'CIVIBUS AEVI FUTURI': PANORAMIC HISTORIOGRAPHY IN FONTANE'S WANDERUNGEN
DURCH DIE MARK BRANDENBURG
Author(s): Andrew Cusack
Reviewed work(s):
Source: The Modern Language Review, Vol. 104, No. 3 (July 2009), pp. 746-761
Published by: Modern Humanities Research Association
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'CIVIBUS AEVI FUTURI':
IN FONTANE'S
PANORAMIC HISTORIOGRAPHY
WANDERUNGEN DURCH DIE MARK BRANDENBURG
of Theodor Fontane's Wanderungen
durch die Mark Bran
a
not
of
that
has
been
genre
problem
satisfactorily resolved
denburg present
to be regarded as the
recent
Yet
the
deserves
research.1
magnum opus
despite
central work of Fontane's life, both because he laboured on it longer than on
in 1861, the last in 1881) and because
any other (the firstvolume appeared
was
in his own life
that he was acclaimed
it
above all for the Wanderungen
in 1883: 'Mein Metier besteht darin, bis
time: witness his complaint, made
zu schreiben; alles andre
in alle Ewigkeit hinein "M?rkische Wanderungen"
The four volumes
In the following I shall argue
wird nur gn?dig mit in den Kauf genommen.'2
to the Wanderungen
offers a fuller
that applying the model of the panorama
a possible solution to
in
its
and
work
cultural
of
the
context,
understanding
the genre problem. Whether Fontane consciously applied themodel or not is,
in a sense, beside the point. As I hope to show, the omnipresent panorama
the panorama
formed an integral part of his perceptual economy. Although
has been linked to the Wanderungen
before, there has been no sustained
attempt to probe its relationship to that work.3 Art historians and literary
at the Spring Colloquium
of the Fontane-Kreis
Gro?britannien
I am grateful to the participants
10 May
and
of London,
Irland at Royal Holloway,
2008, for their comments
University
on an earlier version of this paper.
suggestions
1
in the Neue
title of the series of articles
Starting with the terms 'M?rkische Bilder'?the
Uwe Hentschel
out of which
the work grew?and
'Wanderungen',
(Kreuz-)Zeitung
Preu?ische
In conclusion
the term
he considers
attempts to arrive at a genre definition for the Wanderungen.
that
it on the grounds
to the work?'Reisefeuilleton'?rejecting
in the postscript
used by Fontane
over
in which
form takes precedence
of writing
Fontane understands
the feuilleton as a mode
a description
to apply to
content. Hentschel
argues that Fontane could scarcely have intended such
in respect of genre: 'Mag dahingestellt
his own life's work, but makes no positive recommendation
sei, zumindest nutzte er
bleiben, ob der Genrebegriff Feuilleton f?r Fontanes Reisewerk angemessen
um seine unsystematische,
literarisch-anschauliche
ihn wie den der Wanderung,
Darstellungsweise
zu fixieren' (Uwe Hentschel,
'"M?rkische Bilder" oder "Wanderungen"?
Anmerkungen
begrifflich
im Kontext
zur Textsortenproblematik',
in Fontanes
Brandenburg'
'Wanderungen durch die Mark
&
Delf von Wolzogen
ed. by Hanna
der europ?ischen
Reiseliteratur,
(W?rzburg: K?nigshausen
und
Neumann,
2
Letter
2003), pp. 81-94
(p. 94)).
toWilhelm
Friedrich, 19 January 1883, in Theodor Fontane, Werke, Schriften und Briefe,
20 vols in four parts, 2nd edn (Munich: Hanser,
ed. by Walter Keitel and Helmuth N?rnberger,
will be indicated
from this edition (the Hanser-Ausgabe)
, p. 230. Citations
1962-97),
pt IV, vol.
and page number
(the above citation would
appear as IV/111, 230). Part II of
by part, volume,
on the 1892
durch die Mark Brandenburg?based
this edition contains the text of Wanderungen
the critical apparatus.
Wohlfeile
Ausgabe?and
3Walter
Erhart in his article 'Die Wanderungen
in Fontane
durch die Mark
Brandenburg',
ed. by Christian Grawe and Helmuth N?rnberger
Handbuch,
(Stuttgart: Kr?ner, 2000), pp. 818-50,
to his 1992 essay: '"Alles wie
devotes
(pp. 831-33),
adding little
just three pages to the matter
durch die Mark
erz?hlt": Fontanes Wanderungen
Jahrbuch der deutschen Schiller
Brandenburg',
recent monograph
Erwanderte Kulturlandschaften:
Gesellschaft, 36 (1992), 229-54. Kirsten Wiese's
Modern Language Review, 104 (2009), 746-61
? Modern Humanities Research Association 2009
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ANDREW
CUSACK
747
shown surprisingly little interest in the matter. The cata
'Fontane und sein Jahrhundert' represents just
exhibition
the
of
1998
logue
to explore this relationship: despite reproduc
one of themissed opportunities
on which Anton von Werners
panorama
ing the 1887 Baedeker map of Berlin
scholars alike have
is clearly marked, the catalogue's
index'
'topographical
panorama, and the question of what the panorama
even posed, let alone answered.4 This
might have meant to Fontane is not
is regrettable, since Fontane's agreement with a reviewer's description of the
as the work of a 'historische [r] Landschafter', and his identifi
Wanderungen
indicate the degree towhich
cation with Karl Friedrich Schinkel (1781-1841),
he regarded himself as a painter of theMark.5
in the first place a large circular painting,
I understand
By 'panorama'
housed in a rotunda and viewed from a raised central platform: that is to say, I
of the Battle of Sedan
fails tomention Werner's
sense
am thinking
a
primarily of media phenomenon whose appeal lay in the
it gave viewers of being immersed in a depicted scene. But I also take the
term to refer to a species of large-scale literary productions
thatmake a claim
to comprehensiveness,
and which resemble circular canvasses in the way that
are perused. The fascination that these exhibits held for people in the
they
nineteenth century indicates that the desire for immersion in a virtual world
an
by the newest technology is not unique to our digital age, but is
constant
of
itself.
modernity
anthropological
In 1787 the Irish painter Robert Barker (1739-1806)
patented a technique
thatmade panoramic painting feasible.6 Five years later crowds were flocking
mediated
to Barker's
in Leicester Square?the
world's
first?to marvel at his
as seen from the
circular
which
London
canvas,
250-square-metre
depicted
roof of the Albion Mills on the south bank of the Thames, just east of Black
in 1799, appearing
friars Bridge. Barker's panorama
transferred to Germany
rotunda
die Vermittiung von Kulturgeschichte
in Theodor Fontanes
'Wanderungen durch die Mark Branden
'Wanderbuch'
(Munich: utz, 2007), is similarly unforthcoming
burg' und Wilhelm Heinrich Riehls
on the subject (see pp. 203-04
and 231-33).
