Scepter and hammer

Scepter and hammer belongs to the early works of Karl May and is the first part of a double novel ( Scepter and hammer / The Island of Jewels ), the 1879 / 80 in the fourth volume of the journal for the whole world! was first published.

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Scepter und Hammer is set in the fictional states of Norland and Süderland, behind which the North German and South German Confederations of the founding of the Empire in 1871 are hidden. The southerners, ruled by a despot named Max Joseph, plan to take the Protestant, freedom-loving and liberal Norlanders by surprise by invading them; however, these intrigues are destroyed by Max Brandauer, the son of the Norwegian court blacksmith. In the course of the novel it turns out that he is in reality not a child of a craftsman, but the robbed and exchanged heir to the throne of Norland.

A longer exotic episode is woven into the exciting and varied plot, which tells of how the gypsy Katombo, who fled Norland, made it to the Nurwan-Pasha, the Sultan's Grand Admiral, in Egypt . In the end, with the active help of Nurwan-Pascha alias Katombo and the young Arthur von Sternburg, the southern invasion succeeds. Brandauer is recognized as Crown Prince of Norland and, through his marriage to Princess Asta of Süderland, peace is secured between the two unequal states.

structure

1. Chapter. The Gypsy ( online )
2. Chapter. Overheard ( online )
3. Chapter. The Brothers of Jesus ( online )
4. Chapter. In the house of the mad ( online )
5. Chapter. At the border ( online )
6. Chapter. The beginning of the fight ( online )
7. Chapter. Chess moves ( online )
8. Chapter. Almah ( online )
9. Chapter. The great prince ( online )
10. Chapter. Years ago ( online )
11. Chapter. Paroli ( online )
12. Chapter. A review ( online )
13. Chapter. From rice to Kapudan Pasha ( online )
14. Chapter. The black captain ( online )
15. Chapter. The evening before ( online )
16. Chapter. Fight and victory ( online )

Explanation of the title

The gypsy Zarba to Max Brandauer:

“You will not believe what Zarba tells you, and yet it will come true. Your hand is strong to wield the hammer ; she needs this strength to later hold the scepter . Scepter and hammer will be the watchword of your life. You will sow love and reap enmity; but your fist will fall like a hammer on the heads of your enemies and snatch from them the crowns which they tried to steal from you. "

Text history

Karl May's first major novel was published between August 1879 and August 1880 ( Scepter ) and in mid-August 1880 and April / May 1882 ( Juweleninsel ) in the Stuttgart magazine All-Deutschland! published. It was the 4th year (1880) and the following 5th year (1881); from this year onwards the magazine was called Für alle Welt! which had already been used for a parallel edition. Roland Schmid dated the creation of the scepter and hammer to the period between May 1879 and May 1880. According to Schmid, the Juweleninsel was started in June / July 1880; Hermann Wiedenroth assumed it would be created in late July / early August 1880.

Book editions

This novel (and also the follow-up novel Die Juweleninsel ) was not published again during May's lifetime. This double novel was never mentioned during Karl May's trials either.

A heavily edited version of the text can be found in Volume 45 of the Gesammelte Werke , Zepter und Hammer , since 1926 .

Current issues can be found in the database of the Freundeskreis Karl May Leipzig eV

On the political development in Germany

The novel impressively reflects the political conditions in Germany at that time in the struggle to replace absolutism in favor of a constitutional monarchy in the tense relationship between the German states in the north and south of the country.

The representation in the novel

A humanly repulsive personification of absolutism is the son of the southern king, Prince Hugo von Süderland, also known as the "great prince". Hugo is not only the seducer of Emma Vollmer, the fiancé of the writer Karl Goldschmidt, but also an unscrupulous criminal who is guilty of attempted manslaughter, sexual coercion and deprivation of liberty, among other things. At various points in the novel it becomes clear that Prince Hugo considers his crimes to be justified by his absolutely understood position of power as a member of the royal family: "I am the Prince of Süderland!" The only member of the royal family of Süderland who is positively drawn, is Princess Asta, who at the end of Scepter and Hammer gets engaged to the found Crown Prince Max von Norland, formerly Max Brandauer.

