German nobility (Wilhelm Raabe)

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German nobility is a short story by Wilhelm Raabe that was published by George Westermann in Braunschweig in 1880. In the winter of 1879, the novel was preprinted by the same publisher in “ Westermanns Monatshefte ”. Raabe experienced reprints in 1900 and 1903.

From German nobility in the years 1870-71 not the noble but simple Berliner commoners .

content

Karl Achtermann, born in 1810, runs a lending library in a narrow side street somewhere between Friedrichstrasse and Halleschem Tor towards the end of 1870 . His 28-year-old, still single daughter Meta and his wife, “a matron of fifty”, bring him lunch after a long bus ride to downtown Berlin every working day. Achtermann's circle of friends includes a second Ulrich Schenk and his mother, Professor Marie Schenk. The young Schenk and Achtermann had saved the dog Aquarius from the certain death of drowning around 1862. A visitor to the library is Achtermann's friend, the translator Dr. Wedehop from New West Pomerania . The librarian still has two old "classmates". They are the absent Paul Ferrari and Butzemann senior, the owner of Butzemann's cellar. Ms. Achtermann holds the lending librarian tightly by the lead strap. He has to stay at home in the evening. Bachelor Wedehop has the idea. He simply picks up the friend from home that evening and tells Frau Achtermann succinctly that the two friends have something important to do in Butzemann's cellar. Miss Meta must be brought under the hood. Louis Butzemann, that's Butzemann junior, should be the lucky one. Frau Achtermann is delighted. From that evening the lending librarian may go out. Meta and Louis do become a couple.

One of Achtermann's readers is Ferrari's daughter Natalie. The beautiful piano teacher and the young aesthetician Ulrich Schenk are in love with each other. During the war in France, Sergeant Ulrich Schenk was given a leaden "Paris Epicier bullet" in his right shoulder. The wounded man has a fever and is transferred to the hospital in the Rauhen Alb . Mrs. Mama and Dr. Wedehop visit the sick person. Both finally bring the convalescent, whose wound fever subsides, home to Berlin.

Mr. Paul Ferrari is back in Berlin. Natalie's father came back from America; more precisely, from Verakruz . Commissioner Don Pablo reinvented powder in Mexico. Mrs. Achtermann calls the returnees who frequent Butzemann's cellar "a day thief, tramp and scoundrel". Her husband, on the other hand, wakes up at night with Wassermann at the bedside of her school friend. When the librarian nodded off, Señor Pablo flees with the dog. The district police office lets search without result. Finally, Paul Ferrari suddenly finds himself in Butzemann's cellar and dies.

Not only Meta and Louis, but also Natalie and Ulrich become a couple. The “Real Secret Councilor, Mr. Ulrich Schenk”, the man with the “shot shoulder”, becomes a father. Meta Butzemann becomes a mom. Mama Natalie is doing her doctorate on "Lübeck brick buildings". phil.

shape

Raabe practices "in this book of the German nobility" a storytelling technique. For example, in the first chapter he writes “ Alexander Dumas dead!” Instead of referring more directly to December 1870 as the beginning of the action. A page later everything becomes clear; Achtermann exclaims: "My God, we are before Paris !" At the beginning of the second chapter, the narrator wants the reader to believe that Achtermann is "actually not the main character" in the "Reports". At the end of the second chapter, December 1870 is given as the starting point. In the epilogue the chronological end of the narrative is communicated in plain text: Spring 1873. The text is full of allusions. The name Wörth is mentioned; Virchow and Lasker get into “parliamentary conflict” in Butzemann's cellar. There is talk of Fritzen and Moltken .

The narrator observes himself jokingly: “That was a long sentence that we couldn't make any shorter with the best of will.” He also mocks colleagues: “At this moment, different authors would let the sun emerge from the clouds; we however ... "The time-consuming development of the characters is sometimes drastically shortened:" Mama Schenk the old sunshine in this story ... "The narrator announces when things get serious - for example, the 11th chapter is" an elegant main piece ". Sometimes he loses interest - for example, when he does not want to repeat a letter to the wounded Ulrich: "Schenk put down ... the sheet, and we do the same ... we no longer copy his letter." The experienced one Narrator knows a lot. For example, he knows that towards the end of the story the minority of readers no longer wants to hear from the Achtermann family. He looks ahead - calls Ulrich the “future secret art council”. Aiming at the title of his story, he says: "This time we are talking about aristocratic families" and in the same breath names the bourgeois Schenk and Ferrari families.