For other attempts to link the panorama
to the
see Erdmut Jost, 'Das poetische
in Theodor
Fontanes
Wanderungen
Auge: Visuelle
Programmatik
aus Schottland
Landschaftsbildern
und der Mark
in Wolzogen,
pp. 63-80
Brandenburg',
(esp.
durch
Fischer, 'M?rkische Bilder: Ein Versuch ?ber Fontane's Wanderungen
pp. 72-74); Hubertus
die Mark Brandenburg,
ihre Bilder und ihre Bildlichkeit', Fontane-Bl?tter,
60 (1995), 117-42
(esp.
pp. 125-26).
4 Fontane
und sein Jahrhundert [catalogue of the exhibition held from 11 September
1998 to 17
Berlin at the M?rkisches
(Berlin: Henschel,
Museum]
January 1999 by the Stiftung Stadtmuseum
1998).
5 Albert Emil
'In diesem Werke
hat sich der Verfasser
eines
auf den Sockel
Brachvogel:
historischen
in der Literatur
in Wochenblatt
Landschafters
der Johanniter-Ordens
geschwungen',
11 December
1861, p. 226 (quoted from Fischer, p. 134).
Balley Brandenburg,
6
Bernard Comment,
The Panorama
(London: Reaktion,
1999), provides a useful survey. Stephan
Das Panorama:
Geschichte eines Massenmediums
Oettermann,
(Frankfurt a.M.: Syndikat, 1981), is
the standard work on the subject. It has been translated into English by Deborah
Lucas Schneider
as The Panorama:
(New York: Zone Books,
1999).
History of a Mass Medium
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748
Fontane's 'Wanderungendurch dieMark Brandenburg
first inHamburg, before departing on a tour that included Leipzig and Vienna.
Even before this exhibit had landed on the Continent, German painters were
a
moving to emulate it. In July 1800 the first home-grown German production,
panorama of Rome, opened in Berlin. One of the exhibitors, Johann Friedrich
Tielker, followed this up with a panorama of Berlin, which was less successful,
since, as one reviewer put it, the environs of Berlin were felt to be 'too un
romantic' to merit artistic treatment. Such prejudices were still virulent over
half a century later, when Fontane was working up his canvas of the Mark
exhorts
Brandenburg. The foreword to the first volume of the Wanderungen
as
an
to
rather
than as
view
Mark
the
readers
aesthetically pleasing landscape,
a charmless sandpit, and encourages
them to steep themselves in the history
of the region.
Fontane was
fourteen years old when he enrolled at the Berlin Gewerbe
inWilhelm Rose's pharmacy in
schule in 1833, completing his apprenticeship
was
an
of
unsettled
the
With
1840.
exception
period in the early 1840s, he
in
in almost continuous contact with that city until his departure for London
of 1855. Until 1850, the year in which Carl Wilhelm
Gropius's
and diorama were flourishing
Berliner Diorama
closed down, the panorama
to the
in Berlin, and Fontane was of an age in which one is susceptible
In 1844 he could have seen a new version of Schinkel's
lure of new media.
von Palermo, which had first been exhibited in Berlin
celebrated Panorama
in 1808. But the craze for views in the round was even closer to home than
the autumn
bis Drei?ig
rotunda. In Von Zwanzig
(1895) Fontane describes
Rose's pharmacy in the Spandauer Strasse with its 'kleinen achteckigen Turm
[. . .] der, ganz oben, mit einem mit vielen bunten Aussichts-Glasscheiben
reich ornamentierten Zimmer abschlo?. Stieg man dann,' Fontane continues,
'und zwar durch eine aufzuklappende
Lukent?r, etwas h?her hinauf, so hatte
the nearest
?ber
man, von einer umgitterten Plattform aus, einen wundervollen ?berblick
Alt-Berlin'
(III/iv, 189).
Rose's tower indicates the extent to which the 360-degree views,
William
first as media
spectacles, captured the visual imaginations of
experienced
out elevated vantage
Fontane's
contemporaries,
stimulating them to seek
or to create their own. As the
as
and
church
such
towers,
hilltops
points
was characterized by a
reminiscence
suggests, the early nineteenth century
one that was in part satisfied by the print
for
visual
impressions,
hunger
that spanned the gap between public spectacles and
media. One phenomenon
the colour prints that were increasingly bought to decorate homes was the
lithographs brought pictures
Neuruppiner Bilderbogen. These hand-coloured
of such current events as the Polish uprising of 1830-31 and the Revolution of
1848 into the homes of customers
throughout northern Germany,
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Scandinavia,
ANDREW
CUSACK
749
and the Baltic region.7 Fontane pays tribute to these tGuckkastenbilder> in the
we
chapter 'Gustav K?hn' and in thememoir Meine Kinder j?hre (1893), where
read the following:
All diese augenblendenden, immerwieder in gelb und rotund nur ganz ausnahmsweise
(wenn es Russen waren) in gr?n auftretenden Guckkastenbilder taten aber, trotz all
ihrerGr?blichkeit und Trivialit?t, oder vielleicht auch um dieser willen, ihre volle
Schuldigkeit an mir und pr?gten sich mir derart ein, da? ich ?ber die Personen,
Schlachten und Heldentaten jener Epoche besser als die Mehrzahl meiner Mitlebenden
unterrichtet zu sein glaube. (III/iv, 109)
thatwas deemed to
Fontane deliberately takes the part of a new medium
be trivial by the art establishment. Panorama painters were generally excluded
from the academies, whose members
regarded them with a mixture of super
disliked the sensational
ciliousness and pecuniary envy. If the academicians
then they certainly also resented
and illusionistic aspects of the new media,
their drawing power. Media of this kind provided ordinary people with visual
representations of current and historical events, and in so doing they created
a viewing public in which the social distinction conferred by refined taste
Here
counted for little. Fontane's affirmation of the instructive use of 'Guckkasten
bilder' echoes arguments made by Alexander von Humboldt
and others in the
as
an
instrument of mass education.8 This
1840s in favour of the panorama
a
to
offers
clue
the
role
the
that
advocacy
Wanderungen were intended to fulfil,
and it sheds a clarifying light on Fontane's earlier defence of that work in the
face of academic
historiography.
Fontane's early years in Berlin were also a time in which the panoramic
was developing
as a literary category. One
thinks especially of the collec
tions of urban sketches thatMartina Lauster calls Verbal panoramas'
in her
7 The
exhibition
und Weltgeschehen:
Ein
Alltag, Klatsch
Neuruppiner
catalogue
Bilderbogen.
des 19. Jahrhunderts [exhibition of theWidukind-Museum,
Enger; the Heimatmu
and the Faculty of History, University
ed. by Stefan Brakensiek,
seum, Neuruppin;
of Bielefeld],
use
f?r Regionalgeschichte,
(Bielefeld: Verlag
1993), provides
Regina Krull, and Irina Rockel
ful background
information on the Neuruppiner
This
influential phenomenon
of
Bilderbogen.
