Oberlin's three levels
Oberlins three stages is a story by Jakob Wassermann , which appeared in 1922 in the second episode of " Wendekreis " by S. Fischer in Berlin.
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The first stage
At the age of 17, Dietrich Oberlin from Basel lost his father, the councilor Oberlin. The boy's upbringing is taken care of by the 40-year-old mother, councilor Dorine Oberlin. She can't be fooled. Dietrich is supposed to prepare to study law, but he falls ill. On medical advice, the convalescent should attend a school in the country. On the recommendation of a friend - 19-year-old Georg Mathys from Basel, a pupil in Hochlinden in the southern Black Forest - Dietrich is preparing for university there. The headmaster Dr. Lucian von der Leyen is decried as a "dangerous progressive". An incident is the doom of the teacher. At the end of a school athletics competition, the doctor kisses Dietrich on the mouth in public. Prefect Alfred Rottmann reports the unheard of event to the councilor. Dorine orders the son to come to her. Dietrich obeys. Lucian anticipates the suspension and goes to Pastor Langheinrich near Heidelberg .
The second stage
The mother, who always commands and commands, spends whole days on mountain tours in summer studying the alpine flora. That is just right for Dietrich during the holidays. So he can receive a few school friends from Hochlinden at the Oberlins summer residence in Ermatingen . Georg Mathys and Justus Richter have announced that they will be coming later. Kurt Fink has invited himself and brings his fiancée Hedwig Schönwieser with him. Kurt points out Dietrich's alleged homoerotic tendency on Lake Constance . Georg Mathys had warned Dietrich about Kurt. Hedwig is not at all well received by her mother, who is returning to Ermatingen from the mountains. Dorine makes inquiries. Hedwig's father is a porter at the Reichsmarineministerium in Berlin and Hedwig herself - the young lady with the “slim body” - was a tasting mamellie in a department store. The patrician Dorine wants to prevent her son from dealing with such people at all costs. It fails the first attempt. Against his mother's wishes, Dietrich visits the fiancé in a hotel that evening. When Hedwig, left behind by Kurt in Ermatingen for a few days, throws herself at a "stocky person" on the dance floor, Dietrich regrets his disobedience. The mother forgives him. Dietrich is relieved. Hedwig is leaving.
The third stage
Georg Mathys and Justus Richter arrive in Ermatingen. On a walk in the woods, all three young men are impressed by the extraordinary beauty of a lady walking past. The beauty is in the company of another lady and a gentleman. Justus knows the gentlemen by sight. The women are the beautiful Cäcilie and her sister Hanna from Heidelberg - daughters of the psychiatrist Prof. Landgraf. The gentleman is the young Count Hubert Gottlieben, son of a landowner and member of the Reichstag.
A little later, Cecilia succumbs to a revolver gunshot wound in the forest . There is talk of suicide. It turns out that Cäcilie wanted to go to the nearby horticultural school of Dr. Find grace acceptance. Dietrich accommodates Hanna and the grieving parents who hurry up in his summer villa. When her father left, Hanna and her mother Margarete Landgraf took up accommodation in Ermatingen. The mother wants to stay near the grave. Dietrich wants to find out from Hanna the cause of the twin sister's suicide. At his insistence, Dietrich learns apparently absurd from Hanna. Hanna had two opponents in her life - the despotic father and the beautiful sister. The father, a serious painter, has one relationship after another - for example with a patient, Countess Bettine Gottlieben zu Gottlieben.
Dietrich falls in love with Hanna, who is around three years older, and is rejected. He travels to Heidelberg with Hanna and her mother. There he wants to prepare for his studies. Hanna flees from Dietrich to Weimar . Margarete Landgraf has found confidence in Dietrich and says that Hanna got the revolver under an excuse from Dr. Kelling, an assistant doctor to Prof. Landgrafs.
Hanna, who meanwhile reciprocates Dietrich's affection, returns, lies down in the prospective student's bachelor bed and sleeps with him once. Hubert Gottlieben kills himself with hydrogen cyanide . He could not get over the death of his beloved Cecilia. The professor interned the Count's sister Bettine in the psychiatric ward, did not hand her over to Brother Hubert, who was in the storm, and gave him a free hand with Cecilia. Hubert had not returned Hanna's love. For this, the scorned had shot the twin sister with the revolver. After the shooter Hanna admitted this, she shot herself on the sister's grave. Dietrich is lying on it with meningitis . Dorine takes care of the son. The convalescent, accompanied by Georg Mathys, is allowed to take the short drive over to Pastor Langheinrich. Dietrich is rejected by Lucian because he has turned to women and turned away from him. Dietrich does not understand his master and takes part in a torchlight procession of young people with Georg Mathys.
Form and interpretation
Reference is made once to the title-giving levels in the subsection “Summer day and evening”. Dietrich writes to Lucian: “We once talked about the fact that every individual has three different kinds of existence, namely a spiritual, a social and an animal. You said that none of them could lead to a shaping of life for itself, but must have a corrective and enriching effect on the other, and the more noble one is, the higher he is on the ladder of creatures, the more certain he will bring these forces to merge. "
In the second stage - seamlessly following on from the first - Dietrich's argument with his mother is deeply explored psychologically. In keeping with this, the soul of the two protagonists is alternately and relived. The introduction of the twin sisters Hanna and Cäcilie Landgraf in the third stage by chance is perceived by the reader as a non-cementable break in the work.
The 21st century reader is sometimes disturbed by Wassermann's pathos. The all too outrageous construction of the crime story cannot be taken from the author.
reception
- The work did not succeed. Koester criticizes the disparate structure.
literature
Used edition
- Oberlin's three levels and Sturreganz . 1922. Dedicated to Marta the companion. Salzwasser Verlag, Paderborn 2011, ISBN 978-3-943185-50-8 (The story " Sturreganz " is not included in this edition (1st edition).)
Secondary literature
- Rudolf Koester: Jakob Wassermann . Morgenbuch Verlag, Berlin 1996, ISBN 3-371-00384-1
Web links
- The text at Gutenberg-DE