from nowhere, and the question of what stimuli and influences Kleist experienced when he conceived the drama is legitimate.

Leaflet thesis

In 1994 Christhard Schrenk summarized the state of research on the topic in detail in an essay: In addition to the theory that Kleist was inspired by the text of a leaflet about his Käthchen figure, the discovery of references to mesmerism and to Eberhard Gmelin's experiments later emerged .

The so-called leaflet thesis was put forward quite early: Karl August Böttiger claimed in an article in the Dresdner Abendzeitung in 1819 that Kleist had come across Käthchenstoff during “his military forays through Swabia”, namely in the form of a folk tale that he had in print I bought the form as a leaflet at a fair. Kleist, however, never undertook military expeditions through Swabia and no relevant leaflet could be proven. Schrenk thinks it is possible that Böttiger's statement about the leaflet is a mystification of the readers, perhaps triggered by Böttiger's “addiction to praise”, which was criticized by Ludwig Tieck , and the wish to criticize the minds of Kleist's drama as far too unrealistic to oppose something. On the other hand, Böttiger could also have been convinced of the correctness of his statement; then it would have to be investigated whether a corresponding folk myth is to be found somewhere. Günther Emig considers Böttiger's statement to be important.

In the discussion of the leaflet thesis, the Frisch 'little song of the beautiful' little daughter of the blacksmith in Heilbronn comes into play, which Friedrich Baader published in 1843 as an anonymous folk ballad. Helmut Sembdner assumed that Baader had found this little song, which indeed shows clear parallels to Kleist's drama, on the same leaflet that could also have inspired Kleist. However, it has been known since the 19th century that Baader's ballad collection is not trustworthy: In several places he concealed the origin of the published texts, wrote texts himself or added location information that was not available in the original. Investigations of the little song revealed that set pieces from older texts with additions from the 19th century, presumably composed by Baader himself, seem to be mixed up, so that one can assume that the text in the form presented by Baader will not appear until after the Kleistschen piece originated and could not have served as its source. This does not, however, refute the basic assumption that Kleist could have found his material on a leaflet.

Graf Wetter vom Strahl and Käthchen, relief at the Vienna Burgtheater

Eberhard Gmelin's magnetic healing treatment as a possible inspiration for Kleist's knight play

The theory that Kleist's interest in mesmerism may have steered him in the design of Käthchenstoff (and some other elements of the drama) goes in a completely different direction. The elder bush scene in Kleist's piece bears some resemblance to a healing magnetic, hypnosis-like session. Around 1900 the Heilbronn city chronicler Friedrich Dürr put forward the theory that Heinrich von Kleist had been made aware of the topic of healing magnetism and Eberhard Gmelin through a lecture by Gotthilf Heinrich Schubert in Dresden . This would also create a connection to Heilbronn, which is otherwise not evident from Kleist's biography. Later Dürr supplemented his speculations about the connections between Gmelin and Kleist by identifying the Gmelin patient Lisette Kornacher with the dramatic character Käthchen.

Werner von Froreich argued decades later that Schubert's Gmelin lecture had its source more in the medical history of Charlotte Elisabethe Zobel than in Lisette Kornacher, which is why Charlotte Elisabethe Zobel was now also being discussed as the archetype of Kleist's Käthchen. In 2009, Christhard Schrenk expressly distanced himself from participating in the “thoughts and speculations” about the origin of the Käthchen topic, but researched both Lisette Kornacher's biography and the life of Charlotte Elisabethe Zobel.

