After the great war

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After the Great War is a little historical novel by Wilhelm Raabe , which was written from August 1860 to March 1861 and was published by Ernst Schotte in Berlin in 1861. Raabe, who called the text an idyll , saw reprints in 1902.

Fritz Wolkenjäger works as a teacher in Sachsenhagen. From May 1, 1816 to August 30, 1817, the young schoolboy wrote twelve letters to the doctor Sever, the war comrade who had been wearing the Iron Cross since Laon . The doctor's replies by letter are missing. In the twelve monologues, Fritz tells how he won his dear wife Anna and about the hopes of the surviving German fighters after the wars of liberation .

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The letters are also lament for the dead. Two Schillscher Reiter fighters against the Napoleonic occupiers are commemorated. On March 3, 1810, Sever's brother Robert was shot "in high court ". A year earlier, Konrad Wolf had been hiding on Trautenstein. The scattered Schill rider was discovered by his captors on May 30, 1809 and sentenced to death by a court martial.

In Sachsenhagen, Fritz likes to visit the blacksmith Martin Bart in his spare time. In the forge, the teacher meets old lieutenant Wolfgang Bart, who is the blacksmith's brother. The lieutenant, meanwhile a veteran, had been sold to the English by the Elector of Kassel . In their German Legion , Wolfgang Bart fought against the troops of King Joseph Bonaparte in front of Talavera on July 28, 1809 . Next to the battlefield, which was covered with "but a thousand dead", the lieutenant had picked up Anna, born in 1797, and carried it away in his soldier's coat. Her sweet soul had sickened with respected blood and horror. Anna had forgotten almost everything. It was almost as if she had been born on July 28, 1809. In the following years, the initially unconscious girl in Talavera became his “dear little daughter”. The lieutenant had taken the girl with him to England, Malta and Sicily. On April 20, 1816 both returned to their German homeland.

Lieutenant Wolfgang Bart brings his still sick foster child to a quiet place in the forest mountains. There, in the Trautenstein Forest Castle, Anna lives.

Fritz wants to save Anna's child's soul. So he goes looking for it during the holidays. He penetrates the forest, even wanders through the mild summer night and actually comes across Jagdschloss Trautenstein - a decaying, hidden wall that the wild duke had built two hundred years ago for his beautiful mistress , Miss Anna von Rhoda .

The people at the forest castle go about their work. Old Lieutenant Bart has absolutely nothing against it when his lovely foster child Anna roams through the mountain forest with the teacher Fritz Wolkenjäger. Sometimes both of them look at an old painting when they return to the castle. It shows Anna von Rhoda. Fritz finds out that there are only two people in the castle who notice and express the resemblance between the girl Anna and Anna von Rhoda in the painting. These are the maid Susanna Reussner and himself. Fritz wants to find out the cause of the similarity - also because Susanna Reussner hates his little Anna because of this similarity. During their forays into the forest, Fritz and the girl Anna come across a charcoal burner who knows how to tell from the story of those of Rhoda so vividly that Anna finds her lost memory again. It turns out that the last of his line is Otto von Rhoda. In 1796 he married Miss Helene von Maschke, a Saxon lady. The woman died the following year after giving birth to a daughter. On May 30, 1809 Otto von Rhoda led the French to the hiding place of Schill's rider Konrad Wolf and on July 28 of the same year he faced Lieutenant Bart in Talavera. When Napoleon moved to Russia , von Rhoda had to give up the search for his child. On the retreat, Rhoda became a colonel, entered Germany, later fought against his German fatherland at Waterloo , lived in Paris and decided to return home. His journey ends on Trautenstein. Anna and Fritz with her are sitting on their father's deathbed. When Anna and Fritz, now a couple, leave the forest castle in the direction of Sachsenhagen, their carriage is stopped in the rain by Susanna Reussner. The maid, bride of Konrad Wolf, gives Anna a bouquet of forest flowers and asks for forgiveness. She couldn't love Anna, but she hopes for God's mercy .

The former fighter Sever can no longer bear Germany and has fled to a foreign country. Anna looks over the shoulder of her writing Fritz and asks Sever to return home. Because she found out how it is in a foreign country.

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Fritz not only talks about the Wars of Liberation, but goes back to the end of the late Middle Ages when he denounces the vicious affluence of the nobility who squeezed the farmers in the area around the Trautenstein. The little epistolary novel is full of side stories. This means, for example, that of Marie. This is Susanna Reussner's ancestor .

Raabe is not so specific about the times. For example, he writes that the wild duke built the Trautenstein forest castle “two hundred years ago” - that would be the beginning of the 17th century - for Anna von Rhoda. If you believe home, then Anna von Rhoda means the lady-in-waiting Eva von Trott. However, Eva gave birth to her illegitimate children in the first half of the 16th century. In this context, the location of the action cannot be localized more precisely. If one takes into account all of Heim's research, only the area between Wernigerode and Goslar can be assumed.

