Download Repurposing the Middle Ages: Architecture

Repurposing the Middle Ages:
Architecture & Myth in Early 19th Century German Medievalism
Stanislas Conze
Undergraduate Thesis
Department of History
Columbia University
April 6th, 2016
Seminar Advisor: Hilary Hallett
Faculty Advisor: Michael Stanislawski
Word Count: 14,450
Conze
Table of Contents
Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………….3
a. Framing the Franco-German relationship
b. Emphasizing the importance of the public sphere
c. The search for a national past & return to the Middle Ages
d. Historiography
I. Repurposing the Gothic………………………………………………………………………..12
a. Theoretical Debate – Gothic architecture as German architecture?
i. Misconception, quick summary on Gothic architecture
ii. Goethe, Schlegel and the search for a national building style
b. Examples of the Gothic revival
i. The Kreuzberg War Memorial as national monument
ii. The Cologne Cathedral
II. Medieval Myths & Tales……………………………………………………………………..33
a. The Nibelungenlied
i. Pre-Napoleonic interest in the epic poem
ii. The ideological Nibelungenlied during the Liberation Wars
b. The Kyffhäuser Legend & Friedrich Barbarossa
i. National repurposing of the legend
ii. Heinrich Heine – a critical voice
Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………………….53
Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………………..55
Appendix ………………………………………………………………………………………..60
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Introduction
“May the time come . . . where one will recognize the medieval splendor from its organic cohesiveness and where
the Nibelungenlied is called a versified Cologne Cathedral and the Cologne Cathedral the Nibelungenlied in stone”
– Heinrich Heine, Über Polen, 1823
“In the beginning was Napoleon”, Thomas Nipperdey famously wrote at the start of his
opus on 19th Century Germany.1 France had preceded its German neighbors in establishing itself
as a nation on the European map with the fall of the ancien régime. The ideas that led to the
French Revolution of 1789 were met with the enthusiasm of numerous German writers and
intellectuals. In 1792, Ludwig Tieck wrote in a letter to his friend Wilhelm Wackenroder: “O, if
I were now a Frenchman! Then I would not want to sit here . . . But alas, I was born in a
monarchy, which fights against freedom, among men who are still barbaric enough to despise
the French.”23 This admiration of the revolution and the liberal and democratic ideals it
embodied was short-lived. French Jacobin rule and the occupation of the Rhineland from 1794
to 1814, as well as Prussia’s feeling of humiliation contributed to a newfound antagonism
towards France throughout the German territories. Disillusioned and disappointed, a number of
German intellectuals felt betrayed by the changes in France following the revolution, which they
had previously seen as a model to emulate for their own societies. The temporary excitement
from the triumph of republicanism and the creation of a nation-state in neighboring France was
replaced by critical voices about the renewed autocratic power structure under Napoleon.
The time from Napoleon’s rise to power at the turn of the century to his decline in 1815
was perhaps the most significant in shaping the antagonism between the two neighbors, with
1
Thomas Nipperdey, Deutsche Geschichte 1800-1866. Bürgerwelt und starker Staat. (München, 1985),
1.
2
Ludwig Tieck (1773-1853) was a German poet engaged in various literary activities. He was considered
a founding father of the German Romantic Movement.
3
Ludwig Tieck to Wilhelm Wackenroder. 28 December 1792. in Karl von Holtei, Dreihundert Briefe aus
zwei Jahrhunderten, (Karl Rümpler, 1872). 87.
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large shifts taking place on the German map. The emperor redrew it through a process of
mediatization and centralization.4 Prior to Napoleon’s invasion and occupation, the territory that
was to become Germany in 1871 was divided in hundreds of separate principalities and entities,
loosely tied together (but tied together nonetheless) through the Holy Roman Empire. Napoleon
reconfigured this amalgamation, dissolving the Holy Roman Empire and creating the
Confederation of the Rhine in 1806. Many of the medium-sized states were given a first
impression of sovereignty, despite their reliance on France for political legitimacy.5 This shift
created a sense of momentary confusion and disillusionment amongst the German provinces.
