The Jewish beech
The Judenbuche - a moral painting from the mountainous Westphalia is a novella by Annette von Droste-Hülshoff , which first appeared in the Cotta'schen Morgenblatt for educated readers in 1842 . The action takes place in the remote Westphalian "Dorf B." in a small German state of the 18th century, before the time of the great upheaval that the French Revolution brought about for Europe. The novella is about an unsolved murder, explains its pre- and post-history and is understood not only as a criminal story, but above all as a milieu study.
action
Friedrich Mergel's career seems to have been determined before he was even born: there is “a lot of disorder and a bad economy” in his family. His mother Margreth was too proud in her youth and got married late, and not out of love, but only in order not to end up as an old maid into social marginalization. His father, Hermann Mergel, a strong alcoholic, took Margreth Semmler as his wife after his first bride ran away on their wedding night and later died. Margreth, too, has to suffer from his weekly drinking bouts and subsequent fights, although she tries to hide this from the village community.
When Friedrich was nine years old, his father died on a stormy winter night after falling asleep drunk in the forest and freezing to death. As a result, Friedrich's already battered social reputation in the village sinks even lower. From now on he looks after the cows. A few years later his uncle Simon adopts him, takes him on and helps him to get some money and a reputation with obscure deals. Friedrich makes the acquaintance of Simon's illegitimate son, the swineherd Johannes Nobody, a frightened boy who looks strikingly similar to Friedrich and whom the self-confident Friedrich soon treats like his servant.
The theft of wood by the so-called blue coats, which has so far been neglected by the village, is increasing. Therefore, the foresters step up their controls, but still cannot catch the thieves in the act. When the chief forester Brandis seems to succeed one night , he is brutally killed by the blue coats. Even though he denies everything in court and nothing can be proven to him, Friedrich feels complicit in Brandis' death, because he confessed to grease that night, warned the blue coats with a whistle that the forester was arriving and then sent him into an ambush . His uncle urges him to be silent by twisting the Ten Commandments :
“Remember the ten commandments: you should not bear witness to your neighbor.” - “No wrong thing!” - “No, none at all; you are badly informed; whoever accuses someone else in confession receives the sacrament unworthily. "
In October 1760 Friedrich was exposed at a wedding party by the Jew Aaron, who loudly warned him "in front of everyone about the amount of ten thalers for a clock delivered at Easter". A little later, Aaron's body is found under a beech tree in Brederwald . Friedrich is immediately suspected. When his house is surrounded to arrest him, he escapes through the window with Johannes Nobody. The suspicion is later officially invalidated by the confession of a third party, but it remains unclear whether his testimony actually relates to the murder of Aaron. But Friedrich and Johannes have disappeared.
A delegation of the Jews of the village bought the beech tree under which Aaron was found and scratched the sentence with Hebrew characters in the bark: “If you approach this place, it will be for you as you did for me.” From now on it will be Beech called "the Jewish beech" by the villagers. The murder has long since become statute-barred and forgotten when, after twenty-eight years, on Christmas Eve of the year 1788, a man returns to the village B. who pretends to be Johannes Nobody. Margreth Mergel, who had been vegetating in “utter dullness” since her son's flight, and her brother Simon Semmler had already died impoverished at this point. Those who have returned can stay with the landlord of the village and spend their old days running errands and carving wooden spoons. Nine months later, one day he doesn't return from the Brederwald. When they are looking for him, the young Brandis, son of the murdered chief forester, finds the missing person hanged in the Jewish book. The landlord examines the corpse and, to his surprise, discovers an old scar on the neck that identifies the deceased as Friedrich Mergel. Without spiritual support he is buried in the Schindanger .
characters
Friedrich Mergel (main character)
Friedrich develops from a disturbed, withdrawn child to a very haughty and proud, but also easily excitable and violent man. He works his way up to a significant person through wood atrocities and dark business deals and thus holds a high place in the world of the villagers. He often defends his role as a “village elegant” with his fists. The outside is more important to him than the inside. In order to maintain his reputation, he sometimes uses unfair means such as boasting a silver watch that has not yet been paid for. Nonetheless, the author attests that he is “not ignoble” and ascribes some of his mistakes to his uncle. In spite of everything, Friedrich is very vulnerable and (according to a false statement) has a guilty conscience. He also cannot bear it when others speak ill of his deceased father.