Raabe repeats himself. For example, the fact that Captain Otto von Rhoda was on the court-martial is mentioned twice.

reception

  • Heim reproduces contemporary expressions. On March 6, 1862, a couple of “improbabilities and violence” were excused in the Leipzig “ Blätter für literary entertainment ”. After all, it is a poetic text. The “ Berliner Tageblatt ” (Theodor Kappstein) commemorates Raabe's 70th birthday on September 7, 1901 and the “ Rheinisch-Westfälische Zeitung ” on September 8, 1901. Suddenly one is full of praise - praises the figure of Anna von Rhoda as well as “a strong sense of home” and “deep love for the fatherland”. The hymn of praise on September 25, 1909 in the " Ostdeutsche Rundschau " was even more exuberant . Wilhelm Kosch now, a year before Raabe's death, lifts the poet's language into the sky.
Recent comments:
  • Oppermann finds the epithets "romantic" and "fantastic" and criticizes the inconsistency in the execution of the letter novel. The relatively extensive 9th letter contains entries in the diary. In addition, the " Werther " model is in the background. But Oppermann looks deeper and sees the text as a milestone on the young author's path. The main thing is not the colorfully presented event, but rather its reflection on the head of the letter writer Fritz.
  • In the figure of Lieutenant Bart, Raabe shaped the fate of one of his ancestors, who passed from Duke Karl I to King George III. would have been borrowed. Fuld suspects that Raabe also wrote the little novel because he would have been advised that historical materials could be sold quite well.
  • Meyen names other leading works: Otto Elster (Berlin 1913), Wilhelm Brandes , Ernst Bößer, Paul Fuchtel (Wolfenbüttel 1920, 1924, 1933), Konrad Bechstein (Weimar 1935) and Wilhelm Fehse (Braunschweig 1937). Martin Schultz did his doctorate on the novel in Bonn in 1920 (together with “ Im Siegeskranze ”).

expenditure

First edition

  • “After the great war. A story in twelve letters. By Wilhelm Raabe. “228 pages. Ernst Schotte, Berlin 1861

Used edition

  • After the great war. A story in twelve letters . Pp. 5-139. With an appendix, written by Karl Heim, pp. 429-530 in Karl Heim (arrangement), Hans Oppermann (arrangement): After the great war. Our Lord's office . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1969. Vol. 4 (2nd edition, obtained from Karl Hoppe and Hans Oppermann), without ISBN in Hoppe (ed.), Jost Schillemeit (ed.), Hans Oppermann (ed.), Kurt Schreinert (Ed.): Wilhelm Raabe. Complete Works. Braunschweig edition . 24 vols.

Further editions

  • “After the great war. A story in twelve letters. By Wilhelm Raabe. "
    • 180 pages. Grote, Berlin 1902 (2nd, 3rd, 4th ed.), 1924 (7th edition), 1940
    • 109 pages. Hermann Klemm, Berlin-Grunewald 1934
    • 139 pages. Klemm, Freiburg im Breisgau 1955

literature

Remarks

  1. ^ Probably in the northern Harz in the Wernigerode area (after Heim in the edition used, p. 494 middle).
  2. ↑ For example, Ernst Schulze , Theodor Körner and Seume are celebrated as singers of freedom.
  3. ↑ In the above-mentioned Westphalian court martial, which convicted Konrad Wolf, there was also Captain Otto von Rhoda (edition used, p. 88, 11th Zvu).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ von Studnitz, p. 310, entry 17
  2. ↑ Edition used, p. 480, 7th Zvu
  3. ↑ Edition used, p. 482 15. Zvo
  4. ↑ Edition used, p. 482, 8. Zvo
  5. ↑ Edition used, pp. 487–488
  6. ↑ Edition used, p. 9
  7. ↑ Edition used, p. 130
  8. ↑ see also Heim in the edition used, p. 502, 14. Zvo
  9. ↑ see also Heim in the edition used, p. 502, 15. Zvo
  10. ↑ Edition used, p. 112, 15. Zvo
  11. ↑ Edition used, p. 70, 3. Zvo
  12. ↑ Edition used, pp. 494–503
  13. ↑ Edition used, p. 82 above and p. 88 below.
  14. ^ Heim in the edition used, pp. 486–487
  15. ↑ Oppermann, pp. 56-58
  16. ↑ Fuld, p. 17 above
  17. ↑ Fuld, p. 142 below
  18. ↑ Meyen, pp. 364-365
  19. ↑ Edition used, p. 487, entry B1
  20. ↑ Edition used, pp. 487–488, entries from B2
  21. ↑ Meyen, p. 112, entry 663