While Prussia and Austria retained levels of autonomy, most territories were subsumed into 16
separate states of the Confederation. France gained control of some vassal states in the
Confederation, ruled directly both by the French and their allies. Beyond this process of
geographic redesigning, a series of reforms were introduced that deeply altered the existent
sociopolitical institutions of the Confederation. The introduction of the Napoleonic Code
allowed for the secularization of the ecclesiastical states, the abolition of feudal privileges, and
the rationalization of state structures. A civil society emphasizing equality under the law and
civil liberties went counter to the previously prevalent quasi-feudal systems in place throughout
the Holy Roman Empire. Monarchs had to accept many of these radical changes and the
progressive democratization of their states.
The years of Napoleonic occupation had a profound effect on German provinces, and the
common setback of living under the ‘French yoke’ brought individual German states closer to
one another. A number of German states eventually joined forces with Russia and the Austrian
4
Mediatization [Mediatisierung] is the name given to the overall territorial restructuring in Germany
between 1802 and 1814, through mass mediatization and secularization. Through mediatization is meant
a subsumption or absorption of a state into another state.
5
Nipperdey, 2.
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Empire during the Liberation Wars against France in 1812-1814. These marked an end to French
occupation of the German territories, and French supremacy in Europe. During these years, the
fight against a common enemy stirred up larger nationalist aspirations throughout the German
provinces.
After 1815, the newfound German Confederation oscillated between short-lived spurts of
liberalism and nationalism, and conservative, restorationist backlash. After the 1819 Carlsbad
Decrees were put in place, banning nationalist fraternities, limiting liberal professors and
creating a climate of censorship throughout the confederation, a period of restoration saw
nationalist and liberal tendencies suppressed by small-state rulers. There followed a decline of
works with nationalist undertones in the next decade. Despite a sudden resurfacing of liberal
ideas in 1830 as a result of the July Revolution in France, the 1830s were marked by a similar
upholding of the old political and social order. One of the large changes that began to
structurally work its way into the national project was the creation of the Zollverein, a customs
union between the provinces, which allowed for greater economic liberties. A more pronounced
call for liberal reform, national unity, and freedoms of the press and of assembly in the 1848
revolutions that spanned Europe was also suppressed. Germany would not become a unified
whole until 1871.
The fragmentation of German-speaking states and entities both before and after
Napoleon made unified debates and political decisions at a state-level difficult. The association
between states was simply too loose and inefficient. However, issues that affected a number of
states at once, and that had a bearing on a larger German identity were widely discussed amongst
writers, thinkers, artists, and intellectuals of the time. Benedict Anderson’s concept of a ‘unified
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field of exchange’ is useful in demonstrating the extent to which the public debate taking place
at the beginning of the nineteenth century contributed to a sense of identity.6 Students,
professors, and journalists among others “were both relatively mobile, frequently moving from
city to city . . . and more capable than most of exchanging ideas beyond their own localities
through the medium of print. Thus, these groups were one logical nexus for the formation of a
nascent German national identity.”7 Romantic nationalists and adherents of popular nationalism
such as these students, professors and journalists, albeit not being numerous, “exercised a
disproportionate influence on the political debates of this era”.8 Despite the lack of state
structures providing a space for such debates, the public sphere extended beyond the individual
state boundaries, and articulated many of the ideas and criticisms dealing with the wider political
climate of the time. Ideas expressed within this public sphere reverberated throughout the
German-speaking people.
The political antagonism towards the French began to weave itself into the rhetoric
among writers and intellectuals, and in public opinion overall, throughout the Napoleonic
occupation. Intellectuals who had previously respected the ideas behind the French Revolution
and welcomed French rationalism became critical of the “French character and culture”.9 Faced
with a growing feeling of oppression after 1808, Germans sought some form of resistance to
Napoleon. In this environment, “the desire for the independence of one’s own country and its
‘liberation’ grows into a nationalistic patriotism”.10 This nascent form of nationalism was born
6
Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities. (London: Verso, 2006), 46.
Bernard Levinger, Enlightened Nationalism: The Transformation of Prussian Political
Culture, 1806-1848 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 100.