German
cultural history has attracted considerable
research interest since 1990,
nineteenth-century
most of it focused on particular
aspects of the vast and thematically varied output of Gustav
on the
K?hn's
concentrates
aspect: Familiengl?ck
publishing house. Claudia Held
sociological
auf
die b?rgerliche Familie des 19. Jahrhunderts im Spiegel der Neuruppiner
Bilderbogen:
Druckgraphik
aus
(Bonn: Habelt,
1992), and Erdmute Nieke on the religious: Religi?se Bilderbogen
Neuruppin:
zur
Eine Untersuchung
im 19. Jahrhundert (Frankfurt a.M.: Peter Lang, 2008).
Fr?mmigkeit
8
'Alle diese Mittel,
deren Aufz?hlung
recht wesentlich
in ein Buch vom Kosmos
geh?rt,
zum Naturstudium
sind vorz?glich
zu erh?hen;
und das
geeignet, die Liebe
ja die Kenntnis
von
der erhabenen Gr??e
Gef?hl
der Sch?pfung w?rden
kr?ftig vermehrt werden, wenn man
in gr??ern
den Museen,
St?dten neben
und wie diese dem Volke
frei ge?ffnet, eine Zahl
von
aus verschiedenen
Landschaften
auff?hrte, welche wechselnd
Rundgem?lden
geographischen
Breiten und aus verschiedenen
von Humboldt,
H?henzonen
darstellten'
Kosmos:
(Alexander
5 vols (Berlin: 1845-62;
Entwurf einer physischen Weltbeschreibung,
repr. in 1 vol., ed. by Ottmar
Ette and Oliver Lubrich, Frankfurt a.M.: Eichborn,
2004), p. 234). The reference here is to the
second (1847) volume of Kosmos.
Massenmedium
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Fontane's 'Wanderungendurch dieMark Brandenburg'
750
von
recent book.9 Notable German examples are August Lewald's Panorama
M?nchen
Eduard
Beurmann's
Bilder
and
Skizzen
(1835),
(1835)
Frankfurter
aus den Hanse-St?dten
sketch collection Wien
(1836), and the collaborative
in 1841.10 Sketch collections of this
und die Wiener, which began appearing
were
a
modish
of Vorm?rz journal
kind, frequently serialized,
phenomenon
avid newspaper
ism, and it is hard to imagine that the young Fontane?an
have been unimpressed by them. What made these collections
reader?could
In Lauster's words, 'the analogy with a panorama
of urban sketches panoramic?
lies partly in the way big circular paintings were produced from numerous in
sketches taken on the spot, partly inwhat these paintings represented
in
and
theway theywere looked at' (Lauster, p. 213). That is to say, the analogy
on
two levels: production and reception. Consider
the level of reception
works
collection of verbal sketches re
first, the way in which reading a panoramic
sembles viewing a large circular painting. Sketch collections consist of a series
dividual
of sketches that the reader peruses one at a time. The mode of reception is like
in which the viewer can see only a section of the canvas,
that of a panorama
while retaining an awareness of the totality that is out of the field of vision, yet
the individual views or sketches
surrounds him or her. Just as in a panorama,
are always perceived as parts of a continuous whole. Viewing is also structured
no single authorized start or end point, that one
by the knowledge that there is
can access the canvas at any one of an infinite number of points.
or multi-authored
sketch
More
importantly, as Lauster notes, collaborative
struc
'democratic
the
has
termed
collections replicate what Oettermann
(p. 26)
means
that
the
absence
of
which
he
the
ture' of
visual panorama, by
unique
correct' vantage-point, which classical easel painting constrains a viewer to
have this capacity because of themul
as visual panoramas
Finally, in so far
not
far-off
places, but also the
just
represented
sketch collections
adopt. Collaborative
that
they encompass.
tiple viewpoints
and
their verbal
equivalents
very cities inwhich they stood, they turned a stranger's gaze upon the familiar
to
city, thereby 'inverting the view of "the other", themode of travel literature,
become
self-observing' (Lauster, p. 215).
It is true that Germany did not produce any collaborative sketch collections
in the 1830s and 1840s to rival those of England and France. Indeed, censor
centre ensured that the
a
ship and the lack of national capital and publishing
one
sketch serial of
collaborative
lands
could
produce only
German-speaking
9 Martina
Journalism and its Physiologies,
Lauster, Sketches of theNineteenth Century: European
80. It is one of the many merits of Lauster's
Macmillan,
2007),
p.
1830-50
Palgrave
(Basingstoke:
as a generic descriptor for a body of literature in
book to have coined the term Verbal panorama'
the nineteenth century.
10
2 vols
von M?nchen,
1835); Eduard Beurmann,
(Stuttgart: Hallberg,
August Lewald, Panorama
(Hanau: K?nig,
1835) and Skizzen aus den Hanse-St?dten
Frankfurter Bilder (Mainz: Kupferberg,
in Bildern aus dem Lehen [ed. by Adalbert
Stifter, Franz Stelzhammer,
1836); Wien und die Wiener
and Carl Edmund
Langer]
(Pesth: Heckenast,
1844).
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ANDREW
751
CUSACK
thekind found inEngland and France, thepoliticallyanodyneWien und die
to develop such projects did exist, even if the
In
January 1832 the Berliner Figaro, Fontanes
lacking.
a Berlin counterpart to the
'Leib- und Magenblatt'
(III/iv, 284), announced
ou
Le Livre des Cent-et-un (1831-34),
Parisian collective serial Paris,
although
this project was never actually realized (Lauster, p. 47).11
to the verbal
that connects circular canvasses
The tertium comparationis
Wiener.
means
Nevertheless,
to do so was
the will
to Fontane's Wanderungen?on
the twin lev
panoramas of the Vorm?rz?and
els of production and reception is travel. Fontane envisages the term 'Wan
as a poetological
principle; he repeatedly presents himself as a
derungen'
searcher and collector:
sorglos hab' ich es gesammelt', he says of his mate
rial in the foreword to the first edition, nicht wie einer, der mit der Sichel
zur Ernte geht, sondern wie ein Spazierg?nger, der einzelne ?hren aus dem
reichen Felde zieht' (II/i, 11). Like a panorama painter, or an urban sketch
writer of the Vorm?rz, Fontane undertakes excursions with the object of amass
historical, ethnographic, and archaeological
ing thematerial?topographical,
a large work is gradually pieced together. Apart from
these excursions, material
is garnered from textual sources: histories of Prus
sia, memoirs, and private correspondence.