The absolutist model of government in Southern Germany is broken by a “good” revolution . May makes it clear that this is not a coup by the “elite”, but a cross-class popular movement. King Max Joseph remains on his throne, but absolutism is replaced by a constitutional monarchy in which the king is bound by law legitimized by the people. May takes a critical look at absolutism here. With Karl Goldschmidt, Karl May's literary alter ego, as leader of the revolution, played a key role in changing the form of government in Süderland.

The conditions in Norland, described in much more detail in Scepter and Hammer, are much more complex . The monarch is initially characterized as follows:

William the Second, King of Norland, is a ruler of such well-meaning sentiments as none of his ancestors had to show to such extent. Unfortunately, the goodness of his heart does not leave enough room for the strict energy that a man must possess in whose hands the greatest and most difficult tasks of state development are placed. The goodness which makes one happy seems to sanctify the other, perhaps really offends him in his rights, and so it happens that part of the population adores the paternal ruler, while the other part longs for changes in quiet, hidden displeasure which only selfishness and myopic personal egoism can wish for.

Wilhelm is presented to the reader as a kind, honest person and a good-willed regent, who also appears popular and sympathetic through his extraordinary hobby ... for blacksmithing , which he indulges in leather apron at court blacksmith Brandauer . Clear but sounds even at this point the criticism of a monarch who does not fill its function and power in favor of the Prime Minister, the Duke of room castle, possibly out of hand, has the (called) is the real ruler of the country and

He (has) managed to unite the threads of the administration in his hand, to subordinate himself to military power and also to gain the greatest possible influence on diplomatic relations with foreign countries.

With Wilhelm II we are dealing with a good person, but not with a capable regent, as the loyal General von Sternburg observes in a paradoxical formulation: “The King of Norland is a good ruler, but he has his scepter from the Hand given, because the real ruler is that evil Duke of Raumburg ... "

The balance of the reign of the King of Norland - who, according to May's view of the world, is politically responsible for the welfare of the people - is clearly negative; He is therefore no longer valued by broad sections of his people. A Norwegian colonel involved in the preparations for the coup describes this in an interview with the Jesuit priest Valerius alias Alois Penetrier as follows:

"And the population of your district?"

“Is extremely dissatisfied with the current government. Here we are in the most populous factory district in the country; Commerce and industry do not simply stand still, but are completely and completely ruined; the worker goes hungry with his family ; the Social Democratic raises its head and cries for vengeance and help everywhere, smallest places days meetings and meetings where the crusade against the aristocracy , against the propertied classes is preached. What do you want? I can already hear the courageous step of the workers' battalions , which will crush and crush everything that is opposed to it. The multitudes of gymnasts , the associations of the civil guards , all they need is a useful weapon in order to be led to the residence . The local armory holds many thousand rifles : I let them distribute and put myself at the head of the movement ; let the devil fetch me if this example does not immediately find emulation all over the country! "

Although the Prime Minister and Generalissimo Duke of Raumburg is the true ruler, the political responsibility of the inactive king for the conditions in the country becomes clear. The main reason for the dissatisfaction of the population is an economic crisis that affects workers and citizens and which reflects the recession of the “ founder crisis ” that lasted in Germany from 1873 to 1879 . There are therefore objective grievances in Norland too. The colonel therefore counts on the support of the planned revolution from the military base and broad sections of the population. The revolution scenario drawn by May for Norland goes - despite fundamental differences from the southern popular uprising - far beyond a coup carried out by only a few members of the “elite” .

So it is consistent that even the superhero of Scepter and Hammer , the disguised Crown Prince Max Brandauer, openly criticizes King Wilhelm II. The king's weakness enables his opponents to prepare for a broadly projected coup which can only be prevented with considerable effort. It covers the political and military elite of Norland, such as the Minister of War, the Admiralty, representatives of both churches and the court preacher as well as the army. The spirit rector of the uprising , the Duke of Raumburg, even assumes that "the whole civilian population ... has been won" , which then turns out to be too optimistic. Even the neighboring country Süderland is included in the plans and should intervene militarily.

An overthrow can be prevented, but the state crisis - like the popular uprising in Süderland - triggers radical changes in the system of government. The driving force behind this reorganization of the state is not the king himself, but the hero Max Brandauer, who as an exchanged child is of royal blood and the son of Wilhelm II, but was socialized in the family of the court blacksmith Brandauer. The king "proclaims the constitution" : those "whose draft Max has long since made without my having a clue ..." It is not Wilhelm II who stands for the future of Norland, but the "bourgeois" Crown Prince.