8
ibid.
9
Mary Anne Perkins, “Introduction,” in Nationalism versus Cosmopolitanism in German Thought and
Culture, 1789-1914: Essays on the Emergence of Europe, ed. Mary Anne Perkins (Lewiston, N.Y.: E.
Mellen Press, 2006), 3.
10
Nipperdey, 18.
7Matthew
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of the negative cohesion generated by the French occupation; by virtue of being controlled by
the French, German provinces grew increasingly attracted to the national project.
Perhaps most representative of this nascent nationalism were Johann Gottlieb Fichte’s
Addresses to the German Nation. Written in 1806-07, this series of lectures and speeches aimed
to foster or indeed awaken a national spirit in response to the Napoleonic yoke. Stressing the
importance of a common, pure German language, culture and heritage, Fichte advocated for the
political realization of a German nation, unencumbered by a French model. Much of his address
drew out an opposition to the French, fuelling the animosity towards them, which ultimately
contributed to the creation of a German consciousness. His particularism diverged from more
pan-European visions and helped to theorize the nation-state on a cultural-historical basis. Fichte
sought to place emphasis on ‘Germanness’ in forming an identity. He was part of a number of
Romantic thinkers who stressed the importance of German identity, history, culture and
language. These kind of factors shaped the German nationalist movement. One of the reasons
why a number of writers, artists and thinkers began to dig into the past to identify elements of
German distinctiveness was to allow the fragmented German states at the beginning of the 19th
Century to distinguish themselves from the French.
Largely because of this, the cultural output of the time was often intertwined with politics.
The Romantic Movement saw an overlapping of literary, artistic and political interests.
Intellectuals contributed to the political stage, and their articulations of German nationhood
through their works became embedded in the decisions behind political debates. Poets and
writers made up for the lack of national political parties; the German language reached every
corner of the German-speaking states. In a letter of 1806 to writer Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué,
August Wilhelm Schlegel wrote:
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Our time suffers . . . from limpness, vagueness, indifference, fragmentation of life in little
distractions and from incapability to achieve great needs, from a general swimming-withthe-stream . . . We are in need not of a dreamy, but of an alert, immediate, energetic and
in particular a patriotic poetry . . .
Schlegel calls for poets to integrate material from past epochs of German history, and to
understand the “old memorials of our poetry and history, and . . . see the current state of being in
opposition to that which we were in the past”.11 The role of the poet had taken on a political
edge, and it became commonplace to bridge history and myth with art and politics. The ‘political
poet’ is just one example of how the cultural protagonists of the time intervened in the public
sphere’s discussion on the larger questions of German identity and nationhood.
In their deliberations on nationhood and creating a German identity, thinkers within the
public sphere lacked a consensus on what a unified Germany should look like. The influence of
French ideas notwithstanding, German thinkers increasingly viewed the two identities as
antithetical. The search for a national identity in the challenging environment of political
fragmentation made a revolution similar to the French extremely difficult. Instead, it was
possible to have a philosophical revolution, which pitted the ancients against the moderns, and
set in opposition “Romance versus Germanic, or even French versus German”.12 Yet, not all
sought to define a particular ‘Germanness’ in opposition to the French. In fact, a number of
German thinkers promoted a mutual understanding between the two.13 One of the core paradoxes
of German Romanticism was the simultaneous aspiration to nationhood and to universal,
humanist values and ideals. How to reconcile nationalist aspirations with more universal desires,
such as those directed at the creation of a larger European entity, was a question many thinkers
11
August Wilhelm Schlegel to Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué, 12 March 1806. in Claudia Stockinger, Das
dramatische Werk Friedrich de la Motte Fouqués (De Gruyter, 2000), 116. (Author’s translation).
12
Maike Oergel, “Antiquity, Christianity and ‘die Germanen’: Forging an Identity in the Modern World”,
in Mary Anne Perkins, Nationalism versus Cosmopolitanism in German Thought and Culture, 17891914: Essays on the Emergence of Europe. (Lewiston, N.Y.: E. Mellen Press, 2006). 63.