Thus, 'wandering' also connotes an
a
on the
maze
matter
written
of
odyssey through
history of the Mark, with
the proviso that themost highly valued material is not that of official historio
sketches?out
of which
graphy but the anecdotal and the personal.
the poetological
relates directly to
Moreover,
principle of 'Wanderungen'
nature of Fontane's
the work-in-progress
'canvas' during the decades-long
accretion of itsmany parts. The ongoing work of revision and reorganization
entails
the repeated revisiting of familiar territory, and the principle allows
to sustain his morale by imagining the project as a long,
fatiguing,
often digressive, but ultimately worthwhile journey. This poetological principle
bears directly on what Peter Wruck has called the 'kumulative Makrostruktur'
of theWanderungen,
since the fact that the work ismade up of a large array of
sketches suggests that it is capable of infinite supplementation.12 This structural
Fontane
openness
11
lends theWanderungen
their dynamism
and their prospective
The
quality.
fate of the Paris-based
Panorama
de VAllemagne par une societe d'hommes
de lettres
et allemands
is indicative of the difficulties of getting German
authors to participate
in
frangais
collaborative
verbal panoramas.
four volumes of this survey of German
Only one of the planned
letters was eventually published
to have contributed
by the editor, Joseph Savoye. Heine was
an essay on Rahel
but pulled out when
it became
that the project was
Varnhagen,
apparent
letter to Heine
of 12 February
1838 in Heinrich Heine,
faltering. See the notes to Joseph Savoye's
Werke. Briefe. Lebenszeugnisse,
ed. by Nationale
und Gedenkst?tten
S?kularausgabe:
Forschungsder klassischen
deutschen
Literatur and Centre National
de la Recherche
27 vols to
Scientifique,
date (Paris: Editions du CNRS; Berlin: Akademie
), xxv (1979), 111.
Verlag, 197012
Peter Wruck,
'Fontane
als Erfolgsautor:
Zur Schl?sselstellung
der Makrostruktur
in der
und Rezeptionsgeschichte
Produktionsder Wanderungen
durch die Mark Bran
ungew?hnlichen
pp. 373-93
denburg', inWolzogen,
(p. 388).
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752
Fontanes 'Wanderungendurch dieMark Brandenburg
precisely this point with reference to the verbal panoramas of the
Vorm?rz, namely that 'the fundamental openness of these collections, thanks to
their additive character which is distinct from serial fiction, lies at the bottom of
Lauster makes
is interested in this additive structure
this inherent dynamism' (p. 212). Wruck
sketches could be and were
from the point of view of composition?existing
new ones slotted in?but,
one
to
and
moved
about
from
edition
the
next,
easily
as we shall see, this structural openness
to a particularly
is also conducive
free-ranging mode of reading.
The Wanderungen may be more satisfactorily described as a verbal panorama
than as Reiseliteratur, because while the work clearly resembles travel writing
to some degree, there are grounds for believing that it does not correspond
one
exactly to that category. For
thing, there is the heterogeneity of the sketches
contain
of
which
themselves, many
scarcely any topographical description or
travel narrative. Furthermore, Fontane himself dissuades us from too close an
thinks of his irritated rejoinder (in the
in 1882) directed at readers who
foreword to the fourth edition, published
in
the Mark
'nat?rlich mit meinem
him
that
had
told
travelled
they
blithely
sein
'sollen kein Geschichtsbuch
that the Wanderungen
Buch in der Hand',
association
with
travel writing. One
(II/111, 816).
[...] auch kein Reisebuch'
as a kind of
It is evident thatmany readers mistakenly saw theWanderungen
to
is
better
construed
travel
Baedeker guide. But thework's relationship
perhaps
can
as a space inwhich the reader
simulate the effect ofmoving
by thinking of it
that are envisaged are of a virtual or textual nature. Like
about. The wanderings
and its variants, the specific appeal of the work lies in the fact
the panorama
is
of which
that it offers a vicarious experience of travel, the completeness
and historical detail, in which the
enhanced by a wealth of topographical
reader can immerse himself or herself. It was the geographical
organization
that led to confusion with the Baedeker guides: each of
of the Wanderungen
is devoted to a particular region of the Mark, and these
the four volumes
are in turn subdivided into chapters which focus for themost part on districts
and towns within those regions. This organizational principle lends thework its
characteristic openness; it invites the reader to access itat any point, rather than
manner of a serial narrative.
a
constraining him or her to linear reading in the
a work like Beurmann's
resemble
the Wanderungen
On the macro-level
sketches introduced and
Frankfurter Bilder, which ismade up of around fifty
concluded by the author's reflections on the themes of speed and change. Simi
a foreword, written inNovember
larly, Fontane's four-volume work opens with
a
is
theme
in
the
which
1861,
prominent, and it closes with
'Wanderungen'
in
November
written
themed
postscript
exactly twenty years later,
similarly
1881. This return to the introductory theme suggests circular organization, and
it is interesting to note that circularity has also been established as a feature of
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ANDREW
CUSACK
753
of the work. Erdmut Josthas correctly noted that inmany
themicro-structure
a theme which is varied
a
verse
chapters
throughout the
epigraph introduces
sentences.13 This sprachliche Kreis
chapter and reprised in the concluding
a
with
endows
the
individual
chapters
high degree of independence with
figur'
as panorama,
to
to
the
the
idea
of
theWanderungen
whole.
respect
Returning
as a virtual space inwhich the reader can simulate the effect of
wandering, we
or
a
sketch represents
self-contained excursion in
might say that each chapter
a particular landscape.
Fontane's work replicates what G?nter Hess has termed the 'historicistic
to vi
structure' of a visual panorama,
that is, the capacity of that medium
sualize simultaneously or in succession historical events widely separated in
time?an
attribute that it shares with themuseum.14
In theWanderungen,
early
Germans
and Slavs, the settlement of theMark by the Cis
struggles between
confessional strife, the Battle of Fehrbellin, and the
tercians, post-Reformation
are all made
of
Wars
of
the
Liberation
campaigns
simultaneously present.
structure ismost strikingly exemplified by a panorama
Historicistic
shown
at the Great Exhibition
in Paris in 1889. Histoire du siede, painted by Alfred
Stevens and Henri Gervex, showed almost a thousand of themost distinguished
figures in the history of France in the century following the Revolution. The
product of painstaking library research conducted under the guidance of Hip
polyte Taine, theHistoire du siede was imbued with the spirit of positivism. Its
implied narrative is of history as progress, or,more accurately, cumulation?of
learning or wisdom. There is a striking parallel between this panorama and the
in the way that both works 'unite' exemplary individuals from
Wanderungen
distinct historical periods in a national Ahnengalerie, or hall of fame.
