Gutmann's travels

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Gutmanns Reisen is a short story by Wilhelm Raabe that was written from June 1890 to October 1891 and was published by Otto Janke in Berlin in December 1891 . Shortly before, the text had been preprinted in the "Deutsche Romanzeitung" of the same publisher. In April 1909 Raabe experienced the reprint of the book.

The author had personally attended a conference of the German National Association in Coburg in 1860 . Duke Ernst , at that time one of the very few supporters of liberal-minded people among the princes of Germany, had made his riding house on Coburg Palace Square available as a conference venue for this association, which “has no real power”.

In the text, Raabe combined his experiences and impressions with free inventions. It tells how a young couple finds each other. The lucky ones - with roots in Lower Saxony and Upper Franconia - are Mr. Kameralsupernumerar Wilhelm Gutmann - called Willi - from H. and Miss Klotilde Blume from Jean Paul's place of birth, Wunsiedel .

In the story, the unsuccessful efforts of the moderate democrats for German unity are lovingly and indulgently mocked. In this connection Raabe makes no secret of his sympathy for the later founder of the empire, Bismarck .

content

Ms. Line Gutmann stands in her "cheese shop on the market square, opposite the pharmacy" and looks forward to her son Willi's trip to the first general assembly of the German National Association in Coburg with mixed feelings. Looking back on the year 1848 , the mother asks herself worried: What will the sovereign say about the adventure of his subordinate “eligible for promotion”, the lawyer Wilhelm Gutmann? Will the boy spoil his career? Although Willi travels with his father from northern Germany to southern Thuringia “to bring the German people under one roof”, that is little consolation for his mother. The woman is reluctant to think back to the "wholesaling around" of the then unmarried businessman from Hamburg. Line moans: “On the one hand you want to found the new German Reich; on the other hand you would like to keep everything that the old one has torn into a thousand pieces. Children, the thing is, you don't know yourself what you want! "

Father and son are not impressed. Something better than the German Confederation is needed. “Small shopkeepers, small townspeople, small state people ” want to found “the new German Reich”. Willi's father, who became wealthy in the “small cheese and wholesaling grain trade”, is now getting his second travel business at the age of almost sixty. So, at the beginning of September 1860, “the resurrected traveler” and his son Willi set off “to found New Germany”. The journey leads via Kassel to Coburg. On the way - in Immelborn - Klotilde Blume gets into the compartment of the two Gutmanns. The young girl had endured at least two months with her difficult childless heir, Adele. The aunt's “downright darling” urgently needs some relaxation, according to the Blume family, with many children. The “reward for their family sacrifice” beckons in Coburg. The father, Major von Blume and the uncle, pharmacist Laurian Poltermann - like Gutmann's participants in the meeting - actually wanted to receive Klotilde at the Coburg train station, but did not keep her promise. In this situation, Father Gutmann, the "old Hamburg world driver", proves himself to be the savior in need. In the reception office of the German National Association, the businessman uses the attendance list to determine the private quarters of the two lousy revelers from Wunsiedel and, on the spur of the moment, lets himself be quartered with his son in the house opposite.

At the general assembly everyone wears “a black, red and gold ribbon in their buttonhole”. Under the chairmanship of the manor owner Rudolf von Bennigsen from Hanover, the "political animals" from all over Germany talked about each other during several "fateful" days, but not Willi. Usually absent, he takes care of Klotilde - apart from the “meanest, most desolate, most disdainful, most stupid, most meaningless fatherland philistine squabble”. The girl is bored in the strange city and likes to let the young official lead her to a bench in the garden of the Ehrenburg . At home in H. Willi is sociable and talkative. His friends say that he has “a very big mouthwork”. On the bench of his fate in the ducal palace garden, however, Klotilde, who is also shy, has to come to his aid after long breaks in conversation. Willi keeps chatting confused stuff and finally asks the crucial question. This is answered in the affirmative and the two are a couple. The intention to marry is confirmed with a kiss. Clotilde and her companion Willi, who has been won over for time and eternity, still have one problem. The problem is called Ritter Alois von Pärnreuther from Vienna. The noble Schleswig-Holstein fighter and 1848 revolutionary has meanwhile become an Austro-Hungarian wine wholesaler. The nobleman, family friend of the Gutmann family and Willis “ideal for young people” even stays incognito in Coburg. To make matters worse, fat good old Alois is also a friend of the von Blume family. Despite the age difference, Klotilde's parents chose the Viennese as their daughter's future husband. Major von Blume would like to see “the Viennese legionary, the barricade fighter” in Coburg take care of the lonely Klotilde a little. The wine wholesaler - in Willis's memory "thundered in battle, blackened with powder, torn down ideally and black-red-gold down to the deepest, loyal German heart" - would like that too. However, there are the nerve-wracking meetings of the General Assembly that challenge the whole man. So Willi makes the race; takes advantage of the "German confluence in the ducal riding arena".

