Diethelm von Buchenberg

The story of Diethelm von Buchenberg ( 1852 ) is a novel by Berthold Auerbach .

Diethelm von Buchenberg was first published in 1852 in the third part of the Black Forest village stories together with Brosi and Moni .

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The story describes the career of Diethelm, who came from a poor family - "nothing but crap makers and beggars" (6) - but succeeded through marriage from farmhand to farmer, constantly caught between the external expectations of the villagers and the internal dependence on reputation, Pride and honor. On the other hand, however, there is also benevolent behavior towards his poorer relatives, even though this is also exercised not least on account of "fame" (35).

Right from the start, a pretzel seller characterizes the "modest arrogance" (43) of the Diethelm by stating, "[...] if the farmer were upset, it would make it worse than the gentlemen." (7). The inner 'dramaturgy' of Diethelm is only described by the fact that he always sees an anticipatory knowledge of this dependency shining through:

"How far behind was the time now when he too could be proud instead of having to pretend not to betray himself" (17),

This is promoted by the example of the former farmer Reppenberger, who went under with his businesses and now has to work as a kind of intermediary on the market. In this same market, the situation comes to a head for the Diethelm. After several unsuccessful farming and business attempts, now, already financially stricken, devoting himself to sheep breeding, Diethelm's "thirst for honor" (50), like the neighbors' urging, to buy all wool instead of his own:

"Because it doesn't matter what one might own if only people believe in it: faith makes you happy and faith makes you rich." (43)

The "Trumpet of the Last Judgment" (19), as which the Stadtzinkenists appear to the former servant, heralds the impending doom for the first time: bills of exchange were drawn for the overpriced and in too large quantities of goods bought, there were no offers to buy, the warehouses had to be full be insured.

But Diethelm now sees his chance of avoiding ruin, especially in the insurance industry, to which he allowed himself to be pushed because of the “honor” of being able to afford something like that. The farmer, who now increasingly appears to his environment as "two different people" (27), is increasingly concerned with the plan to let his property go down in a fire he has set himself and to start over with the repayment. The conflicts to be resolved with this thought are now beginning to intensify. On the one hand, it drives him "away, ever further" (62) away from the place of his planned deed, through which it wants to appear to him everywhere "better, sunnier and airier" (ibid.), This centrifugal tendency acquires narrative almost philobatic traits when one sees the Diethelm hanging "free in the air" (ibid.) shortly afterwards, on the other hand, the love for his wife Martha awakens again shortly afterwards, which makes "peace and bliss" (63) appear to him alone as accessible at home. This gradually intensifies to a "tremendous struggle" (91) on the part of the peasant: if he still swears in that one moment "[...] to himself, in a quiet, hidden night [...]" (80) is to dismiss every temptation in the next, if he is already ready to "[...] commit a crime against the whole world" (82), if he finds himself on his knees praying without knowing how (cf. 91, also 93), he can shortly afterwards return home as a "frozen culprit" (92). Finally he was overcome by a "vertigo", he knew "no longer forward and no longer backward", saw himself over "an abyss between life and death" (93).

But as soon as the insurance taken out for the sake of the honor of being able to afford this begins to contribute to a loss of reputation, to want to set a fire, Diethelm sees his plan confirmed in a logical reversal:

“He was justified in doing the worst; one trusted him to do the worst [...] «(89)

Diethelm finally confronts the execution, which threatens to be hindered by several coincidences, with his shepherd Medard, who suspects the farmer's plan (see 68) and tries to use his beloved and fantasized as a "shepherd prince" (33) from his childhood younger brother Munde (Raimund) to marry the farmer's daughter Fränzi (Franziska). However, she had not only "[...] inherited the arrogant nature of her father" (51), was in the long childlike observation of the parents' marriage to a "bluff", a "being full of pitfalls and pitfalls" (66), a flighty and fickle beings (see 77), but has long since been able to recognize the meaning of marriage only in the instrumentalization of the partner (see chap. 9, 64-67), so that they mouth the shepherd who is already in it had fallen in love, more as an object of mischievous experimentation than an appropriate husband.

Medard, who chooses the farmer's daughter for his own brother and who surprises Diethelm during the preparations (cf. 94), now forces himself as an accomplice, becomes a "traitorous comrade" to be "put out of the way" (97) . The arson succeeds (see 109), but before Diethelm lights the altar candle, which is supposed to set off the fire and enable him to be absent at the time of the crime, he overpowers the shepherd, who is not dissimilar to him, and lays him tied up on the attic that he is burning with.