Although Karl Friedrich Schinkel occupies perhaps themost prominent po
sition in Fontane's Ahnengalerie,
little attention has been paid to his signifi
cance for the work as a whole. While
recent essay partly
Jochen Meyer's
redresses this deficit, the account itgives of Fontane's
understanding of Schin
kel is in certain respects open to question, and in any case needs to be rounded
out.151 believe that there are three aspects to Schinkel's
significance for Fontane.
First, Fontane identifies with Schinkel as aman who, like him, emerges from the
obscurity ofNeuruppin
13 'Das
Verfahren
to conquer Berlin by dint of
single-mindedness,
ist eine Art
persis
Verse
leiten ein Kapitel
ein, in
sprachlicher Kreisfigur. Einige
der anschlie?enden
dann mit Versatzst?cken
aus diesen Versen,
"spielt" Fontane
Darstellung
am Schlu?
der "Botschaft", die zumeist wie eine
des
folgt eine Zusammenfassung
Paraphrase
vom
literarischen Mottos
Beginn wirkt. Man kann dies sehr sch?n beim Abschnitt Am Molchow
und Zerm?tzelsee
und im Radensleben-Kapitel
im ersten Band der
nachvollziehen'
Wanderungen
(Jost, p. 76).
14G?nter
'Panorama
und Denkmal:
als Denkform
Hess,
zwischen Vorm?rz
und
Erinnerung
in Literatur
in der sozialen
zum 19.
Gr?nderzeit',
und Forschungsberichte
Bewegung: Aufs?tze
Jahrhundert, ed. by Alberto Martino
1977), pp. 130-206
(T?bingen: Niemeyer,
(p. 154).
15
'Der Bedeutendste
unter den Bedeutenden:
zu Theodor Fontanes
Jochen Meyer,
Anmerkungen
Schinkel-Bild',
Fontane-Bl?tter,
79 (2005),
58-72.
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Fontane's 'Wanderungendurch dieMark Brandenburg
754
tence, and hard work. Second, Fontane recalls Schinkel not just as an architect,
but also as a landscape painter. Third, Fontane sees Schinkel's art as being at
the service of the education and development of a nation. I am less interested
here in the firstaspect, Fontane's praise for his paragon's grausame Herrschaft
sees as
des Geistes ?ber den K?rper', which Meyer
indicating ein absolut
lebensfeindliches Menschenbild'
(p. 66), than in the second and third aspects.
on these aspects shows that Fontane's portrait of Schinkel is
Concentrating
subtler and truer thanMeyer iswilling to allow.
knew was the author of some
The Schinkel that Fontane's contemporaries
disco
and buildings; but the Wanderungen
of Berlin's grandest monuments
c
ver a 'low-culture' Schinkel, the almost forgotten painter of perspektivischer
in original), that is to say, the maker
(II/i, 114, emphasis
optischer Bilder
and dioramas. Schinkel appears as themaker of entertainments
of panoramas
thatwere technically sophisticated and hugely enjoyed, but which were to some
degree suspected of triviality. By successfully negotiating the divide between
high and low culture Schinkel inspires Fontane to assert the value of theWan
derungen in the face of the academic historiography of his day. If the works of
und Gro?cordons
historischer
Ranke, Savigny, Treitschke?'die
W?rdentr?ger
a place in Fontane's imagination similar to
Wissenschaft'
(II/11, 871)?occupy
or his neo-classical museum,
then his own work
that of Schinkel's K?nigswache
von
seem
less enduring,
to
Panorama
Palermo:
Schinkel's
closer
humbler,
may
but also capable of bringing together themany in the pleasurable
contempla
In Schinkel's case the relationship between low
tion of an imagined homeland.
and high cultural forms is a complementary one.16 The forms of painting and
one
panorama precede the emergence of architecture: the 'lower' forms enable
to envisage what might be built, and awaken the desire to build it.
von Palermo
Indeed, although entertainments such as Schinkel's Panorama
were seen as surrogates for travel, they were at least as effective in stimulating
as they were at appeasing them. While
such longings were ostensibly
longings
focused on ancient Palermo or modern London, it is easy to imagine that for
many their true, ifunstated, object was the unachieved German nation itself.
canvasses of modern
London
The sense of wholeness
imparted by circular
their loving reproductions of national capitals in their
entirety, appears to have derived in part from the opportunity
or ancient Rome, with
architectural
one day
theyaffordedGermans to dream of the completepolity theymight
inhabit.
16
as official architect to the impression
notes that Schinkel owed his appointment
.
on Queen
Luise following the return of the
.]-optische Bilder' made
'perspektivisch!.
is one
late in the year 1809. Kugler's monograph
Prussian court to Berlin from exile in K?nigsberg
sources for his chapter on Schinkel
of Fontane's main
(Franz Kugler, Karl Friedrich Schinkel: Eine
seiner k?nstlerischen Wirksamkeit
Charakteristik
1842; repr. Berlin: Bauakademie
(Berlin: Gropius,
der DDR,
1981), p. 147).
Franz Kugler
that his
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ANDREW
755
CUSACK
that his man is
Fontane begins his portrait of Schinkel by acknowledging
a
von
Prussian
revered
less popular than Hans
Zieten,
Joachim
general. But
ein
ist
Kriterium
eines
Mannes
immer
nicht
asserts:
?die Popularit?t
he then
aus
seiner
reformatorischen
resultiert vielmehr
f?r seine Bedeutung. Diese
it is apparent that it is Schinkel's
(II/i, 107). From this declaration
of a
reformism, his commitment to the gradual and balanced development
not
esteems
is
the
view
who
That
of
Fontane
above
all
else.
that
Meyer,
society,
claims: 'Fontane wei? nichts von Schinkels progressivem, auf evolution?ren
Macht1
on the
Fortschritt zielenden Geschichtsverst?ndnis,
(p. 67), a claim that rests
nature
differs from Schinkels, namely
assertion that Fontane's conception of
that it is devoid of categories of cultivation and development. However, the view
inwhich nature is of interest
of nature thatMeyer attributes to Schinkel?one
it
traces
that
conforms
human
cultivation
of
for
the
bears17?actually
only
closely with Fontane's intense interest in the draining of the Oder flood-plain,
and in the achievements of such agricultural pioneers as Daniel Albrecht Thaer
and Helene Charlotte von Friedland.
an attempt to
is an exercise in achter Conservatismus',
The Wanderungen
mitigate the flabby selfishness of the Gr?nderzeit by reviving the traditional
'Prussian' virtues of loyalty, hard work, and self-discipline.18 But one need only
point to the prevalent metaphors of growth in the Wanderungen
argument that Fontane's conservatism is reactionary and adverse
to refute the
to social and
(Kultur) seems
of cultivation
Indeed, the meta-theme
political development.
a leitmotif as the canon of Prussian virtues
to be at least as fundamental
mentioned
earlier. Fontane uses Kultur in the firstplace to refer to the labour of
past generations tomake the sandy soil of theMark fruitful: one thinks of the
land-reclamation projects described inDas Oderland.