The worries of the mother Line mentioned at the beginning before the start of the journey of the son Willi about his "civil well-being" receive new nourishment. A letter is waiting for the addressee: “To the High Princely Camera Supernumerar Gutmann - Government matters!” What will the sovereign think about the trip to Coburg? Both Mother Line and the reader feel in the dark. The content can hardly have had serious consequences. Willi and Klotilde get married. The marriage has four children. Anyone who read carefully knew about the happy ending in the fourth of the twenty-five chapters. The narrator always goes into the future and from there lets his chamberlain, Wilhelm Gutmann, take a mental look back into the present. So, the reader concludes, the hero cannot under any circumstances have been stripped of his office by his sovereign for his small “offense”.

Quotes

  • "If you make yourself too green, the goats will eat you."
  • Raabe quotes Schiller : "In the mountains there is freedom!"
  • Raabe quotes the Coburg speaker Hermann Schulze-Delitzsch : “The victory of the national movement in Germany is at the same time the victory of humanity - and this is the ultimate goal of all history. On this rock, my German brothers, our justice and our hope are anchored; success is only a matter of time. "

shape

On May 11, 1891, Raabe dedicated his “idyllic political epic” to Christian Konrad Jakob Dassel , the author of the “Strange Travels of the Gutmann Family” from 1797. He learned his craft from Pastor Dassel from Hornbostel - for example, how to write this "Truthful Report". The narrator frankly admits his loquacity: “We could again report some nice details here, if the book didn't again become too expensive for the reader.” So he sometimes forbids himself to say: “The rest is none of our business” does he not stand the voluntary self-restraint. Tiny little aberrations are on the agenda “in these travel reports”: “O, you Feste Koburg ! Man gradually brings his torment to the highest heights; he will soon take her to the Jungfrau by cogwheel train ; but Mr. Gutmann junior took the virgin to the Koburg festival. “The tone remains cheerful throughout. The narrator jumps back and forth cheerfully: "We now have a few hours to move backwards."

A story is told that goes back thirty years: “She smiled ... Anyway, if she hadn't smiled the way she smiled, they, Willi Gutmann and Tilde Blume, would not be husband and wife today. She smiled at the "new nonsense" of the young man from the north. "

As a military man, Klotilde's father really didn't have time to take care of Klotilde's upbringing. Uncle Laurian Poltermann, a bachelor and ardent Jean Paul admirer, took on this from the start. The uncle had borrowed Klotilde's first name from " Hesperus ". With Wina , the pharmacist had not been able to assert himself with the militant brother-in-law. The major, at that time still first lieutenant, had feared that he would then run around the garrison forever as General Zablocki. When Klotilde talks to her uncle, they talk about Walt and Flachsenfingen , for example . Uncle Laurian's exuberant talk rubbed off on the whole family. The major also knows his Katzenberger ; speaks to the daughter as Theoda.

Self-testimony

  • On January 1st, 1892, a certain rb had made fun of the book in the " Kreuzzeitung " newspaper, this "strange mixture of syllable-piercing word whispering and Jean Paul'scher intellectual curiosity". In a letter dated January 4, 1892 to E. Sträter, Raabe was annoyed about the "crap".

reception

Contemporaries:

  • According to a review by Robert Lange on February 11, 1892 in the Leipzig papers for literary entertainment, the text is "one of the few stories by Raabe that shows us an exclusively cheerful face". Subject are "the unity efforts of the sixties". The love story is "deliciously portrayed".
  • On February 12, 1892, in the Berlin Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, the presentation of the historical background was characterized as captivating.
  • On March 5, 1892, Fritz Mauthner praised the book as "particularly successful" in his Berlin magazine for literature at home and abroad . The text wins through its “poodle-mad mixture” of the “delightful little love story” with the “solemn seriousness of the first meeting of the national association”.
  • On March 13, 1892, the reviewer in the Hannoversche Courier expressed his criticism “while reading this curious stuff” in two words: Raabe shook his head and smiled. “With his comfortable chatting talent and his amiable portrayals”, the author no longer seems quite as fresh as before, but with the text he still beats “a hundred others from the field”.
  • A certain OK in the Leipzig General Conservative Monthly for Christian Germany in 1892 targeted the “advocate patriotism of the national liberals ” and called Raabe a great humorist. In the same breath, however, Raabe's humor is criticized. The protagonists acted as the author's mouthpiece and thus appeared in the “untrue light”.
  • E. Sträter asks in the Tübinger Allgemeine Zeitung of May 31, 1892, shaking his head: "Anyone who humorously illuminates the national association is not also laughing at the state of Wilhelm I and Bismarck?"
  • Hermann Oncken sent Raabe two proof sheets of his Bennigsen biography on October 23, 1908 . The "tangible, living" portrayal of the spirit of those days in 1860 is admired therein.
  • On the occasion of the second edition of the book, Karl Geiger wrote in the supplement of a daily newspaper on August 16, 1909: “If one, this tragic-comic part of our German history was revealed to our Wilhelm Raabe.” Raabe said the book was “as an antidote to all pessimism” and "For those who ... absorbed and toiled around the German Reich" written.

Recent comments:

  • As a conference participant, Raabe used not only his notes, but even the conference minutes to work on the manuscript.
  • Raabe called his work a "Bismarckiade". Sprengel sees the marriage as political and allegorical. The north German groom Willi gets the south German bride Klotilde, whereby the Austrian rival Alois nonchalantly renounces.
  • Raabe invented Gutmann senior. The figure of Willi Gutmann could have been one of Raabe's Wolfenbüttel classmates, the three-year-old high school student Albert Baumgart, who was the godfather. And about the figure of Klotilde Blume: According to the diary, Raabe saw a pretty Thuringian woman at the Immelborn train station.
  • Von Studnitz mentions a further leading work: Fritz Hartmann: “'Gutmanns Reisen'. Raabe's political novel. ”Communications from the Raabe Society. Wolfenbüttel 1931, pp. 156-171. Meyen lists 14 works from the years 1892 to 1969.

expenditure

First edition

  • Gutmann's travels. By Wilhelm Raabe 299 pages. Published by Otto Janke, Berlin 1892

Used edition

  • Gutmann's travels . P. 209–415, with an appendix, written by Karl Hoppe † , P. 464–500 in: Karl Hoppe (Ed.): Wilhelm Raabe: Stopfkuchen . Gutmann's travels . (2nd edition, without ISBN) Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1969. Vol. 18 in Karl Hoppe (ed.), Jost Schillemeit (ed.), Hans Oppermann † (ed.), Kurt Schreinert (ed.): Wilhelm Raabe. Complete Works. Braunschweig edition . 24 vols.

Further editions

  • Gutmann's travels. Verlag von Otto Janke, Berlin 1909 (2nd edition)
  • Gutmann's travels . 232 pages. Klemm, Berlin-Grunewald 1916 (3rd edition), Fraktur
  • Gutmann's travels . 276 pages. Baumann, Kulmbach 1986, ISBN 3-922091-14-8

literature

  • Hans Oppermann : Wilhelm Raabe. Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1970 (1988 edition), ISBN 3-499-50165-1 (rowohlt's monographs).
  • Fritz Meyen : Wilhelm Raabe. Bibliography. 438 pages. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1973 (2nd edition). Supplementary volume 1, ISBN 3-525-20144-3 in Karl Hoppe (Ed.): Wilhelm Raabe. Complete Works. Braunschweig edition . 24 vols.
  • Cecilia von Studnitz: Wilhelm Raabe. Writer. A biography. 346 pages. Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1989, ISBN 3-7700-0778-6
  • Peter Sprengel : History of German-Language Literature 1870–1900. From the founding of the empire to the turn of the century . CH Beck, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-406-44104-1 .