The actual circumstances

The constitutional monarchy had been established in Germany since the establishment of the German Empire in 1871. But the small German leading power Prussia had only had a constitution since 1848 , which was not adopted by the National Assembly but was imposed by the King , only provided for a very limited separation of powers and was disavowed by the King during the constitutional dispute from 1862 to 1866 regarding budget law as a central competence of Parliament has been. For Otto von Bismarck, who was appointed Prussian Prime Minister in 1862, the constitution was "so indeterminate (...) that he not only governed without a budget, but also violated paragraphs that had nothing to do with the dispute itself" Only the North German Federal Constitution of 1867 brought a breakthrough to universal suffrage in the federal government, with Prussia itself adhering to three-class suffrage and an almost absolute position of the king until 1918 . And: The Austrian Empire , chairman of the German Confederation that existed from 1815 to 1866 , was ruled authoritarian during the Restoration until 1861: "Like a conqueror, the young Franz Joseph resided in his own states."

Democratic thinking was by no means firmly anchored in the epoch in which the scepter and hammer emerged. The constitution of the German Reich of April 16, 1871, with a relatively weak position of the Reichstag, the renunciation of a catalog of fundamental rights (which, however, existed in the constitutions of the federal states) and a description of the separation of powers in principle, was the basic order of an economically liberal, but politically authoritarian state.

Karl May's attitude

Criticism of the authorities

For Karl May, in his early double novel - more pronounced in scepter and hammer , but also in the form of the "great prince" in Die Juweleninsel - the monarchs were not sacrosanct. Criticism is not only leveled at the absolutist King Max Joseph von Süderland, but also at the humanly integrity Wilhelm II. Von Norland: He is a bad ruler who not only lets the reins of the state drag, but puts it in the hands of a villain and with the the negative effects of his political failure on social conditions so large circles of the elite and the population are so opposed that a coup d'état could have been successful without the intervention of the future "prince" Max.

May does not overthrow the kings of his fictional monarchies, but he criticizes them in a way that is atypical for his oeuvre and emphasizes their personal responsibility for the grave grievances in the states entrusted to them. Karl May not only quarrels with God in Scepter / Juweleninsel , but in this novel he also shakes the second pillar of his worldview: the king .

May does not describe the details of the new “ governance ” of Norland and Süderland. However, there are clearly constitutional monarchies whose constitutional constitution, although enacted by the kings, is legitimized by the people. The members of the constitutional convention are evidently determined by a general, equal election. May not only gives the absolute monarchy a clear rejection, but also integrates democratic elements. In “Scepter und Hammer” May does not develop a constitutional political concept, but suggests a model of government that points beyond the “paternalistic views of personal grace and grace, condemnation and punishment” . He is thus quite at the height of the development in his epoch.

German conditions are reflected in the events taking place in Norland and Süderland. According to Christoph F. Lorenz, "the Protestant Norland is clearly modeled on the model of Prussia ". King Max Joseph von Süderland "with his absolutist tendencies" represents for him "cum grano salis a portrait of Ludwig II of Bavaria (...)". In his first great novel, May not only quarreled with God and King, but he also evaded the direct representation of his fatherland Germany and reflected it in a geographically non-existent area of ​​action.

Criticism of the state order

Also with regard to the state order, which can be seen as the second aspect of May's understanding of "fatherland", May describes inadequate conditions in Norland and Süderland that deviate from the idea of ​​Germany as an intact state: In Norland, the entire state apparatus lies due to passivity of the king in the hand of a villain, the Duke of Raumburg, who says of himself: "I can make happy and ruin as I please, and your accusation and persecution I am too high for you to succeed in getting me to reach."

A particularly striking example of the disruption of the Norland state order is the arbitrary placement of political prisoners in psychiatry . The director of the state insane asylum housed in an old castle , a former high-ranking military doctor, who had received this highly lucrative position through the protection of the Duke of Raumburg , with the support of his senior physician, on the orders of the Duke, takes sane people - Captain von Wallroth and his mother, the gypsy princess Zarba - to the institution and tortures her with the straitjacket. The corruption and arbitrariness prevailing in the Norwegian state apparatus lead to the absolute lack of rights of the individual.