The Berliners of some figures - in contrast to “ Villa Schönow ” - do not inhibit the flow of reading.

interpretation

As is well known, Raabe's texts are anything but simple. The author shows at least two faces in the “German nobility”. Some characters and also the narrator shine in victory pose . Nevertheless, the text can be read as an anti-war piece: “We, the war-used, iron sex of the second half of the nineteenth century, we, to whom world history thundered a very pretty sample map of their battles, we also know enough our halls full of iron Bedsteads, nurses, merciful nurses, pale faces and bloody rags. ”Or:“ The last word was addressed to a young man who had hobbled down the stairs with a cane, accompanied by some other younger and older people who either Wore a bandage around the head or the arm in the bandage. ”The happy lover - this is the homecoming sergeant Ulrich Schenk - has“ a wounded, bandaged, paralyzed arm ”. But in the epilogue the narrator can breathe a sigh of relief: “Thank God, the trains of war, sick people and prisoners trains in seventy and seventy-one are historical memories; it is again the very ordinary and accustomed daily noise that we have in mind and are allowed to use as a sedative. "

Self-testimony

  • It seems as if Raabe knew Honegger's criticism (see under “Reception”) when he wrote to Sigmund Schott on April 23, 1891 that his work “Deutscher Adel” “puts some readers in the way of difficulties” .

reception

Contemporaries

  • In the Braunschweig edition, Vol. 13, Hoppe quotes a criticism by the Zurich historian Johann Jacob Honegger; published in 1880 in the Leipziger " Blätter für literary entertainment ". The characters and situations are all too weak. Honegger cannot find the common thread. "Everything is crumbling apart under the hand." And the "person pictures" would be "thrown in bizarre, incoherent, moody sentences".

Recent comments

  • Raabe, in his ironic manner, also uses the example of the unfinished Ulrich Schenk to present war as a school for life. On the title: Raabe present the inner nobility of the bourgeoisie.
  • The presentation by the lending librarian Achtermann is tantamount to expressing Raabe's displeasure: In Germany, the writing guild is disregarded.
  • Meyen names six further works (Heinrich Keck (Hallo 1880), Franz Hahne (Wolfenbüttel 1914 and 1925), Franz Heyden (Hamburg 1931), Wilhelm Fehse (Braunschweig 1937) and Erich B. Zornemann (Berlin 1951)).

expenditure

First edition

  • German nobility. A story by Wilhelm Raabe. 235 pages. Westermann, Braunschweig 1880

Used edition

  • German nobility. A story . Pp. 171–327, with an appendix, written by Karl Hoppe , pp. 415–462 in: Hans Finck (arrangement), Karl Hoppe (arrangement): Wilhelm Raabe: Wunnigel . German nobility. The good day . On the old part . A visit . (2nd edition provided by Jörn Dräger) Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1977. Vol. 13, ISBN 3-525-20126-5 in Karl Hoppe (Ed.), Jost Schillemeit (Ed.), Hans Oppermann (Ed.) , Kurt Schreinert (Ed.): Wilhelm Raabe. Complete Works. Braunschweig edition . 24 vols.

Further editions

  • German nobility. Narration . 283 pages. Hermann Klemm, Berlin-Grunewald 1918

literature

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Chapter 12: "We follow that unfortunately much smaller number of readers who ...".
  2. ↑ For example: "Now think of everything I have said to you, Meta, and pull yourself together." Or: "Don't make me face like the cat when it looks into lightning."

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hoppe in the Braunschweig edition, vol. 13, pp. 440–442
  2. ↑ von Studnitz, p. 313, entry 51
  3. ↑ quoted in Hoppe in the Braunschweiger edition, vol. 13, p. 441, 11th Zvu
  4. ↑ quoted in Hoppe in the Braunschweiger edition, vol. 13, pp. 440–441
  5. ^ Sprengel, p. 9, 11. Zvo
  6. ↑ Sprengel, p. 329, 6. Zvo
  7. ↑ Meyen, p. 324 below