Web links

Remarks

  1. With H. Hamm , Bremen or both could be meant (Hoppe in the edition used, p. 467, 13. Zvu). But there are only three churches in H. (Edition used, p. 217, 15. Zvo). Most likely, H. is the result of the author's imagination.
  2. Bismarck is mentioned only twice in passing. Once, bank director Amelung from Stettin said: “We cannot all know how the situation will develop, but I am convinced that at the first great occasion, at the first external war, Prussia will be forced in the interests of its own self-preservation to realize the program of the national association, his government can then be led by whoever it wants, from Bismarck-Schönhausen or from Schwerin . ”(Edition used, p. 323, 1. Zvo). Finally, Raabe made a leap forward in time to January 18, 1871 . Willi's mother makes fun of “Gutmann's journeys and journeys”: “That is Klotildchen's business now, and she may answer to her girl and her three boys whether the new German Kaiser and Bismarck are a sufficient reason to give our son the house key "(Edition used, p. 415, 6th Zvu)
  3. ^ Stops on the journey to Coburg are after Kassel: Münden , Melsungen , Rothenburg, Gerstungen , Eisenach , Immelborn , Wasungen , Meiningen and Hildburghausen . The Werra Railway is used from Eisenach .
  4. Raabe names among others: Mr. Streckfuss from Berlin, Dr. Pickford from Heidelberg. Mr. Georgii from Eßlingen , Mr. Bürgers from Cologne, Dr. med. Ludwig Rückert from Coburg, Dr. jur. Rückert from Jena, Dr. med. Lüning from Rheda , senior court attorney Dr. Miquel from Göttingen, Mr. Schmelzkopf, Mr. Unruh from Berlin, Mr. Morgenstern from Fürth , Mr. Welcker from Heidelberg, Mr. Crämer from Doos , Mr. D. Schulze from Delitzsch , court attorney Metz from Darmstadt , lawyer Fries from Weimar, Mr. Brater , Mr. Rochau , Dr. Stamm from Berlin, Mr. Ladenburg from Mannheim, Mr. Schüler from Ichtershausen , Mr. Weber from Stade , Mr. Dr. Braunfels from Frankfurt am Main, editor Reuss from Nuremberg and bank director Amelung from Stettin . The reader also learns a few items for discussion. So comes a letter from Dr. Ammermüller and comrades from Stuttgart spoke about it.

Individual evidence

  1. Hoppe in the edition used, p. 464 above, p. 465 above, p. 479, entry B1 and p. 470, 12. Zvu
  2. von Studnitz, p. 315, entry 64
  3. Hoppe in the edition used, p. 477, 1. Zvu
  4. Hoppe in the edition used, p. 465 middle
  5. Edition used, p. 399, 12. Zvu
  6. Edition used, p. 358, 20. Zvo
  7. Hoppe in the edition used, p. 470, 1. Zvo
  8. Edition used, p. 233, 18. Zvo
  9. Edition used, p. 218, 1. Zvu
  10. The Bride of Messina . Fourth act, seventh appearance (Berengar, Bohemund and Manfred)
  11. Edition used, p. 267, 11. Zvo
  12. Edition used, p. 299, 3rd Zvo
  13. Edition used, p. 259, 19. Zvo
  14. Edition used, p. 263, 4th Zvu
  15. Edition used, p. 267, 10th Zvu
  16. Edition used, p. 383, 6. Zvo
  17. Edition used, p. 342, 17. Zvo
  18. Edition used, p. 345, middle and p. 364, 15. Zvu
  19. quoted in Hoppe in the edition used, pp. 471–472
  20. quoted in Hoppe in the edition used, p. 472, 16. Zvo
  21. quoted in Hoppe in the edition used, p. 475, 2nd Zvu
  22. quoted in Hoppe in the edition used, p. 473 above
  23. quoted in Hoppe in the edition used, p. 476, 21. Zvo
  24. quoted in Hoppe in the edition used, p. 473, 19. Zvu
  25. quoted in Hoppe in the edition used, p. 475, 4th Zvo
  26. quoted in Hoppe in the edition used, p. 477, 9. Zvo
  27. quoted in Hoppe in the edition used, p. 478, 5. Zvo
  28. Oppermann, p. 53, middle
  29. Hoppe in the edition used, p. 470, 6th Zvo and p. 471, 2nd Zvu
  30. Sprengel, p. 10 below
  31. Hoppe in the edition used, p. 467 middle to 468 middle
  32. von Studnitz, p. 319, 5. Zvo
  33. Meyen, pp. 338-340
  34. Hoppe in the edition used, p. 479, entry B1