Our Lord's office

Our Herrgotts Kanzlei is a historical story by Wilhelm Raabe , which - conceived around 1850 - was written in mid-1861 and published in 1862 by Westermann in Braunschweig. Raabe experienced reprints in 1889, 1897, 1901, 1903, 1907 and 1909. Raabe's biographer Werner Fuld called the text a Magdeburg and a homecoming novel. By dealing with a subject from the 16th century, Raabe takes sides for the citizens and peasants against the knights and princes.

" Our Lord's Chancellery " has been a name of honor for the Protestant city ​​of Magdeburg since 1524 . Its citizens opposed the emperor's interim in the middle of the 16th century . Raabe tells the story of the siege of the city on the Elbe from September 1550 to November 1551.

content

On September 14, 1550, the "wild" Duke Georg zu Mecklenburg moved into Halberstadt Abbey and moved on to the Magdeburg Archbishopric . Just three years ago the emperor had the Lutheran Magdeburg in the night talking, because the big city would not recognize his interim. Now 3200 armed men are supposed to introduce “the new religious law by force”. The presses in Magdeburg should no longer print against the interim.

Markus Horn, born in Magdeburg in 1523, returns home on the same day. In 1547, the young Magister Markus had exchanged his university stays in Wittenberg , Leipzig and Erfurt for the war trade and fought against the federal government at Mühlberg . The returnees are chased out of the house by the “iron-hearted” father, Magdeburg councilor Ludolf Horn. Markus obediently avoids the “House of Anger”, but stays in his hometown. An appearance by Lieutenant Adam Xaver Schwartze from Bamberg is decisive. The printer Michael Lotther, a neighbor of the Horn family, wants to marry his daughter Regina, born on February 26, 1531, to a warrior. The Landsknechtführer from Franconia desires Regina and has good prospects as a future son-in-law. Markus has one eye on his childhood friend Regina and hates the rival.

Markus stays with his childhood friend Christof Alemann, an ensign of the city cavalry. Christof is the son of Mayor Heine Alemann . The friend introduces Markus to his captain Johann von Kindelbrück. Markus realizes that he was on the wrong side with Mühlberg. That is one of the reasons why he wanted to bring fifty brave guys, armed and armed, to his hometown. Von Kindelbrück vouches for Markus Horn with Colonel Ebeling Alemann. As Rottmeister, the newly crowned Ensign Horn, under Captain von Kindelbrück, approaches the army of the Duke of Mecklenburg. Another two strong flags under Captain Galle von Fullendorf and Captain Hans Springer move into the field. Adam Schwartze is a lieutenant under the Alsatian Hans Springer. Even the grizzled book printer Michael Lotther is armed against the grim enemy. At Hillersleben monastery an der Ohre , the Mecklenburg man defeated the Magdeburg army of citizens, peasants and mercenaries on September 22, 1550 with the merciless cry: “Beat citizens to death! Beat farmer to death! Let Landsknecht live! ”Hans Springer and Adam Schwartze stay out of the slaughter. After a self-sacrificing fight, Rottmeister Markus brings the book printer Michael Lotther, seriously injured by a halberd blow, home in a wagon. When Markus lifts the wounded man's daughter onto the wagon, he has an experience. The fighter feels that Regina has grown into a desirable young woman during his years of absence. The armor of the defeated shows bad battle marks. Some have left the weapon in the field. But Hans Springer and Adam Schwartze - eyed suspiciously by the Magdeburgers who stayed at home - return unharmed and fully armed.

Already at the beginning of the siege that followed, which lasted for months, the enclosed Magdeburg counter-attacks on the Mecklenburg, who chose Schönebeck as their headquarters, started. For example, Colonel Ebeling Alemann ordered the gun master Andreas Kritzmann to climb the Jacobsturm. Kritzmann shoots himself at the enemy. Guns are poured from the church bells and placed on the city wall.

After the lost battle, the printer Michael Lotther no longer wants to listen to Lieutenant Schwartze so much, but more to Markus. In addition, the lieutenant is unsettled by a series of letters from the mail . The threatening letters announce vengeance for Anna Josepha Agnese Scheuerin's “drowning in a sack” on September 26, 1544 in Ulm . The child murderer had to sew the sack herself and was sentenced according to the embarrassing court order . Captain Hans Springer encourages his lieutenant. The Lutheran Magdeburg rebels are to be betrayed profitably.

Book printer Michael Lotther curses his neighbor, Councilman Ludolf Horn, in front of Regina, because he has still not forgiven his brave son Markus. The virgin blushes and pales at the speech.

Dr. Scheyring , the emperor's negotiator, is rejected by the city council. Later on - still during the siege - Markus had a second experience. On one of the bastions , surprised by the enemy fire, he suddenly “suddenly holds arm in arm” with Regina. "Her eyes shone peculiarly." The printer calls Markus his "brave son".