The deed that reached the court, although sued but acquitted, remains suspicious not only of the village community, but also of the woman and daughter an arsonist - which is what drives him all the more to restore his reputation. Gradually, the one who has increased in wealth through the sum insured gets back and to greater fame, is ultimately even chosen for village shoulders, but can no longer escape an inner coldness with which the deed seems to gnaw his soul under the surface in the fulfillment of an oath that he once gave to his wife, also not free from suspicion of the husband:

“'Do you have to light it?' Asked Martha, without looking up, and Diethelm, starting wildly, replied: 'Wife, that you think I'm so bad, I would never have believed. Look, but no, you don't trust my word. Look, the sun, as it is now in the sky, should never shine on me again, never make me warm again, if I only have a thought of something like that '‹« (70).

But shortly afterwards Diethelm finds himself entangled again in an inner dialogue, which is supposed to justify the deed that has been contemplated for a long time in the hopelessness: “And if you don't know what else to do and have to burn everything [...] then you push close your eyes and do it "(72)

His wife, also not free from suspicion against the husband (cf. 70), who swore a false oath in court to protect the husband, initially suffers from a stunted hand of her oath, but receives help from the old "shepherd", the father of the murdered Medard - who is the only one who holds on to Diethelm's guilt until his death.

Diethelm's initial caution quickly turns into the contempt of those who are unable to look behind his facade when he tries to renew his good reputation:

"Nine tenths of people are nothing but dogs and parrots, they talk and do as they are taught, and then swear stone and bone that it came from them themselves" (149),

but also recognizes the inner coercive situation brought about by the act:

"Diethelm felt [...] that crime does not leave a clean stain on people" (151)

Diethelm's attempt to marry Fränz with Munde led to the engagement of both, but ultimately failed not only because of the daughter's arrogance, but also because of the daughter's conviction of her father's guilt (cf. 156), which she also had against Diethelm ready to play. Munde, with whom the engagement is broken off shortly thereafter, becomes at least a confidante of the daughters' suspicions.

Diethelm himself, however, is increasingly getting caught up in the vortex not only of the deed, but also of his own ambiguous nature, which quickly annoys him the honor obtained after the acquittal:

“Diethelm sat […] in the upper room and held both hands in front of his face, his eyes burned, but he couldn't cry. [He] [...] could not get rid of the thought that this would be a funeral, his own, he was seemingly dead, and he could not cry out: you are burying a man who lives, no, you are greeting a dead man among the living. It came to him in a puzzling way, and he said he was insane, he would have liked to speak [...] "(167f.)

But even if restless sleep joins the cold (cf. 172), it should still be some time before Diethelm will speak. A course trip and other higher honors, such as the attention of a princess as well as the freedom of an assessor for the daughter, still need to be passed. Finally, the former servant and “murder burner” is even appointed lay judge of the newly established jury court. Only now does it also become apparent that "the stifled suspicion in the mind [...] resembled the flame in a burned-down house, which keeps popping up as soon as a beam is lifted" (222) and that people were very much remembered of what they did .

Even if Diethelm now begins to pray again on the bench (cf. 227), his duty is to be present in the court in which he was once accused of an act of which he was also guilty, increasing torment. Only "by force" can he regain "his old pride" (233). Finally, shortly after the death of Martha, who seems to have remained loyal to Diethelm to the last, to firmly accept his innocence, a lawsuit is pending against the same Reppenberger who was presented at the beginning of the story as a fallen figure.

Reppenberger, now accused as an arsonist, drives Diethelm's memories of his deed back into the memory. When Munde finally appears in the courtroom, whose voice had previously shown the "sound of the brother's voice" (173) to Diethelm's horror, but who is now also wearing his brother's clothes, Diethelm is overwhelmed by this apparition and makes his confession from the bench from. Diethelm von Buchenberg is sentenced to life imprisonment and thus finds his way back to a “simple” life, as he led as a servant. But arrogance and arrogance live in the daughter Fränz, who then donates her inheritance, which she still received against the claims of the insurance, to the Swiss monastery in Einsiedeln by founding a virgin union in Buchenberg.

The work, which Karl Gutzkow called "A masterpiece, exemplary in design and execution" (254), is one of the blackest and, in the psychological presentation of the pathology of Diethelm, also the most unusual of the genre associated with home. Auerbach himself wrote to Gottfried Keller that he »[...] agreed with the principle that we should transform the things in life into a logical and logical way of life. lead to psychological consequences that they do not have in bare reality. That is our idealism and, I believe, the right one. "(June 28, 1860)

quoted from: Berthold Auerbach, Diethelm von Buchenberg. A Black Forest village story ; ed. v. Gerhard Rostin, Berlin 1964

expenditure

• Auerbach, Berthold: The story of Diethelm von Buchenberg . In: German Novellenschatz . Edited by Paul Heyse and Hermann Kurz. Vol. 7. 2nd ed. Berlin, [1910], pp. 45-268. In: Weitin, Thomas (Ed.): Fully digitized corpus. The German Novellenschatz . Darmstadt / Konstanz, 2016. ( digitized and full text in the German text archive )