13
Notably, Goethe and Schiller of the Classicist tradition, and later on Heinrich Heine.
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of the time struggled with. Navigating the boundary between patriotism and a more
universalistic world view, these thinkers provided a middle ground in framing a German
identity.
In whichever way Germany sought to create its national identity – be it in ardent national
opposition to France or in a more universalistic European federalism – German thinkers looked
towards the past to make sense of this larger identity and search for a cultural footprint. The
cultural output of the time became increasingly inspired by the Middle Ages. While this
medievalism manifested itself in a number of ways, the centrality of the public sphere in
establishing the space for discussion about national issues gave many of these manifestations a
political element.14 This leads to the big question: To what extent did the Franco-German
relationship shape the trajectory of medievalism in Germany between 1800 and 1848? The first
section of this thesis will trace the ideological associations of medievalism in German
architecture – from the theoretical to the physical connotations of the Gothic in the early 19th
Century. The second section will explore two medieval myths, the Nibelungenlied and the
Kyffhäusersage, in order to establish how the Middle Ages were used for various contemporary
political and ideological goals. How were Gothic architecture and medieval myths repurposed to
such ends? What was the relationship between the political climate of the early 19th Century and
the repurposing of the Middle Ages? Considerations on nationalism, particularism and
cosmopolitanism will inform these analyses, and help to understand changes in interest in the
Middle Ages, and their politicization.
19th century German history has been an incredibly rich playing field for historians,
many of whom have sought to understand the dynamics in place prior to the comparatively ‘late’
14
Medievalism can be defined as the devotion to and inspiration by elements of the Middle Ages in
various cultural vehicles, including architecture and literature.
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German unification in 1871. 20th century historian Thomas Nipperdey comprehensively studied
Germany from 1800 to 1918, attempting to understand the 19th century in its own right. Of his
very dense three volume narrative history, the most relevant to this study was Deutsche
Geschichte 1800-1866: Bürgerwelt und starker Staat, translated into English in 1996 as
Germany from Napoleon to Bismarck. Nipperdey sought to provide an extensive history of the
numerous elements key to understanding the time’s history, tying together political history with
social history and cultural themes.
This paper seeks to zone in on the interplay between cultural factors and nationalism in
the context of early 19th Century Germany. What historians have not yet provided is a pointed
juxtaposition of the Gothic and the two myths with the backdrop in mind of understanding to
what extent they were repurposed in relation to and often in opposition to France. As an
introductory overview of ‘medievalism’ in Germany, Leslie Workman’s Studies in Medievalism
provides a broad understanding of certain relationships that inform my analysis. In that
collection of individual essays, David Barclay’s 1993 essay on “Medievalism and Nationalism in
Nineteenth-Century Germany” proves how difficult of a relationship it was by enumerating the
different ‘medievalisms’ of the 19th Century. Another work, which proved invaluable in situating
a central tension in German identity, is Mary Anne Perkins’ Nationalism versus
Cosmopolitanism in German Thought and Culture. Drawing from literary sources and other
cultural elements such as architecture and music, Perkins brings together a number of essays that
highlight the tension between the particularistic nation-state and the universalistic
cosmopolitanism – two defining features of German identity creation in the 19th century.
Beyond this broader relationship, my case analysis of the Gothic is informed by Hilary
Braysmith’s 1993 “Medievalism in German Romantic Art: Reading the Political Text in the
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Gothic Style”, and Robscon-Scott’s 1965 Literary Background of the Gothic Revival in
Germany. The former provides a cursory overview of the numerous political points of view
teased in to the Gothic style and architecture, yet is limited by its constrained length. RobsonScott’s study lays out the importance of literary factors in the Gothic revival in Germany, and
helped to trace the reception of and interest in Gothic architecture through the literature around
it. Studies stemming from the realm of art history, like Catharina Hasenclever’s analysis of the
Kreuzbergdenkmal, are relevant in understanding the Kreuzberg Memorial and Cologne
cathedral. Ulrich Schulte Wülwer’s Das Nibelungenlied in der deutschen Kunst des 19. und 20.
