Johannes Diermissen

Johannes Diermissen

Johannes Joachim August Friedrich Diermissen (born August 3, 1823 in Lauenburg , † 1893 in Uetersen ) was a Low German author and folklorist .

Life

Childhood and writing

He was the son of Elbe customs administrators, Justizrat Christian Bernhard Diermissen and Charlotte Louise Diermissen, b. Hornbostel. Dier Missen first attended the elementary school in his hometown, later the school in Lüneburg and studied afterwards in Kiel and Berlin law . When the Schleswig-Holstein uprising against Denmark broke out in 1848, he reported to the Jäger Battalion in Ratzeburg , where he was initially promoted from non-commissioned officer to lieutenant . In 1852 he joined the customs service and was transferred to Dwerkaten as a customs assistant . Two trade routes that were important at the time crossed there. Many of the wagoners, stagecoachers and commercial travelers stayed in the local inns and inns. There Diermissen heard her tales and stories and found pleasure in hers. In the following four years he collected a large number of Low German stories, which he later wrote down in several books and dozens of essays. His most famous books Ut de Muskist and de lütte Strohoot were published in duplicate at the time. He also wrote hundreds of stories, verses and rhymes that appeared in the Itzehoer Nachrichten and in the Hamburgischer Correspondenten . Stories of him appeared even in Java . It is not known where this relationship with Java came from.

Life in Uetersen

In 1857 he was transferred to Uetersen as a customs collector, where most of his folk stories originated. On May 31, 1864, at the age of 41, he married the 40-year-old Lucia Lienau , sister of the Moorreger castle lord Michael Lienau . This marriage remained childless and his wife died 11 years later. Two years later he married Charlotte Wilhelmine Amalie Henriette von Rantzau , daughter of the Württemberg nobleman Johann Friedrich Hannibal von Rantzau . This marriage also remained childless.

As customs administrators in Uetersen he had his hands full after the Danish government, the former duty-free treatment of the Office vogtei had picked Uetersen. According to current law, he had to levy customs duties on all imports and exports on the Pinnau . The result was that some of the imported goods were smuggled. They smuggled pepper , coffee , wine and sugar , among other things . But most of the quarrel was made with English material. Half Uetersen wore corduroy trousers and in every home was a coffee roaster , with the green coffee beans have been roasted. The smugglers had devised a very simple way of diverting something from the shipments. Even before the Uetersen harbor was reached, the goods were hidden in secret places at the mouth of the Pinnau and picked up by middlemen. When Diermissen got wind of it, a real cat-and-mouse game began. The smugglers often had to wait for hours, standing up to their stomachs in the mud , until the customs officer left the area. In the end, however, Johannes Diermissen gained the upper hand and smuggling was stopped.

The bachelor years

His heyday as a popular storyteller was undoubtedly his bachelorhood. During this time he wrote his hiking legend De veermal dode Paap vun Lüttensee, which was told throughout Germany decades after his death and was later even set to music. But the folk plays such as the robber barons of Lütjensee or The wild hunter in Grönwald were created during this time. These were also played on many small town stages for years .

The lonely death

The Diermissen house in Uetersen

Johannes Diermissen died in Uetersen in 1893 at the age of 70. Few accompanied him on his final journey to the grave. His old friends, with whom he frequented Düneck Castle , such as the lord Michael Lienau , the Uetersen mayor Heinrich Meßtorff and the geologist Ludwig Meyn whom he was Dr. Whiteness called all were almost dead. The city of Uetersen in which he had lived 36 years, took no notice of his local history work. Only his hometown Lauenburg remembered him and his books, stories and writings began to be collected. The memory of him is preserved in the town's local museum. Only in Uetersen has it been forgotten. The Uetersen local history museum later dedicated a plaque to him on his home. This then became known as the Diermissen House .

Works (selection)

Books

• De lüttje Strohoot (1847) Kiel, Chr. Bünsow, 148 p. Poems, partly German, partly Low German.
• Ut de Mußkist (1862) Kiel: Homann, 80 S. Low German rhymes, sayings and stories from Northern Albingia. Collected from the vernacular.
• Parrot shooting at Pentecost (1884), 110 S. Hamburg

stories

• De veermal dode Paap vun Lüttensee
• the robber barons of Lütjensee
• The wild hunter in the Grönwald

See also

• Dielmissen place in Lower Saxony / forms of name

• Diermissen surname

literature

• Lothar Mosler : Uetersen. History and stories 1234-1984 .

Web links

• Johannes Diermissen in the Low German Bibliography and Biography (PBuB)