In his double novel, May reflects Germany in a utopian space in which the state order, which is significant for his view of the world, is undermined by the arbitrary handling of state, state-related and church “authorities” with innocent people. May not only quarreled with God and King in Scepter / Juweleninsel , but also shook the third pillar of his worldview: the fatherland .

evaluation

Scepter und Hammer was started by Karl May during the “Stollberg Affair” in the early summer of 1879 and was written in parts probably even during his three-week imprisonment in the detention center of the Hohenstein-Ernstthal court office . At the beginning of the Juweleninsel in the early summer of 1880, the humiliating events were almost three quarters of a year over, but due to their grave nature they may still have been present in the writer's psyche.

The psychological wounds could have healed about a year after May's definitive last prison sentence, i.e. in the fall of 1880, when he was still writing on Jewel Island , but was already saying goodbye to this project and preparing to enter a fictional world of a new quality to dive into the fantasy cosmos of his oriental cycle .

This makes it understandable why Karl May shook the three central pillars of his worldview - God, King and Fatherland - in the parts of his double novel that was written up to November 1880. The fatherland - the police and the judiciary of the Kingdom of Saxony - had treated him arbitrarily and deeply hurtful. The revered King Albert of Saxony , with a formal act from his Ministry of Justice, denied him the mitigation of the sentence he had requested for good reasons. And: There was not the slightest trace of an intervention by God as an instance of compensatory justice in the entire event.

These events, which were deeply shocking for May, required literary processing, for which the great novel, with its fictional yet affectionate states of Norland and Süderland, was made for Germany and the Kingdom of Saxony . The critical examination of May's worldview in the “State Novel” Scepter and Hammer has a much more stringent effect than in the Juweleninsel , where it is increasingly overlaid by common, gimmicky motifs from trivial literature and gradually up to the (seventh) “Bowie Pater” chapter ends.

Remarks

1. ↑ http://www.karl-may-wiki.de/index.php/Max_Joseph_von_Süderland
2. ↑ http://www.karl-may-wiki.de/index.php/Max_Brandauer
3. ↑ http://www.karl-may-wiki.de/index.php/Katombo
4. ↑ http://www.karl-may-wiki.de/index.php/Arthur_von_Sternburg
5. ↑ http://www.karl-may-wiki.de/index.php/Asta_von_Süderland
6. ↑ Christoph F. Lorenz: From the Jewel Island to Mount Winnetou ... , 2003, p. 211 f.
7. ↑ http://www.karl-may-wiki.de/index.php/Zarba_(Scepter_und_Hammer)
8. ↑ Reprint ( online version ), p. 3.
9. ↑ http://www.karl-may-wiki.de/index.php/Hugo_von_Süderland
10. ↑ http://www.karl-may-wiki.de/index.php/Karl_Goldschmidt
11. ↑ http://www.karl-may-wiki.de/index.php/Wilhelm_II._von_Norland
12. ↑ ^{a b} Reprint ( online version ), p. 83.
13. ↑ Reprint ( online version ), p. 65.
14. ↑ http://www.karl-may-wiki.de/index.php/Herzog_von_Raumburg_(Sohn)
15. ↑ Reprint ( online version ), p. 403.
16. ↑ http://www.karl-may-wiki.de/index.php/Pater_Valerius
17. ↑ Reprint ( online version ), p. 33.
18. ↑ The Protestant denomination is not spared in Scepter and Hammer von May. The evangelical chief preacher of Norland is, so to speak, “arm in arm” with the Jesuits , also “among the traitors” and even plays a key role in the rebellion against the “good” King Wilhelm II: “In the library of the court preacher, where you can the least looking for something like this, the necessary proclamations and leaflets are in thousands of copies ... " (Quoted by Hartmut Wörner: Gott, König und Vaterland ... , 2015, p. 154.)
19. ↑ Reprint ( online version ), p. 742.
20. ↑ Excerpts from: Hartmut Wörner: Gott, König und Vaterland ... , 2015, pp. 155–159. There also the individual proofs not reproduced here.
21. ^ Golo Mann : German History of the 19th and 20th Centuries , Frankfurt am Main 1978, p. 332.
22. ^ Golo Mann: German History of the 19th and 20th Centuries , Frankfurt am Main 1978, p. 341.
23. ↑ Excerpts from: Hartmut Wörner: Gott, König und Vaterland ... , 2015, p. 160.
24. ↑ Volker Klotz: ›Die Juweleninsel‹ ... , 1979, p. 272.
25. ↑ Christoph F. Lorenz: Work article in the Karl May Handbook, p. 308. Despite the name of the king, Norland stands for the evangelical kingdom of Saxony, which has been on the side of Prussia in the North German Confederation since 1867, in view of the "non-Prussian" conditions . Süderland, at least in its King Max Joseph, also alludes to the "southern German" Austria with its emperor Franz Joseph I, who had long been restorative and absolutist .
26. ↑ Excerpts from: Hartmut Wörner: Gott, König und Vaterland ... , 2015, pp. 159–161.
27. ↑ Reprint ( online version ), p. 372.
28. ↑ Reprint ( online version ), p. 66.
29. ↑ Excerpts from: Hartmut Wörner: Gott, König und Vaterland ... , 2015, pp. 161–163.
30. ↑ http://karl-may-wiki.de/index.php/Stollberg-Affäre
31. ↑ Hartmut Wörner: God, King and Fatherland ... , 2015, p. 168.