Jahrhunderts traces the reception of the Nibelungen myth in visual art and poetry, as well as its
changing interpretation throughout different periods of German history. For my study of the
Kyffhäuser legend, Camilla Kaul’s Friedrich Barbarossa im Kyffhäuser: Bilder eines Nationalen
Mythos im 19. Jahrhundert demonstrates how the myth was instrumentalised and used towards
national ends. While she contextualizes the renewed interest in the Kaiser in the first two
decades of the 19th century, the bulk of her work focuses on the subsequent time period.
The themes I explore – the origins of the Gothic, the creation of a national architecture as
through the Kreuzberg Memorial and the Cologne cathedral, the Nibelungenlied and Kyffhäuser
myths’ successive reinterpretations and repurposings – have all been studied extensively on their
own. This thesis seeks to add to these studies by understanding the themes together, so as to shed
light on their commonality as ‘repurposed’ elements of the Middle Ages in the early 19th
century.
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I. Repurposing the Gothic
a. Theoretical Debate – Gothic architecture as German architecture?
Architecture had a central place in the public sphere’s retrospective identification of a
particular cultural footprint. Both an understanding of the theoretical origins of the Gothic and
examples of building in the Gothic style in the early 19th century contributed to repurposing the
architectural style for national goals. After a brief description of the style itself, this section aims
to explore the renewed enthusiasm for the Gothic and the extent to which it took on a national
dimension. The second part of the section will evaluate the enthusiasm’s physical manifestation
in two structures: the Kreuzberg War Memorial built in 1818, and the unfinished Cologne
cathedral. To what extent were these buildings intertwined with a national project? And how was
their construction or completion received within the public sphere?
The Gothic architectural style originated in the Late Middle Ages, and was in the early
19th century displayed most prominently by ecclesiastical buildings such as churches and
cathedrals. Some common characteristics include an emphasis on verticality, the pointed arch,
the rib vault, the flying buttress, towers, a focus on the ornate and decorative, vaulted ceilings,
light interiors with large stained-glass windows, and gargoyles. Whereas the Italians looked back
at classical landmarks of Ancient Rome during the Risorgimento in shaping an Italian national
identity, Germans erroneously identified the Gothic as a national building style.15 Gothic
architecture evolved from Romanesque architecture in the high and late medieval periods,
originating in 12th century France.16 The term was coined during the Renaissance in some
scattered writings associating the style to medieval architecture, the Goths, Germans, tasteless
15
The Risorgimento was the Italian unification movement that culminated in 1860 with the establishment
of the Italian republic.
16
A majority of Gothic cathedrals is in France today, including the earliest examples of the architecture.
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ornamentation and lack of proportion.17 It was Giorgio Vasari who presented an influential
viewpoint combining these characteristics into a description of the architecture as a “sort of work
called German”, as “monstrous and barbarous . . . confusion and disorder”. He went on to
comment – “May God protect every country from such ideas and styles of buildings!”18
Throughout Europe, Gothic architecture was largely viewed pejoratively, and “not merely
ascribed to the Germans, it was blamed on them”.19 The architecture was also named ‘Gothic’ to
be distinguished from Grecian and Antiquity-inspired architecture – Gothic in reference to the
Goths who had played a considerable role in putting an end to the Roman Empire. By the mid
19th Century, it had become a consensus that the Gothic originated in France and not Germany.
Around 1830, the French proved that they were justified in claiming the ‘invention of the
Gothic’ as their own. In 1844, the German origin story was questioned by a revelatory study
written by German architect Franz Mertens stating that the Gothic was in fact of French origin.
Until then, however, and even after that revelation, a number of German-speaking writers,
architects, and intellectuals viewed the style as distinctly German in its origin.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe had a highly influential impact in redeeming the Gothic as
a respectable art form, and establishing a connection between the style and its alleged German
origin. In his 1772 essay, “Von Deutscher Baukunst”, Goethe described his experience
contemplating and praising the minster in Strasburg as transformative in his appreciation of
art.20,21
17
The concept of the ‘three phases of art’ was dominant in Renaissance art history. This theory
distinguished the golden age of classical art, the decay of art in the Middle Ages and thirdly its rebirth in
the Italian Renaissance.
