Heinrich von Plauen (novel)

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Heinrich von Plauen is a two-volume historical novel by Ernst Wichert that was published by Carl Reissner in Leipzig in 1881.

Junker Heinz from Vogtland met his sister, father and maternal grandfather in Prussia in 1410 and found a wife.

action

The 22-year-old Junker Heinrich von Waldstein, called Heinz, is summoned to Prussia by his relative Heinrich von Plauen , the Commander of Schwetz . Because the Teutonic Order wants to go into the field against the Polish King Wladislaus Jagello . Jagello has allied himself with his cousin Grand Duke Witowd of Lithuania . Both are mortal enemies of the Teutonic Order.

On the sea voyage from Lübeck to Danzig , Heinz befriends the 24-year-old Junker Hans von der Buche from Buchwalde. Hans has completed a multi-year university stay. He studied for two years with Johann Huss and Hieronymus in Prague and one year in Bologna .

In the Bay of Danzig , the ship was boarded in May 1410 by the Vitalien brothers under their captain Marquard Stenebreeker. The Gdańsk ship's crew, with the support of the strong-fighting young passengers, including Bartholomäus Groß, son-in-law of Gdańsk mayor Konrad Letzkau , can overpower the pirates and present them to the gawking Gdańsk shopkeepers. The Gdansk councilors, who are merchants, want to judge the prisoners. The Danzig Commander Johann von Schönfels, however, has a different opinion. The citizens are subjects of the Teutonic Order. So, as the city's spiritual lord, he forbids the mayor Konrad Letzkau to court and throws the pirates into his dungeon.

In Danzig, Heinz met and fell in love with the 16-year-old mischievous Maria, the daughter of councilor and shipowner Tidemann Huxer . During the hustle and bustle of the Gdansk market, Hans introduced his friend Heinz to his woodruff Gundrat, a contentious old man who was supposed to live on Lake Melno . After the Whitsun celebrations in Gdansk, the two friends leave the Hanseatic city . Hans travels to his father's estate in Buchwalde and Heinz to his relative Heinrich von Plauen in Schwetz.

Heinrich von Plauen has been running a strict regiment at Schwetz Castle for three years. Grand Master Ulrich von Jungingen drives to war. Heinrich von Plauen is supposed to secure the hinterland during the upcoming campaign. Heinz receives a very warm welcome from the commander. Heinrich von Plauen mourns the far too early death of Heinzen's mother. She had only survived the birth of Heinzen's three years younger sister Waltrudis for a short time. The Commander sends Heinz to the Grand Master. Heinz meets his sister on the way. Hans also comes along and falls in love with Waltrudis. On the onward journey to Marienburg, Heinz gets caught in a storm, gets lost and again meets the woodruff Gundrat in a forest wilderness. He confides in the young traveler. Gundrat fled from the Vogtland via Bohemia, Silesia and Poland to Prussia because he killed the adored only daughter Mechthild in an affect. Because out of love for a noble gentleman, Mechthild had left her parents and had two illegitimate children for the nobleman abroad.

Heinz takes a detour via Buchwalde. Hans - pleased with the visit - introduces him to his half-sister Natalia. In his second marriage, Hansen's father had married a Polish woman. Heinz meets Michael von Kroczinski in Buchwalde. This is a relative of the teasing Natalia.

On the geographical location of Tannenberg , Rehden , Schwetz , the Marienburg , Danzig and Thorn (for the place names towards the end of the 19th century, see also the map from 1896 ).

Heinz reaches Marienburg and goes into battle as the Grand Master's squire . The Grand Master falls, his squire is badly wounded near Tannenberg . Hans, whose father also fell during the battle, finds his friend lying lifeless in the field and thinks him dead. The army of the order is defeated. Hans rides to Schwetz to deliver the news to the Commander. On the way, the new Herr von Buchwalde persuades the woodruff Gundrat to save the moveable goods of his property from the advancing victors.

After receiving the terrible news, Heinrich von Plauen realizes that all of the responsibility suddenly rests on him. Because the greater area have fallen. He hurries with his troops from Schwetz through Pomerania to the Marienburg to protect them from the approaching victors. Before that he asked Hans to take his foster daughter Waltrudis to the Marienburg.

Meanwhile, Michael von Kroczinski roams the battlefield and finds Heinz breathing weakly. Kroczinski brings the seriously wounded prisoner to his family in Sczanowo in the Kingdom of Poland . Natalia and her mother are staying at the castle on the Vistula . The beautiful girl devotedly cared for her prisoner Heinz for many weeks.