Margreth Mergel
Friedrich's mother is initially a self-confident woman who only gradually breaks with life and the prejudices of her environment. When she married Friedrich's father, she still believed that a woman who was treated badly by her husband was to blame for it. However, she soon realizes that it is not so easy to change her husband. Due to the early death of Hermann and the loss of Friedrich, who enters the service of his uncle, Margreth is overwhelmed with agriculture. After Friedrich fled on suspicion of murder, she becomes a nursing case. Until her death she isolates herself from society.
Simon Semmler
The brother Margreth Mergels, Friedrich's uncle (uncle), “adopted” Friedrich after the death of Friedrich's father Hermann. He has fish eyes, a pike face and reddish stubble hair. He exerts a negative influence on Friedrich by leading him down the wrong path and repeatedly confronting and intimidating the death of his father Hermann. Simon belongs to a gang of timber fraudsters and is therefore quite wealthy. However, its seedy economic success did not last long. He dies impoverished. There are many indications that it was he who killed the forester Brandis with an ax.
Johannes Nobody
Johannes is Simon's illegitimate son and looks so much like Friedrich that even his mother confuses the two. In contrast to Friedrich Johannes is very shy, gullible and willless. Johannes symbolizes Friedrich's true condition as a social nobody. His last name comes from the fact that his father never recognized him as his son. Just as Friedrich, as his uncle's errand boy, is completely dependent on him, Johannes gradually becomes more and more dependent on Friedrich.
Aaron the Jew
Aaron is a Jewish businessman from the neighboring village of S. During a wedding reception he causes a scandal when he tries to collect the outstanding payment for a pocket watch from Friedrich Mergel in public. The village population then laughs at him and mocks him ("Grab the Jew! Weigh him against a pig!"). Later, Aaron is found murdered at the "Judenbuche".
Forester Brandis
The forester Brandis represents the authorities and tries in vain to get hold of the lumberjack. Occasionally he lets himself be carried away to careless statements, but apologizes when he realizes that he has gone too far.
Hermann Mergel (Friedrich's father)
On the one hand, Hermann is a loving father, on the other hand, his alcoholism drives him to excessive drinking and violence on the weekends. His urge to reach for the bottle is ultimately the reason for his accidental death, which makes him the “ghost of Brederholz” in the eyes of the villagers.
interpretation
Law and justice
The laws are simple and sometimes inadequate. In addition to statutory law, a second law has emerged: the law of public opinion, custom and the statute of limitations. Landowners as well as people act freely according to their conscience, only the inferior are sometimes the written laws important. All the villagers are pious, but almost all of them are involved in some form of theft of wood and game. Margreth Mergel and her brother Simon Semmler are an example: While Margreth is extremely pious, but considers stealing from Jews to be just as acceptable as poaching and wood crime, Simon, as the epitome of evil, still has a spark of conscience and piety in him, even if he only pretends to be the latter.
One can interpret this customary law as a sign of the backwardness of the village, which the author addresses at the beginning of the book. Significantly, this backwardness came to an end in 1789: about two months after the outbreak of the French Revolution , the real culprit was punished; beforehand, the aristocracy and people could decide on law and justice. The author neither approves of the older form of “justice”, nor does she condemn it.
It is noteworthy that nature always appears as judge and witness in the novella. The connection between the deeds of the villagers and the nature around them shows that when they lose their “inner sense of justice”, they also destroy the commonality between man and nature, which is determined by the divine order of being.
All the negative events in the novella happen near the beech in the Brederwald, always at night or during twilight, never during the day. Thus the Brederwald becomes a kind of “magical space”, the beech the “ thing symbol for an event of calamity ” (B. v. Wiese). "The matter-of-fact, sober reporting style, which is extremely distant due to the precise times given, makes the constant threat to people [...] from the power of the dark and unreal even more uncanny."
Hostility towards Jews
One of the many social prejudices that Annette von Droste-Hülshoff's "moral painting" addresses and which, as "secret thieves of souls", also shaped Friedrich Mergel in his childhood, such as "every word that has never been forgotten / drove its tenacious roots in a young breast", is particularly important the hostility towards Jews in village B .:
- Friedrich's mother teaches her son early on that the Jews are “all rogues” and deceivers, and speaks of Aaron as “the cursed Jew”.
