The black tanner

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The story of the black tanner takes place in Switzerland in 1941. It was published in 1947 by the writer Meinrad Inglin .

action

Kaspar Tanner is an innocent farmer up to now . The Second World War is raging across the border , and the Swiss population knows the famine from the time of the First World War . By order of the Federal Council and the agricultural officer Friedrich Traugott Wahlen , as much natural soil as possible must be converted into arable land. In view of the difficult conditions, the mountain farmers are also obliged to obey this instruction. Kaspar Tanner considers his meadow unsuitable for growing barley or potatoes and vehemently opposes the order. Authorities are a red rag for him. Because he began to trade in the black market with products from his farm, he was given the nickname The Black Tanner . He reacts doggedly to every admonition. He refuses any fine. One day the police show up with an arrest warrant and have to arrest the farmer. When a chaplain visits him in prison , he realizes that he has done wrong. After his release from custody, he goes home. In his place of residence he has made himself extremely unpopular through his behavior, so that he decides to wait at the community boundary until night falls. Then he sneaks to his yard.

interpretation

Federal Councilor Hans-Rudolf Merz described Tanner as a “free spirit of the most extreme form” in a speech on January 12, 2004. However, he also highlighted his negative character traits, “namely that Tanner was a fanatic, a dogmatic, selfish and not very solidarity”. In his fight against the authorities he resembles the Brandenburg merchant Michael Kohlhaas .

Text output

  • The avalanche and other stories , Atlantis, Zurich 1947 (first edition)
  • Stories I , Atlantis, Zurich 1968
  • Der Schwarze Tanner , Schweizerisches Jugendschriftenwerk , Zurich 1975 (new edition 2006)
  • Funeral of a screen flicker , with an afterword by Beatrice von Matt , Suhrkamp, ​​Zurich and Frankfurt 1980
  • Die Avalanche, The Black Tanner , Christmas books from the Stäfa printing company, Stäfa 1982
  • The black Tanner and other stories , with an afterword by Thomas Hürlimann , Ammann, Zurich 1985
  • Stories Volume 1 , Collected Works in ten volumes, Ammann, Zurich 1990
  • The most beautiful stories , Ammann, Zurich 1993

Artistic implementation

filming

1985: The Black Tanner - Director: Xavier Koller , with Otto Mächtlinger (leading role) and Dietmar Schönherr , among others .

Radio play and theater

The work was edited by Tino Arnold as an audio novella in Schwyz dialect. A theatrical version by Hansjörg Schneider was performed in 2007 at the landscape theater of the Ballenberg open-air museum .

Web links

  • 'Schwarzer Tanner' speech by Federal Councilor Hans-Rudolf Merz at the delegates' assembly of the FDP Switzerland, January 12, 2004