Heinrich von Plauen becomes "the order's governor". He persuades his younger brother Heinrich Reuss von Plauen , a gruff warrior, to subdue the rebellious citizens of Danzig as Commander of Danzig. When King Jagello, with his superior army, presses the trapped people hard during the siege of Marienburg , the knights storm their governor to plead for peace. Heinrich von Plauen is forced to humiliate himself before King Jagello. When the king insists on the surrender of the Marienburg, the governor defiantly continues the defense. The luck of war changes. The Ruhr kills thousands among the besiegers . Grand Duke Witowd leaves with his Lithuanians. The King of Hungary invades southern Poland. Commands from Germany send money. This is used to recruit mercenaries. On September 19, 1410, King Jagello withdrew after a siege lasting several weeks. He threatens his return later. Representatives of several cities, including the Gdansk, paid homage to the sovereign.

In November Heinrich von Plauen is elected Grand Master of the Teutonic Order. The Grand Master blackmailed Mayor Konrad Letzkau. Danzig had been kind to King Jagello. Now he expects something in return. Letzkau has to raise money abroad. He does it with skill and is successful.

When Heinrich von Plauen was hunting in the Buchwalder Flur, woodruff Gundrat, the manager of the Buchwalde estate, attempted an assassination attempt on the grand master. The attempt fails. Gundrat berates Heinrich von Plauen as a seducer and murderer. The Grand Master goes to Thorn for new peace negotiations with King Jagello.

Natalia loves Heinz. The beautiful girl has to learn that her prisoner loves Maria. Thanks to Natalia's care, Heinz gets well. He flees to Danzig on a Vistula raft and wants to marry Maria there. Councilor Tidemann Huxer does not give his daughter to any Junker have-nothing to wife. Huxer has other concerns as well. He is called to the castle, but turns back at the last minute. Commander Heinrich Reuss von Plauen wants to take revenge on the citizens of Danzig for their betrayal. The black cross is supposed to regain all power over Danzig. Because the Danzigers had paid homage to King Jagello in one of the most difficult hours of the order and also because Danzig wanted to become independent, Heinrich Reuss lured the councilors to his castle at Easter 1411 and had Konrad Letzkau, Bartholomäus Groß and a second Danzig mayor killed. The commander had hired the pirates who were still imprisoned as murderers. Marquard Stenebreeker and his Vitalienbrüder are given freedom for the murder. Heinrich von Plauen is appalled by the crime, but does nothing against his biological brother.

The Grand Master has moved into the Königsberg Castle. The chief shepherd there, Georg von Wirsberg, intrigues against him. Heinz penetrates the Grand Master. Heinrich von Plauen is delighted. He believed that Heinz had fallen in Tannenberg. Heinz complains in vain about the illegality in Danzig. He wants to defend the Prussian border. The Grand Master wants to make Heinz a spiritual knight. Heinz, who wants to marry Maria Huxer, shies away from the vows of chastity, poverty and obedience.

Natalia follows her mother to Thorn. From there she visits her brother Hans in Buchwalde. Hans joins the lizard association . The members of the secret society seek the proximity of King Jagello. Hans betrays his allies to the Grand Master and later gets Waltrudis as his wife.

Georg von Wirsberg wants to win the “old mad” woodruff and Natalia for an assassination attempt on the grand master. Von Wirsberg loves Natalia, is rejected and robs the virgin. That is a futile effort. Natalia seriously injured von Wirsberg and flees. The offender is arrested and imprisoned.

Maria Huxer lets herself be kidnapped by Heinz. The father Tidemann Huxer thwarted the company. Natalia, who secretly followed Heinz to Danzig and spied there, has taken revenge and betrayed the couple.

The woodruff penetrates the Grand Master, but not to kill him. Heinrich von Plauen recognizes his old My Hart, where he was once the in Gundrat venison had learned. The Grand Master confesses to the old man, Waltrudis is his daughter and Heinz is his son. Meinhart wants to become the guardian of his two grandchildren and is committed to connecting Hansen with Waltrudis. The couple is married. The Grand Master and Heinz are present. Heinz does not blame Hans for betraying his sister Natalia. In 1412 Heinrich von Plauen employs his son Heinz as an informant on diplomatic missions abroad. Heinz obeys.

Heinz, who learns of Mary's death, decides to be ordained a knight. During the consecration, Order Marshal Michael Küchmeister von Sternberg pressed a fateful confession from the Grand Master: Heinz is the son of Heinrich von Plauen. The Grand Master informs the son that he had taken the cross at the time because Heinzen's mother Mechthild had died. Although Heinz feels shamefully rejected, he is free and can free. Because Maria lives. Tidemann Huxer had locked the daughter in the monastery and had her declared dead.