- Later on, some drunk participants in the wedding party, at which Aaron demanded his money back from Friedrich and thus compromised him in front of all the guests, also openly show their anti-Semitism by mocking the believer and shouting after him: “Pack the Jew! Weigh him against a pig! "
- Aaron's widow is disrespectfully apostrophized as "the Jew woman" who consoled herself in the end and took another man.
- Elsewhere, it is said of one of Aaron's co-religionists who, after his death, campaigned for the investigation of the crime and revenge of the victim, that he was called “commonly the Wucherjoel”.
- Even the landlord, who represents authority and justice, says of another Jew, the “Lumpenmoises”, who also initially comes into question as Aaron's murderer and who, after his confession, commits suicide, “the dog of a Jew” has “hanged himself from his garter . "
Historical background
As a child, Annette von Droste-Hülshoff regularly visited her maternal relatives at Bökerhof Castle in the East Westphalian village of Bökendorf , a village in the immediate vicinity of "Village B." There she learned of a true story, which her uncle August von Haxthausen had recorded under the title History of an Algiers slave according to court documents and published in 1818:
In the small state of the Prince Diocese of Paderborn , Hermann Georg (or Johannes) Winckelhan (baptized on August 22, 1764) received fabric for a shirt from the Jewish dealer Soistmann Berend (or Soestmann-Behrens) in 1782, but did not pay for it. In a trial that took place in 1783 under the direction of Lichtenau Drosten Werner Adolph von Haxthausen (Droste was an office of the lower jurisdiction in the prince-bishopric ), Winckelhan was sentenced to pay, whereupon the latter threatened Soistmann Berend with death. That evening a forester saw both Winckelhan, armed with a club, and shortly afterwards Soistmann Berend walking into the forest. Two days later, Soistmann Berend was found dead by his wife on a beech tree in the forest; The local Jewish community then carved a sign in Hebrew script into the beech. To escape arrest, Winckelhan fled abroad, where he was captured and enslaved. Only after almost 25 years did he return to his hometown. After refraining from further prosecution for his suffering while enslaved , he confessed to the murder. From then on Winckelhan lived as a day laborer and beggar and in 1806 hanged himself on the beech where Soistmann Berend was found dead. The tree was felled two years later. Despite his suicide, Winckelhan was buried as a Catholic in Bellersen on September 18, 1806 at Drosten's request .
Annette von Droste-Hülshoff translated this incident into literature and developed a prehistory with which she succeeded in "depicting the events as a result of a disruption in the human community" (Kindler). The fate of Friedrich Mergel, which soon intensified as a result of a series of unusual events and worsened towards the end, reveals the fatefulness of society's situation.
The Judenbaum in Reinhardswald
In addition to the crime against the beech tree described above, into which Hebrew characters had been scratched, Annette von Droste-Hülshoff could also have been inspired by the so-called Jewish tree in Reinhardswald . At least that is suggested by the memorial plaque that was put up at the location of the now dead tree in 2003. A Jewish trader is said to have been murdered there in 1668. Since then, the oak (i.e. not a beech) standing there was known as the Jewish tree . On the one hand, the fact that she had traveled to Reinhardswald speaks for the fact that the writer was also inspired by this tree. On the other hand, it speaks for the fact that at that time there was a forester named Friedrich Mergell and another named Carl Friedrich Mergell in the villages of the Reinhardswald. The resemblance to the name of the main character of the Jewish beech , Friedrich Mergel, can hardly be accidental.
Tütel's cross
The only place that can be identified with certainty is the so-called Tütelsche Kreuz in Neuenheerse .
“So we ran to Heerse; then it was still dark, and we hid behind the large cross in the churchyard until it got a little lighter because we were afraid of the quarries on the Zellerfelde, and suddenly we heard snorting and snorting overhead as we had sat for a while stamp and saw long beams of fire in the air just above the Heers church tower. We jumped up and ran what we could, in God's name, and when it dawned we were really on the right path to P. (probably Paderborn, editor's note) "
In her youth the poet visited her aunt there, the canoness Sophia Theresia von Haxthausen, and then lived in her curia, today Asseburger Strasse 3, which was diagonally across from the cross.