In research on pietism, Reinhard Breymayer then pointed out the importance of the pietistic prelate and theosophist Friedrich Christoph Oetinger (1702–1782) and his circle for the inclusion of animal magnetism in Heilbronn. The prelate was the brother of Eberhard Gmelins Tübingen professor of medicine Ferdinand Christoph Oetinger (1719–1772) and with Charlotte Elisabethe Zobel's grandfather Johann Adam Zobel (1698–1782) through his fourth wife (wedding in Böckingen on July 22, 1760), Eleonora Catharina Zobel, widowed Holland, b. Oetinger (1708–1795), friends and by marriage. Johann Adam Zobel acted as publisher and patron of the dean and future prelate Friedrich Christoph Oetinger. The Tübingen doctor Christian Friedrich (von) Reuss (1745–1813), since 1773 the son-in-law of the medical professor Oetinger, who died in 1772, published two books in 1778 in which he carefully documented the dissemination of the magnetic cures by Maximilian Hell, SJ., And Franz Anton Mesmer . He was a cousin of Jakob Gottlieb Reuss (1753–1839), who since 1780 archivist at the knightly canton Kraichgau of the knightly circle of Swabia of the imperial knighthood in Heilbronn, since 1795 consultant there, 1807–1822 Royal Württemberg Higher Government Council in Stuttgart. He was married successively to two sisters of Charlotte Elisabethe: first in 1780 with Maria Christina Benigna , b. Zobel (1760–1801), then 1804 with Johanna Elisabetha Christiana, b. Sable (* 1764). It has long been known that Kleist's Dresden friend Gotthilf Heinrich Schubert, like his teacher Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling , was open to Oetinger's ideas.

Recently it has also been pointed out that through Kleist's Dresden painter friend Christian Ferdinand Hartmann, an important local connection to Heilbronn and to the imperial knighthood could have arisen for the playwright. His sister Johanna Henriette Friederike Mayer, b. Hartmann (1762-1820), wife of the Imperial Knighthood lawyer Lic iur. Friedrich Christoph Mayer (1762–1841), lived from spring 1797 to 1803 and again from November 1809 until her death in Heilbronn, in between, 1803–1809 in the nearby village of Kochendorf, which was knightly until 1806.

literature

• Werner von Froreich: Eberhard Gmelin - between Kerner and Kleist. In: Nachrichtenblatt für die Stadt Weinsberg , January 19, 1973, January 26, 1973 and February 9, 1973. [In it the Zobel thesis.]
• Werner von Froreich: Eberhard Gmelin - a great doctor. In: Swabia and Franconia. Local history sheets of the Heilbronn voice . 20 (1974), 5, pp. 1-2.
• Uwe Jacobi: New thesis on the Urkäthchen. Dr. C. Schrenk: If so, then Zobel. In: Swabia and Franconia. Heimatgeschichtliche Blätter der Heilbronner Voice 40 (1994), 5, p. 4. [Concerns Elisabetha (“Lisette”) Gottliebin Klett, b. Kornacher, and Charlotte Elisabethe Zobel.]
• Christhard Schrenk : Old news about the Käthchen. Charlotte Elisabethe Zobel versus Lisette Kornacher. In: Swabia and Franconia. Local history sheets of the Heilbronn voice . Heilbronn, October 1992, pp. I – IV.
• Christhard Schrenk: The little girl from Heilbronn. Some reflections on Kleist's knight play. In: Yearbook of the Historisches Verein Heilbronn , Volume 33 (1994), pp. 5-43.
• - [Reprint in another form] in:
• Christhard Schrenk: The little girl from Heilbronn. Some reflections on Kleist's knight play (1994) . (Heilbronn 2005). ( Käthchen in Heilbronn . Commissioned by the city of Heilbronn. Ed. By Günther Emig ), pp. 22–43.
• Christhard Schrenk: Heilbronn Urkäthchen? Lisette Kornacher (1773–1858) and Charlotte Elisabethe Zobel (1774–1806). In: Christhard Schrenk (Ed.): Heilbronner Köpfe , Volume 5. Pictures of life from five centuries , Heilbronn City Archives 2009 ( small series of the Heilbronn City Archives , 56), ISBN 978-3-940646-05-7 , pp. 89-100.
• Stadtarchiv Heilbronn [Director: Christhard Schrenk] [Corporate author]: Das Käthchen von Heilbronn . [Balanced representation; the possible interpretation of Kleist's term “invention” as a rhetorical term for “inventio” has not yet been considered.]