literature

• Volker Klotz: ›The Jewel Island‹ - and what you could see from it. Reading notes on the first novels along with some questions about Karl May research . In: Yearbook of the Karl May Society (Jb-KMG) 1979. Hamburg 1979, pp. 262–275 (263).
• Christoph F. Lorenz: Karl May's little world theater. In: Communications from the Karl May Society No. 42/1979, pp. 31–33. ( Online version )
• Karl May's first great novel Scepter and Hammer - The Jewel Island . Special issue of the Karl May Society No. 23/1980. ( Online version )
• Hainer Plaul: Illustrated Karl May Bibliography. With the participation of Gerhard Klußmeier . Edition Leipzig 1988. ISBN 3-361-00145-5 (or) KG Saur Munich – London – New York – Paris 1989. ISBN 3-598-07258-9
• Christoph F. Lorenz: Blown Traces. On the management of the plot and processing of motifs in Karl May's novel “Die Juweleninsel” . In: Jb-KMG 1990. Husum 1990, pp. 265-286 (267).
• Stefan Schmatz: Karl May's political worldview. A proletarian between liberalism and conservatism . Special issue of the Karl May Society (S-KMG) No. 86/1990.
• Wolfgang Hermesmeier, Stefan Schmatz : Karl May Bibliography 1913–1945. Karl-May-Verlag Bamberg-Radebeul 2000. ISBN 3-7802-0157-7
• Christoph F. Lorenz: Scepter and hammer. In: Gert Ueding (Ed.): Karl-May-Handbuch. Publishing house Königshausen & Neumann Würzburg 2001, pp. 305-309. ISBN 3-8260-1813-3 ( online version )
• Christoph F. Lorenz: From the jewel island to Mount Winnetou. Notes on three text edits . In: Lothar Schmid (Hrsg.): Der schliffene Diamant , Bamberg 2003.
• Karl May's works. Historical-critical edition. Dept. IX Materials . Vol. I.1-I.3: Hermann Wohlgschaft: Karl May. Life and work. Biography . Edited in collaboration with the Karl May Society. Bargfeld 2005, p. 498 f.
• Thomas Vormbaum: Filucius and Valerius: "Reichsfeinde" with Wilhelm Busch and Karl May . In: Wiener Karl May Brief Issue 1/2011.
• Hartmut Wörner: God, King and Fatherland. How and why Karl May shook the pillars of his worldview in his first great novel . In: Yearbook of the Karl May Society 2015, pp. 141–194.
• Martin Roussel: Shipwreck without a spectator. Karl May's double novel ›Scepter und Hammer‹ / ›Die Juweleninsel‹ as an experiment in a political imagology . In: Yearbook of the Karl May Society 2015, pp. 195–221.

Web links

• Book database
• The original text online on the Karl May Society website .
• People and places of action in Scepter and Hammer (online in the Karl May Wiki) .
• Table of contents in the Koelner-leselust.