Dedication of the 20 DM note (4th generation)
The 20 DM note of the fourth and also last generation of DM banknotes, which appeared in 1989, shows a portrait of Annette von Droste-Hülshoff and was in circulation until the introduction of the euro banknotes in 2002. The design came (as with the entire series) by Reinhold Gerstetter , the then chief graphic designer at Bundesdruckerei .
As is usual with these banknotes, motifs from the work and living environment of the person concerned are shown. So here are historical buildings of the place where they died, Meersburg , a quill and (in relation to the novella Die Judenbuche ) a beech tree .
Settings
Walter Steffens wrote his opera “Die Judenbuche” on a libretto by Peter Schütze, premiered in 1993 in Dortmund. At that time he lived in Detmold , today in Marienmünster , i.e. in the immediate vicinity of the area where the novel is set.
The historical background figure is about Steffens' "Criminal opera for mobile music theater 'Der Winkelhannes'", premiered in 2007/08. Libretto by Peter Schütze with the assistance of Volker Schrewe and Walter Steffens.
In 2006, the Luxembourg composer Marco Pütz set the novella to music on behalf of the Havixbeck youth orchestra . The piece for wind orchestra was premiered on September 2, 2006.
literature
- Bernd Völkl: Annette von Droste-Hülshoff's Jewish beech: reading key with table of contents, interpretation, examination questions with solutions, learning glossary. (Reclam reading key XL). Philipp Reclam jun., Ditzingen 2018, ISBN 978-3-15-015481-6 .
- Winfried Freund , explanations on Annette von Droste-Hülshoff: Die Judenbuche , text analysis and interpretation (Vol. 216), C. Bange Verlag , Hollfeld 2012, ISBN 978-3-8044-1990-2 .
- Horst-Dieter Krus : Mordache Soistmann Berend. On the historical background of the novella "Die Judenbuche" by Annette von Droste-Hülshoff. 2nd improved edition. Huxaria, Höxter 1997, ISBN 3-9805700-0-2 , ( publications of the Droste Society 19).
- Norbert Mecklenburg: The "Judenbuche" case. Revision of a wrong judgment. Aisthesis-Verlag, Bielefeld 2008, ISBN 978-3-89528-693-3 .
- Ekkehart Mittelberg : Annette von Droste-Hülshoff, 'Die Judenbuche'. Text and materials. 3rd pressure. Cornelsen, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-464-52208-3 , content .
- Heinz Rölleke : Annette von Droste-Hülshoff, 'Die Judenbuche'. Interpretation . With teaching aids from Hannelore Tute. 2nd revised edition. Oldenbourg, Munich 2000, ISBN 3-637-01433-5 .
- Konrad Schaum: Irony and ethics in Annette von Droste-Hülshoff's Jewish book . Winter, Heidelberg 2004, ISBN 3-8253-1565-7 , ( contributions to recent literary history, 3rd episode, 204).
- Kindlers Literatur Lexikon , Volume 12 Ja-Krc . Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, Munich 1974, page 5047f.
- Thomas Wortmann: Capital crimes and family offenses. On the structure of the doubling in Droste-Hülshoff's "Judenbuche". In: Edited Tradition. Annette von Droste-Hülshoff's literary historical positioning. Edited by Claudia Liebrand, Irmtraud Hnilica and Thomas Wortmann, Schöningh, Paderborn 2010, pp. 311–337.
Web links
- Full text of Die Judenbuche and other works by Annette von Droste-Hülshoff on Zeno.org
- Full text at laurentianum.de
- Project page of the contemporary composition “Die Judenbuche” by Marco Pütz
- Detailed table of contents on a private homepage
- Die Judenbuche -> 10 questions + 18 answers Droste-Hülshoff's novella as a comic. Interview with illustrator and author
Individual evidence
- ↑ Kindler literature encyclopedia, Volume 12 yes-Krc. Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, Munich 1974, pp. 5047f.
- ↑ See Droste-Hülshoff's prologue poem, with which she introduces her story.
- ↑ Annette von Droste-Hülshoff, Die Judenbuche - Background . In: martinschlu.de .
- ↑ Chapter 8, Die Judenbuche gutenberg.spiegel
Coordinates: 51 ° 46 ′ 38.1 ″ N , 9 ° 11 ′ 29.7 ″ E