It therefore bears within
it a sense of improvement through struggle. But the presence of the term is
also a reminder that there is in Brandenburg
'kein Fu?breit Landes, der nicht
die Pflege der Menschenhand
verriete' (II/11, 557), that Brandenburg
and, by
is
the
the
extension,
Reich,
product of human labour, and that labour is the
force animating all societies. The cultivation that theWanderungen
is primarily
concerned with is that of a people, and in this respect the work appears to
17 'Natur als solche ist
uninteressant,
sind ? und damit
sind nat?rlich
in ihr nicht Spuren menschlicher
zu
solange
T?tigkeit
ausschlie?lich
durch pflegsam
Spuren der Veredelung
kultivierende T?tigkeit gemeint' (Meyer, p. 63).
18
Fontane uses this term in his letter to Ernst Kossak
of 16 February
1864: 'Ich schreibe diese
B?cher aus reiner Liebe zur Scholle, aus dem Gef?hl und dem Bewu?tsein
(die mir beide in der
Fremde gekommen
sind) da? in dieser Liebe unsre allerbesten Kr?fte wurzeln, Keime eines ?chten
sehen
Conservatismus.
Da?
uns der Conservatismus,
den ich im Sinne habe, noth thut, ist meine
unsrer guten Stadt Berlin
ist die Vorstellung
abhanden
gekommen,
feste
da?
das freim?thige Bekenntni?
des Nicht-Wissens
und viele andern kleinen
Disciplin,
Beschr?nkung,
derart auch Tugenden
und
sind, doppelt vielleicht weil sie bei der Oberfl?chlichkeit
Tugenden
unsres Lebens,
immer rarer werden'
'Berlin und die
Zersplitterung
(quoted from Jost Schillemeit,
Berliner', Jahrbuch der deutschen Schiller-Gesellschaft,
30 (1986), 34-82
(p. 58)).
Ueberzeugung.
Speziell
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756
Fontane's 'Wanderungendurch dieMark Brandenburg'
strive for a role similar to that envisaged by Schinkel for the museum
as an
institution of public education. This essential commitment to the future?and
to culture as process?illuminates
the historiography at various points: in the
verse dedication
to Daniel Albrecht Thaer (Aller Taten beste Tat
| Ist: Keime
use as a
the
pflanzen f?r k?nftige Saat', II/i, 654) and?most
strikingly?in
of the motto of the Neuruppiner
civibus aevi
chapter-heading
Gymnasium,
futuri'?to
the citizens of the future.
Public education of a very different, and truly reactionary, character was the
aim ofAnton von Werners
Sedan panorama, one of themajor spectacles of the
one
inwhich national ideology and mass entertainment
Wilhelmine
and
Reich,
were
fused.19
Werner's giant canvas of the Battle of Sedan opened
ostentatiously
on
1
to public viewing
1883, the thirteenth anniversary of the
September
It
in
remained
continuous
engagement.
operation for the next twenty years,
and the imperial standard flew from the top of the imposing rotunda on Berlin's
inwhich itwas housed. Itwas quite different in character from
Alexanderplatz
the canvasses of foreign parts and the city portraits enjoyed in the Vorm?rz. If
in the panorama's
first phase the historical gaze had been turned outward, to
Rome and London, as visions of the nation to be realized, now itwas turned
inward, complacently back to themoment deemed to be the birth of the Reich.
Werner's
painting was an even greater triumph of positivism than the later
Histoire
du siede. But
it also
showed up the limitations of that method
and
itwas prone. Werner, who had the full co-operation
of the military, famously ordered artillery pieces to be fired off so that he
could see how gunsmoke looked at different distances. He interviewed General
the distortions
to which
and other participants for their memories
of the day. He even took
Moltke
a party of German painters to Sedan to sketch the topography in detail?a
rawness of local feeling. Yet despite a concern
risky undertaking, given the
there were a number of
for verisimilitude
that bordered on the obsessive,
in the painting. The liberal Vossische
and distortions
important omissions
to
Fontane
been
had
which
contributing theatre reviews since 1870,
Zeitung,
out
that physical destruction and carnage were almost entirely absent.20
pointed
Werner's
exhibit embodied a false naturalism,21 one that confined its acuity to
19Anton von Werner
was the Director
of Arts during
of the Prussian Academy
(1843-1915)
of 1876. Fontane
brief tenure as First Secretary of that institution in the Ungl?cksjahr
Fontane's
was irritated by his younger superior's arrogance and presumptuousness,
and he was tellingly silent
on Werner's
artistic successes.
See Fontane
und die bildende Kunst
[catalogue of the
subsequent
am Kulturforum
to 29 November
from 4 September
exhibition held at the Nationalgalerie
1998],
ed. by Claude Keisch, Peter-Klaus
Schuster, and Moritz Wullen
(Berlin: Henschel,
1998), p. 228.
20
ist die gr??te Sparsamkeit
'[I] Blut und Leichen
ge?bt worden, brennende D?rfer, zertr?m
? nicht zu
merte H?user
im Vordergrunde
sind ?
sehen' (Vossische Zeitung, 2 Septem
wenigstens
. 5).
ber 1883, quoted from Oettermann,
209,
p.
21
influenced by photography
of representation
The existence of ostensibly hyper-mimetic modes
to
attention as a possible
art forms as the Sedan panorama
deserves
stimulus
in such mass
in 1880s Berlin. To what extent was the uncompromising
naturalism
emphasis on
programmatic
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ANDREW
757
CUSACK
the trappings and the gear of warfare, while veiling the destruction wrought
by it.
a
are motivated
by
though not propagandistic,
Surely the Wanderungen,
in
its
to
role
the
similar impulse to glorify the Prussian military and
magnify
establishment of the Reich? After all, the military seems to loom almost as
nation as it does inWerner's. And the exclusion of
largely in Fontane's virtual
Berlin from the picture seems to bespeak anti-urbanism and antiquarianism.
Yet itwould be wrong to think that the absence of Berlin from the picture
are unlike the
entails a repudiation of that city. To be sure, the Wanderungen
not
the
in
Vorm?rz
that
urban sketches of the
city's present,
they represent
but the past out of which it has grown. But even if Berlin is not the object of
representation, the letter to Ernst Kossak cited earlier shows that the city is
one
as
present in the form of an intended readership. It is present,
might say,
surrounded by the
the generalized viewer on the darkened viewing-platform
illuminated canvas of theMark Brandenburg. The self-scrutinizing gaze that
earlier verbal panoramas
remains, but it is now fixed upon
rather than on the mores of contemporary
and myth-making,
had characterized
historiography
society.