As the war captain of the city of Lübeck, Heinz successfully fights pirates; delivers Marquard Stenebreeker to the gallows. After Heinz chased away two captured ships from the pirates and returned them to Huxer, the councilor gave the war captain's daughter Maria to wife. The couple - and Hans and Waltrudis too - have children. The woodruff leaves Prussia and dares a new beginning in the Lithuanian forest wilderness. Natalia lives in the old man's free forest hut as a woodruff, finally takes poison and sets her dwelling on fire. The girl's remains are found under the charred beams of the hut.

The Order Marshal von Sternberg, a conspirator who strives for peace with Poland, deposed Heinrich von Plauen as Grand Master in 1413 and took over the high office himself. Heinrich von Plauen, who was not allowed to wage war against the external enemy, died in 1429 with a broken heart.

Quotes

  • "What happens in an emergency cannot be judged."
  • "Whoever lives shouldn't be lost."
  • "What I want to become, I have to make myself."
  • "Every new day finds a new person."

shape

The omniscient narrator lets protagonists think half aloud or softly. The thoughts are mostly highlighted like verbatim speech. Wichert always comments once on his lecture. For example Heinrich von Plauen entered the knightly order “as a result of gloomy life experiences and under the pressure of a mood that demanded a complete turning away from the world”.

Wichert's black and white painting cannot be overlooked. This becomes visible, for example, during the description of the Battle of Tannenberg. King Wladislaus Jagello is marked with every imaginable negative attribute. Jagello avoids staying in the center of the ruthless turmoil during the grueling slaughter. Ulrich von Jungingen, on the other hand, is fighting in the front line; falls as an intrepid knight who values ​​honor higher than life and can ultimately only be defeated by betrayal from his own ranks.

Wichert occasionally has an old, experienced man or at least a worthy gentleman explain a chapter in Baltic history to the respective greenhorn - that is Hans and Heinz . Thus the reader learns something about the reasons for the mortal enmity mentioned at the beginning, for example. Wichert's war correspondent and chronicler narrative tone does not belong in a prose work, but the author can do otherwise. For example, reading the 29th chapter “The Flight” amazes the reader with the touching and believable portrayal of Natalia's love for the hero Heinz.

Wichert allows insight into the everyday life of the knights.

reception

  • Sprengel points to the "criticism of the nobility".
  • The text is one of the few religious novels that were published in the German Empire .

expenditure

First edition

  • Heinrich von Plauen. Historical novel in three volumes. Published by Carl Reissner, Leipzig 1881.

Used edition

  • Heinrich von Plauen. A novel from the past of the German East. With an introduction by Waldemar Oehlke . Oswald Arnold Verlag, Berlin 1943. Printed by Rudolf M. Rohrer in Brno . First volume 442 pages. Second volume 450 pages

Another edition

  • Heinrich von Plauen. A novel from the German East. With illustrations. Schild-Verlag Munich 1959 (2 vols. 320 and 356 pages)

literature

  • 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

Individual evidence

  1. Gut Buchwalde is not far from the village of Okonin in the Kulmerland around Rehden .
  2. Meinhart lives under the false name Gundrat
  3. see also Princely House Reuss
  4. Used edition, Vol. 2, p. 412, 7. Zvo
  5. Used edition, Vol. 1, p. 368, 18. Zvo
  6. Used edition, Vol. 1, p. 401, 2nd Zvu
  7. Used edition, Vol. 2, p. 101, 8. Zvo
  8. Used edition, Vol. 2, p. 381, 6th Zvu
  9. For example, knight Erich von Weißensee first mumbles into his beard (used edition, vol. 1, p. 320, 2nd Zvu) and shortly afterwards Heinrich von Plauen confuses the reader with his thoughts (used edition, vol. 1, p. 322, 14th Zvu).
  10. Used edition, Vol. 1, p. 114, 8th Zvu
  11. Nikolaus von Renys lowers the Kulmische banner in the decisive phase of the battle - as a sign to leave the battlefield.
  12. Heinrich von Plauen, for example, tells the listening Hans about Hermann Balk's efforts to Christianize (used edition, vol. 1, p. 388, 17th Zvo).
  13. The chronicler Wigand von Marburg tells Heinz about the battle of Rudau . As young princes, Jagello and Witowd had to watch their compatriots bleed to death in the fight against the Teutonic Order (used edition, vol. 1, p. 209, 2nd Zvu).
  14. Used edition, Vol. 2, pp. 58–75
  15. Sprengel, p. 180, 2nd Zvu
  16. ^ Heinrich von Plauen