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Cf. Breymayer: Between Princess Antonia von Württemberg and Kleist's Käthchen von Heilbronn, p. 55 f., Cf. ibid., p. 52 f.
2. ↑ ^{a b c} Christhard Schrenk: Das Käthchen von Heilbronn. Some reflections on Kleist's knight play. In: Yearbook for Swabian-Franconian History 33 (1994), pp. 5-43, online version ( Memento from February 16, 2009 in the Internet Archive ).
3. ↑ Christhard Schrenk: Heilbronner Urkäthchen? Lisette Kornacher (1773–1858) and Charlotte Elisabethe Zobel (1774–1806). In: Christhard Schrenk (Ed.): Heilbronner Köpfe , Volume 5. Pictures of life from five centuries , Heilbronn City Archives 2009 ( small series of the Heilbronn City Archives , 56), ISBN 978-3-940646-05-7 , pp. 89-100.
4. ↑ See discussion: Das Käthchen von Heilbronn , Section 6: “Invention” is not necessarily synonymous with “fiction”. (Entry from August 2, 2013; accessed January 28, 2015).
5. ↑ Gmelin media presentation at www.stadtgeschichte-heilbronn.de.
6. ↑ Uwe Jacobi: Madame Pedrillo was Käthchen number 1 . In: Heilbronner Voice , August 29, 2006.
7. ↑ Christhard Schrenk: Heilbronner Urkäthchen? Lisette Kornacher (1773–1858) and Charlotte Elisabethe Zobel (1774–1806). In: Christhard Schrenk (Ed.): Heilbronner Köpfe , Volume 5. Pictures of life from five centuries , Heilbronn City Archives 2009 ( small series of the Heilbronn City Archives , 56), ISBN 978-3-940646-05-7 , pp. 89-100, here p. 89.
8. ↑ She was a second cousin of the mentioned Oetinger brothers and the third step-grandmother Charlotte Elisabethe Zobels.
9. ↑ On the importance of Friedrich Christoph Oetinger as someone interested in animal magnetism and on the impact of his theosophy on the Heilbronn / Weinsberg region, also through the Zobel, Dertinger and Hartmann families, cf.
   • Reinhard Breymayer: Between Princess Antonia von Württemberg and Kleist's Käthchen von Heilbronn. News on the magnetic and tension fields of Prelate Friedrich Christoph Oetinger . Noûs-Verlag Thomas Leon Heck, Dußlingen (2010), pp. 8, 10, 14-17, 34, 47 f. 55, 59 f. 62, 67, 69-71, 76, 81, 84 f. 226 f.
   The pioneering reference to the importance of Prelate Oetinger for Kleist's environment, without reference to the Zobel and Dertinger families and without any particular reference to the Heilbronn / Weinsberg region, can be found at
   • Hans-Jürgen Schrader: Kleist's saints or the violence of sympathy. Broken traditions of magnetic correspondence . In: Traces du mesmérisme dans les littératures européennes du XIX siècle / Influences of Mesmerism on 19th Century European Literature . […] Sous la direction de Ernst Leonardy [u. a.]. Bruxelles 2001, pp. 93-117, here pp. 111-113; and in his student's dissertation in Geneva
   • Katharine Weder Kleist's magnetic poetry. Experiments of Mesmerism . (Göttingen 2008), pp. 39-44. 46, 63, 145, 238, 284, 388, 395, 402, 404, 411.
10. ↑ Cf. [Christian Friedrich Reuß:] Collection of the latest printed and written messages from Magnet-Curen, especially the Mesmeric ones. Leipzig, from Christian Gottlob Hilschern [Hilscher] , 1778 . - [Edition A:] [3] Bl, 194 p .; [Edition B:] [2] p., 309 p., [2] folded sheets. See the reference to it by Reinhard Breymayer: Advertisement section […]. In: Johann Friedrich Jüdler, Friedrich Christoph Oetinger, Erhard Weigel: Real advantages for information . [...] Rediscovered and ed. by Reinhard Breymayer. Heck, Dußlingen 2014, pp. 163–172, here p. 167.
11. ↑ Cf. Reinhard Breymayer: Between Princess Antonia von Württemberg […], p. 18. 75. 227 on Henriette Mayer; P. 17 f. 27 f. 35. 37 f. 61. 67. 69. 74. 77. 227 to Kleist's painter friend Christian Ferdinand Hartmann and his family.