The Reinerbachmühle

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Reinerbachmühle is a short story by the German writer Heinrich Zillich (1898–1988). It was first published in 1935.

content

The story takes place in Transylvania after the First World War about the connection between Transylvania and Romania . The main character is the doctor Georg Kirschen, who was thrown off course due to a sunstroke and has been mentally ill since then. He can no longer do his job and separates from his wife. He retires to the dilapidated Reinerbachmühle, which has belonged to his family since time immemorial, and lives on the rent of the farmers who cultivate the fields around the mill. People call him "the fool" because of his strange behavior.

After Transylvania became Romanian , laws came into force that expropriated land that was not built by the owners themselves in favor of the former tenants . This is why officials appear in the Reinerbachmühle to determine the circumstances, and Kirschen now knows that the land that has always belonged to his family will soon no longer be his property. Only the mill itself and a small piece of land should remain for him. He has to submit to the new circumstances, but inwardly does not recognize what they force him to do. Then the only German among his tenants suggested that he move into the mill and repair it. He is the son of a rich farmer who had been disinherited for the sake of his love for a poor woman and now wants to create the essentials of life. Kirschen lets happen passively what the young Kersten Misch planned: he moves in with his wife, gets the mill running again and grinds the farmers' grain. When the woman is about to give birth to her first child and her husband is on the way to the midwife, Kirschen helps with the birth and has been a little more involved in life ever since.

One day in 1924, Kirschen drove into town to find out in the local history museum how long the mill has been in his family's possession. He learns that it was given to Jakobus Kyrschen by the city council in 1433 for his services as city ​​governor in the fight against the Turks, i.e. 491 years belonging to his family. In the town hall he looks at the pictures of his ancestors who were mayors. A conversation unfolds with the young Romanian Vice Mayor about the legality of the expropriations. The Romanian sees it as a social compensation for the Romanians who were previously without possessions and who cultivated the fields for the German masters - cherries as an injustice, as those who had previously protected the poor population and created the cultural and economic structures that make life in Transylvania in the first place made possible. He also fears that the new owners will not be able to continue to cultivate the land properly. But Kirschen also recognizes that the time of the former master families is over, which once began as farmers like his tenant does today. He made his will and bequeathed the Reinerbach mill to the young Misch. On his deathbed he says to him: "Mix, you will inherit four hundred and ninety-one years." The latter understands what the old man was trying to say, namely that he should work for the land again. The story ends with his sentence: "It shouldn't be me!"

interpretation

With this story, whose language has elements of the heroic and national, Zillich addresses the situation of Germans in the time of upheaval. Although the Romanians and the question of expropriations are portrayed as "neutral" (the Romanian Vice Mayor says to Kirschen: "Today you have to step back a bit. We are moving forward. You are silent? Oh, I do not overestimate a historical moment. I know that we are every success in these years just happened so that we only acquire it internally. We are facing centuries of probation. That is a difficult fate, but - "his eyes sparkled," we pull it up to us singing and cheering! We trust ourselves . Would you do it differently? "), It can be clearly felt that the author is skeptical as to whether the Romanians will play a role similar to that of the Germans (which he sees only positively) in Transylvania. From Zillich's point of view, it is the Germans who appeared here alone, creating culture, who founded the cities, made the land arable and defended it against the Turks, which also gave them their ancestral rights. His appeal at the end of the book therefore goes in the direction that the Germans should work out what they have lost through the historical circumstances.

The assessment of Zillich as a writer fluctuates between that of a classic of Romanian German literature and the main view that he is a ethnic German propagandist and apologist for National Socialism .

expenditure

  • The Reinerbachmühle. A story from Transylvania . Reclam, Leipzig 1935

literature

Web links