The besiegers invade the city on the Elbe and even abuse women and children. Magdeburg Neustadt is abandoned. Immediately after the clashes, residents of Neustadt are accepted into the old town.

In mid-December 1550, the emperor sent his war commissioner Lazarus von Schwendi to Saxony. The local Elector Moritz is to assist the Mecklenburg. The insidious Moritz maneuvers between the parties.

The traitor Lieutenant Schwartze corresponded with the Catholic enemy from Magdeburg. A letter from the lieutenant to the margrave of Kulmbach does not get through.

On December 19, 1550, the citizens dare to take part in a failure. With the battle cry “Kill knights and princes to death; Let the farmer and the citizen live! ”300 riders penetrated directly to the Mecklenburg, wounded the duke severely and kidnapped him together with his noble entourage into captivity in Magdeburg.

On February 5, 1531, Lieutenant Schwartze visited Johanna von Gent, his captain's concubine . Johanna accuses the lieutenant. Just as she was seduced and humiliated by the captain as a girl, Schwartze will do the same to Regina. Johanna knows that the lieutenant plunged the Ulm child murderer into misery.

The lieutenant conspires with the prisoner from Mecklenburg. A messenger from the Duke finds the lieutenant in a precarious state of mind.

Andreas Kritzmann shoots over 400 opponents from the Jacobsturm in Neustadt. On March 9, 1551, the shooter was critically wounded by an enemy bullet. On his deathbed he confesses to Horns and the printer Lotther about his above-mentioned Femebriefen and asks Markus Horn to complete the revenge for Anna Scheuerin on the lieutenant. At the time, Kritzmann's parents would have been against a connection with Anna, the mother of his child, and would have sent the son out of the country. Kritzmann's successor with Anna, the lieutenant, persuaded the young mother to strangle the child. Kritzmann also killed the traitorous lieutenant's messengers to the Catholics and took the messages for himself. The dying man hands the blood-stained letters to the bystanders and dies. Markus doesn't have to fulfill Kritzmann's last will. Lieutenant Schwartze, broken through the distance, dies. On March 19, 1551, Markus and the printer, together with the well-fortified citizens, participated in the suppression of a revolt by the town's servants. Markus is badly wounded in the fighting and can only leave the sick bed towards the end of the siege - at the beginning of autumn 1551. The armistice of August 30, 1551 ended hostilities. Markus and Regina get married. A son was born to the couple on September 8, 1553. The printer Lotther dies in 1565. Markus' parents are killed by the plague in 1570 . The narrator suspects that Regina died in 1584. The church book with the day Markus Horn died was burned in 1631.

Self-testimony

Raabe is said to have confessed to Börries von Münchhausen as an old man : "It's just crap, the Magdeburg factory, all the figures like puppets from old marionette stages."

shape

The narrator always makes temporal comparisons. For example, it is about the clumsiness of the Magdeburg “army crowd” in the open field compared to “an army of today”.

Raabe's text is close to chronicles. For example, he simply writes “Hillersleben or Hildensleben”. Sometimes the narrator falls into the tone of the chronicle.

In the seventh of the eighteen chapters, the narrator reveals the cards: “Both traitors shouted with a loud voice…” This refers to Captain Hans Springer and Lieutenant Adam Schwartze.

Raabe uses expressive old verbs, which are driven out of today's standard German in the dialect : The Landsknechte hunt defenseless farmers in the field and rave.

reception

Magdeburg, the city with the Virgin in its coat of arms

• On the one hand, contemporaries - like Wilhelm Brandes and others - complain about the excessive proximity to the historical source, but on the other hand, Raabe's creative will is clearly visible in the text.
• Fuld sees the Femebriefe as Raabe's slip in the direction of Dumas . With the novel Raabe paid his respects to the city of Magdeburg. From 1849 he was an apprentice in the local Creutz bookshop. A constituent of Raabe's text is the symbol woman, as it is on the Magdeburg city arms between two masculine towers. Markus Horn, the prodigal son, is fighting for his city to return to his mother. In the subsequent edition of the book in 1889, Raabe saw a sign that the reader was finally turning to him.
• Raabe balanced fiction and history.
• In the edition used, Oppermann names Raabe's sources:
  • Friedrich Hortleder : "The Roman Keyser and royal Mayesteten ... Actions and writing: On the causes of the German war, Emperor Carl V, against the Schmalkaldic Federal Colonel". Endter, Gotha 1645
  • Sebastian Besselmeier: Description of the Magdeburg War
  • Heinrich Merkel: Report of the Siege of the Old City of Magdeburg
  • Johannes Pomarius: Summa of the Magdeburg city chronicles. 1586
  • Elias Pomarius: Description of the long-term siege of the imperial free imperial city of Magdeburgk. Johann Francken, Magdeburg 1622.
  • Friedrich Wilhelm Hoffmann: History of the city of Magdeburg. Magdeburg 1845
• Meyen gives references to further work: Wilhelm Fehse (Magdeburg 1912, Braunschweig 1937), Friedrich Castelle (Breslau 1912, 1922), Anni Huschke (Heckner Wolfenbüttel 1925), Otto Kohlmeyer (Halle 1936) and Hans Oppermann (Braunschweig 1956).