Given
it was in
the particular character of nineteenth-century
Prussia,
view would
the
that any comprehensive
encompass
military. But
Fontane's treatment of military themes is far removed from the jingoism of
evitable
painting. Indeed, Fontane is remarkably sparing in his praise of those
icons of Prussian military culture, General von Zieten and Field Marshal von
It is striking that the qualities for which Zieten is praised?
dem Knesebeck.
Werner's
not especially martial; and
earnestness, sobriety, and straightforwardness?are
on examination neither Zieten nor Knesebeck
proves particularly combative.
is less
The 'Husarenvater' has drawn his sword only once in combat; Knesebeck
a warrior
than a rather sedentary military strategist, 'der zeitlebens wie ein Poet
und
bellicose Lob des Krieges is
gedacht
gef?hlt hatte' (U/h 37). Knesebeck's
over
'Mit
without
and
the
dem
Schwerte sei dem Feind
comment;
poem
passed
dem Pflug der Erde Frucht gemehrt', is reservedly character
gewehrt, Mit
|
ized as 'vielleicht ein treffendesMotto m?rkischen Adels' (II/i, 38). Moreover,
the counts of Ruppin appear not as 'comites bellicosissimi'
but as 'viri nobiles
masters
of
'die
schwere Kunst der
(II/i, 59), and?strikingly?as
as
we
have
Schinkel's
'reformatorische
seen,
(11/1, 6o). And,
Nachgiebigkeit'
is preferred to Zieten's martial prowess.
Macht'
et generosi'
More fundamentally, Fontane's realism is at odds with the historical painting
of such painters as Werner
and Hans Makart, whose representational values
Dolf Sternberger has described in his withering critique of the Gr?nderzeit as
degradation
also against
and suffering in literary naturalism
falsifying trends in the visual arts?
a reaction
not only against
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the literary canon,
but
758
Fontane's 'Wanderungendurch dieMark
Brandenburg
'h?here Bekleidungskunst'.22 As Peter James Bowman has reminded us
recently,
favours a realism which he defines as eine
"Interessenvertretung" auf
seine Art'.23 In
keeping with this principle he strives to do justice to the interests
of the non-German
entities in theMark, whether the
settlers of the
Huguenot
seventeenth century or theWends,
the traces of whose Slavic civilization are
respectfully treated inHavelland:
Fontane
Die Wenden waren tapfer und
gastfrei und, wie wir uns ?berzeugt halten, um kein
Haar falscher und untreuer als ihre
Besieger, die Deutschen; aber in einem waren
sie ihnen
allerdings unebenb?rtig, in jener gestaltenden, gro?e Ziele von Generation
zu Generation unersch?tterlich im
Auge behaltenden Kraft, die zu allen Zeiten der
Grundzug der germanischen Race gewesen und noch jetzt die B?rgschaft ihres Lebens
ist. (II/ii, 26)
This passage
is significant not
towards a defeated
only for itsmagnanimity
it is one of those moments
in the work where a
people, but also because
perspective opens up that differs from the historicism of which the Sedan
is a crass product. The
Panorama
prevailing brand of historicism was, inWalter
M?ller-Seiders
'der
liebevoll zugetan und dem Gewor
words,
Vergangenheit
denen als der staatlichen
Gegenwart des eigenen Volkes, erst recht', and itwas
indifferent to 'dasWerden
selbst, der Ablauf, die Formen der Erneuerung'.24 By
contrast, Fontane's historicism is endowed with an awareness of the
necessity of
a
'gestaltende Kraft' that keeps itsgoals in view over successive generations, and
it is therefore much more open to the
prospect of social and political change.
The even-handedness
of Fontane's historicism may owe
something to the
views
of
the
collective
urban
multi-perspectival
portraits of the Vorm?rz. Al
in the sense that it
though he is the sole author, his work is collaborative
relies on a network of informants,
Fontane is careful in
living and deceased.
the 1881 postscript to
the contribution of his 'Mitarbeiter', the
acknowledge
nobles, pastors, and teachers of the Mark who have furnished him with so
much of his material in conversation and in
to
correspondence. A willingness
allow informants to have their say, and to abstain from
are
judgement: these
principles of representation that depend upon the dispersed, archival structure
of the
with its capacity to accommodate
Wanderungen
divergent views. The
degree towhich the structure supports the representational values of a realism
is evident in Fontane's treatment
grounded in the idea of'Interessenvertretung'
22
Dolf Sternberger, Panorama
oder Ansichten vom 19. Jahrhundert (D?sseldorf
and Hamburg:
Ciaassen,
1938; repr. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp,
1974), p. 128.
23 Peter
'Fontane and the Programmatic
James Bowman,
Realists: Contrasting
Theories
of the
Novel', MLR,
103 (2008), 129-42. Fontane's
definition appears
in his 1853 essay 'Unsere
lyrische
und epische Poesie seit 1848', in S?mtliche Werke, ed.
by Edgar Gross and others, 30 vols (Munich:
xxi
Literarische
Studien und
1959-75),
Nymphenburger
(in 2 subvols):
Verlagsbuchhandlung,
Essays, 1 (1963), pp. 7"33 (p. 13)?
24Walter
Theodor Fontane: Soziale Romankunst
inDeutschland,
M?ller-Seidel,
2nd edn (Stuttgart:
Metzler,
1980), p. 61.
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ANDREW
CUSACK
759
of the Katte affair inDas Oderland. Hans Hermann von Katte was executed in
1730 for his part in abetting the attempt by Crown Prince Friedrich to escape
his father's harsh tutelage by fleeing to England. The affair became an inter
claims that Prince
national cause celebre, not least because of the mistaken
Friedrich?who
was
forced to witness
his friend's execution?had
also been
to death, and later reprieved. Mayumi Kikawa shows how Fontane's
presentation of the Katte affair in the chapter 'K?strin' evolves from the first
sentenced
version of 1861 to the revised version of 1879.25 For Fontane, Katte's execution
on 6 November
1730 represents themore important of two founding moments
state of Prussia, the other being 18 June 1675,
in the history of the modern
the date of the Battle of Fehrbellin. When
Fontane
first addresses
in the 'K?strin' chapter in the first edition of the Wanderungen,
I. Like the traditional
from the perspective of Friedrich Wilhelm
the matter
he does
so
accounts
of
the affair, this approach emphasizes the father-son conflict between Friedrich
Wilhelm
and the crown prince, viewing Katte as a marginal
figure. In 1879
Fontane completely rewrote the chapter 'K?strin' for the third edition of Das
Oderland,
foregrounding Katte, rather than Crown Prince Friedrich, as the
tragic protagonist of the affair. This is themost prominent change, but what it
new perspectives that appear in
entails is perhaps even more interesting?the
the rewritten version.
Fontane's journey toWust, the seat of the Katte family, on 16 August 1867
was the firstdecisive step towards increasing the number of perspectives
in
the account. In the family archive Fontane finds the letter written by Katte
to his father on the eve of his execution, and letters written by Katte's father.
He includes these letters in the revised version of the 'K?strin' chapter, sub
stantially rebalancing it in favour of Katte. Fontane also includes descriptions
of portraits of Katte to counterbalance
the unflattering descriptions of Katte's
in the memoirs of Princess Wilhelmine
and Baron von
personal appearance
P?llnitz, characteristically reserving judgement on both memoirs and portraits.
But an even more dramatic increase in the number of viewpoints occurs when
Fontane revisits the problem
which Katte was beheaded.
of the lieu de memoire
itself, the exact spot on
decision to review the problem of the execution sitewas prompted
In 1867 the military chaplain at K?strin, Theodor
intervention.
outside
by
in which he cast doubt on the site iden
Hoffbauer, published a monograph
tified by tradition. In the same book Hoffbauer criticized Fontane for taking
Fontane's
25
zur
'Von K?strin
zur
Ein Beitrag
Kikawa,
Mayumi
Katte-Trag?die:
Auseinandersetzung
Fontanes mit dem Preu?entum
in den Wanderungen
durch die Mark Brandenburg',
Fontane-Bl?tter,
102-20. Gerd Heinrich
on the
concentrates
of the Katte affair rather than
63 (i997)>
background
on Fontane's
treatment of it: 'Katte, Fontane und der
der Preu?ischen
K?nig: Ein "Blutkarneol"
von
imWiderstreit
Geschichte
in Fontane, Kleist und H?lderlin:
Literarisch
Dichtung und Wahrheit',
historische Begegnungen
zwischen Hessen-Homburg
und Preu?en-Brandenburg,
ed. by Hugo Aust,
and Hubertus
Fischer (W?rzburg: K?nigshausen
& Neumann,
2005), pp. 31-43.
D?lemeyer,
Barbara
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76o
Fontane's 'Wanderungendurch dieMark Brandenburg'
the traditional accounts on trust. Apparently nettled by Hoffbauer's remarks,
Fontane strove for greater accuracy in the rewritten version of the chapter, pre
senting no fewer than seven separate theses concerning the execution site. This
required the consideration of a greater range of views, those of contemporary
such as Major von Schack and Chaplain
Besser, as well as the
eyewitnesses
historical perspective of Hoffbauer.
The reworking of the 'K?strin' chapter to bring in an even greater number of
the additive quality of
viewpoints than had at firstbeen present demonstrates
structure appears
theWanderungen
quite compellingly. The work's panoramic
to generate its own logic of supplementation, which lends itself to interventions
by other authors. Fontane is then obliged to take these into account. It is as if
in themaking of theWanderungen
the panoramic view had come gradually to
on
vision.
itself
Fontane's
historical
impose
intentions
At times, the logic of supplementation
exceeds even Fontane's
and works against the controlling hand of the author.
of even-handedness
is true in the case of the Katte tragedy, where the inclusion of multiple
is in discernible
tension with the programme of achter Conser
viewpoints
This
as a 'back to basics' return to 'Prussian' values. By this
a form of conservatism governed by principles rather
than by the self-interest of a particular social group. The 1881 postscript to
the Wanderungen
proposes a principled conservatism as the antidote to the
unsres Adels'
is based solely on
'Pseudokonservatismus
( /11, 872), which
faith in its own right to rule. The Wanderungen
the aristocracy's unexamined
intend the moral regeneration of Brandenburg-Prussia,
beginning with the
canon of virtues. In the 1881
for
the
standard-bearers
the
traditional
nobility,
postcript we are told that of all the virtues associated with Prussian nobility
the cardinal one is 'Kritik' ( /11, 872). The dilemma for the programme of
is that not only must the past be seen as the source of
achter Konservatismus'
vatismus', considered
Fontane understands
as loyalty and self-discipline?values
eminently compatible with
must also appear as the home of the disinterested, 'democratic'
absolutism?it
Fontane faces this dilemma when he tries tomake the Katte
criticism.
of
spirit
such values
aus der dieses Land, dieses gleich sehr
episode stand for 'jene moralische Kraft,
zu hassende und zu liebende Preu?en, erwuchs' (II/i, 831). On the one hand,
insistence on Katte's
the historicizing view requires that Friedrich Wilhelm's
a
as
its
time?a harsh decision jus
of
execution be seen purely
phenomenon
in a fledgling state surrounded by
tified by the need to maintain discipline
hostile neighbours. On the other hand, the past must not seem too much of a
intervention is to seem morally strong by the
foreign country if the sovereign's
standards of any time, including the present inhabited by Fontane's readers.
decision to override the court mar
Fontane knows that Friedrich Wilhelm's
tial's more 'lenient' sentence of life imprisonment smacks of royal arbitrariness
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ANDREW
CUSACK
76l
to the prin
and contempt of court, and risks estranging readers accustomed
to
is
to
His
this
dilemma
down
the conflict
of
the
rule
of
law.
solution
ciple
play
runs
as fol
court
I
and the
martial. His argument
between Friedrich Wilhelm
lows: the king's decision to sentence Katte to death by royal decree actually
reflected the majority view of the court martial, nine members of which had
voted in favour of the death sentence, and seven for life imprisonment. But we
know from a source that Fontane cites extensively26 that the court martial was
organized according to military rank into five separate voting blocks of three
members
each, with the chairman possessing a sixth, casting vote. The actual
outcome saw three of these block votes in favour of the death sentence and
tomilitary law, the milder judgement
three for life imprisonment. According
had to apply in the absence of a majority in favour of the death sentence. So,
it is apparent to an attentive reader that the King decreed Katte's execution
in defiance of the will of the court. Fontane's tendentious attempt to elide the
conflict of wills between court and sovereign therefore stands exposed by his
own perspicacity in the use of sources.
This is an effect of the panoramic
structure, which reinstates the principle
of 'Kritik' even as the author seeks to evade its strictures. The presence of
a
multiplicity of voices ensures that Fontane cannot always get his own way
in narrating history, even though his is ostensibly a
single-authored work.
Moreover, the logic of supplementation gives thework itsdynamic, prospective
use of a form of this kind
quality. One senses that Fontane's decades-long
so
as
not
to
much
the nation
fact, but to the
implies allegiance
accomplished
nation as project, a political entity very much
in the making. Rather than
seems to be
laying down ancestral law, the Wanderungen
feeling their way
forwards politically by turning the past into discourse in a manner that invites
amendments, revisions, and corrections.
Trinity
College
Dublin
26
Andrew
Cusack
Vollst?ndige Protocolle des K?penicker Kriegsgerichts ?ber Kronprinz Friedrich Lieutenant Katte,
von Kait u.s.w.: aus dem Familien-Archiv
derer von der Schulenberg, ed. by Johann Friedrich Danneil
(Berlin: Decker,
1861).
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