expenditure

First edition

• “Our Lord's office. A story in two parts. By Wilhelm Raabe. “234 pages. George Westermann, Braunschweig 1862

Used edition

• Our Lord's office. A story . Pp. 141-475. With an appendix, written by Hans Oppermann, pp. 505–552 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

• "Wilhelm Raabe. Our Lord's office. A story. ”396 pages. Creutz'sche Buchhandlung Magdeburg (2nd, 3rd edition 1889, 4th edition 1901, 5th edition 1903, 6th edition 1907, 7th edition 1909, 10th edition 1916, 11th edition 1918 , 14th edition 1929, 16th edition 1922, 18th edition 1926, 21st edition 1930, 22nd edition 1932, 24th edition 1934, 25th edition 1940, 26th edition 1942, 27th edition . Edition 1943)
• "Wilhelm Raabe. Our Lord's office. A story. ”Hermann Klemm, Berlin-Grunewald 1915, Freiburg im Breisgau 1955
• "Wilhelm Raabe. Unseres Herrgotts Chanzlei. ”With an afterword by Marianne Haedler and illustrations by Werner Klemke . 338 pages. The morning, Berlin 1963

literature

• Hans Oppermann : Wilhelm Raabe. Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1970 (1988 edition), ISBN 3-499-50165-1 (rowohlt's monographs).
• Fritz Meyen : Wilhelm Raabe. Bibliography. 438 pages. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1973 (2nd edition). Supplementary volume 1, ISBN 3-525-20144-3 in Karl Hoppe (Ed.): Wilhelm Raabe. Complete Works. Braunschweig edition . 24 vols.
• Eberhard Rohse : Raabe and the young Brecht. On the reception of early historical stories by Wilhelm Raabe in Bertolt Brecht's high school drama "The Bible". In: Yearbook of the Raabe Society 1978, pp. 17–62 (on Unseres Herrgotts Chancellery, pp. 46–56). ISSN 0075-2371
• Wilhelm Kühlmann : The historical novel as a political-social novel. On the subject of civil liberty in W. Raabe's novel "Our Heergott's Chancellery" . In: Herbert Blume and Eberhard Rohse (eds.): Literature in Braunschweig between the pre-March period and the early days. Contributions to the colloquium of the Braunschweig Literary Association from May 22nd to 24th, 1992 (= Braunschweiger Werkstücke , vol. 84). City archive and city library Braunschweig, Braunschweig 1993, pp. 255–275 ISBN 3-87884-037-3
• Cecilia von Studnitz : Wilhelm Raabe. Writer. A biography. 346 pages. Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1989, ISBN 3-7700-0778-6
• Werner Fuld : Wilhelm Raabe. A biography. 383 pages. Hanser, Munich 1993 (dtv edition in July 2006), ISBN 3-423-34324-9 .

Remarks

1. ↑ Behind the walls of the citizens, outlawed nobles such as the Counts of Mansfeld , Herr von Heideck and Herr Kaspar Pflugk find protection.
2. ^ Magdeburg councilor
3. ↑ This is Johannes Ziering (* March 10, 1505 in Magdeburg; † May 8, 1555 in Magdeburg)
4. ↑ This refers to the middle of the 19th century (edition used, p. 247, 12th issue).
5. ↑ "rasaunen" for "romp, mad, over the ropes" (edition used, p. 265, below)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ von Studnitz, p. 310, entry 17
2. ↑ Edition used, p. 505, 7th Zvu
3. ↑ Edition used, p. 509, 10. Zvo to 16. Zvo
4. ↑ ^{a b} Edition used, p. 518, entry B1
5. ↑ Edition used, p. 518
6. ↑ Fuld, p. 56, 21. Zvo and p. 161, 1. Zvu
7. ↑ Edition used, p. 365, 20. Zvo
8. ↑ quoted in Fuld, p. 162, 2. Zvo
9. ↑ Edition used, p. 253, 3rd Zvu
10. ↑ Edition used, p. 450, 8. Zvo
11. ↑ Edition used, p. 263, 6. Zvo
12. ↑ Edition used, p. 517 middle
13. ^ Fuld, p. 46
14. ↑ Fuld, p. 58, p. 147 above
15. ↑ Oppermann, p. 25ff.
16. ↑ Fuld, p. 64
17. ^ Fuld, p. 316
18. ↑ Oppermann, p. 56 above
19. ↑ Edition used, p. 506 middle-509 above
20. ↑ Meyen, pp. 384-385
21. ↑ Edition used, p. 518 and Meyen, p. 127, entries 772 and 773