18
Giorgio Vasari, Vasari on Technique, (J.M. Dent, 1907), 83-84.
19
Hilary Braysmith. “Medievalism in German Romantic Art: Reading the Political Text of the Gothic
Style.” in Medievalism in Europe. p.38.
20
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Von Deutscher Baukunst. 1772.
<http://www.zeno.org/nid/20004855698>, accessed April 6, 2016.
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Wenceslaus Hollar, Strasburg Cathedral (between 1630 and 1645) 22
21
The word ‘minster’ originates from the Greek monasteriōn. It is a term most commonly given to
churches in England (Westminster, York minster etc.), but also used to translate the German ‘Münster’,
which is basically the equivalent of a large church or cathedral.
22
Wenceslaus Hollar. Strasbourg Cathedral (23x18), (University of Toronto, Wenceslaus Hollar Digital
Collection), Plate P892.
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Through his observation of the minster – largely built in the Gothic style – Goethe overcame his
preconception that Gothic architecture was too overloaded and deformed, un-orderly and
imprecise, unnatural and packed together. Expecting to see an “un-groomed monster”, Goethe
was surprised to perceive a harmonious ensemble of forms and details that uplifted his soul. By
praising the minster, he downplayed any connotations of ‘barbarism’, and through this text,
Goethe redeemed the Gothic style from its pejorative reception in the art history of the time.
After his intervention, Gothic was not national humiliation anymore, but rather national
triumph.23
A second consequence of Goethe’s defense was a greater awareness of the relationship
between the Gothic and German architecture. The title – which translates to ‘On German
Architecture” already made this connection between the two. But Goethe went further in setting
the style of the minster apart from France and Italy, claiming that their architectural masterpieces
were ultimately imitative rather than expressive of true feeling and of novelty due to the
constraining rules and principles they were bound to. The continued negative perception of the
Gothic after the Renaissance was largely tied up with the intellectual climate of the
Enlightenment, and its adherence to universal norms of beauty in architecture that followed a set
of rules and constraints. Goethe challenged this, and propagated the view among German
speakers that the Gothic style was not to be belittled anymore, and the German critic must
realize that it is “German architecture, our architecture, while the Italian cannot praise his own
architecture, even less so the French”. According to this view, unaccepting critics of the minster
were encouraged to make their way to the French or Italians, and thereby turn their backs on
wahre Kunst, or ‘true art’. Goethe critically addressed the Frenchman – “you consider yourself
as the custodian of the secrets of art, because you can account for inches and lines of huge
23
Braysmith, 38.
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buildings. Had you felt more than measured, then the spirit of that which you bottled up would
have reached you, and you wouldn’t have simply emulated them because they did it that way
and it looks nice”. 24 Here, Goethe emphasized the distinction between what he viewed as
truthful, authentic architecture and the French reliance on rules and imitation. By distinguishing
the Gothic from French styles, he further promoted its distinctly German national character.
There were a number of diverging viewpoints on the Gothic’s origin, and its aesthetic
appeal. A critical review of Goethe’s pamphlet depicted the prevailing mixed feelings about his
appreciation of the style. Anonymous, but attributed to neo-classical architect Friedrich August
Krubsascius, this review seemed rather irritated by Goethe’s association of the Gothic to the
Germans: “Does it really redound to the credit of the Germans, when things are said of them
which can only move a foreigner to laughter? . . . The author dispatches the despiser of Gothic
architecture to Paris; would it not be a good thing for him to go there too?”25 To him, Goethe’s
plea seemed to do more damage to the German cultural capital and its image than benefit. By
suggesting Goethe should perhaps move to Paris too, he downplayed his German allegiance and
his work’s attempt to characterize the Gothic as German.
Not all expression of Gothic appreciation was intrinsically intertwined with some
reference to or belief in its Germanic origin. Georg Forster, the naturalist and academic, and a
central figure of the Enlightenment in Germany, laid some foundations for the Romantic
movement despite his classical affinities, notably in his enthusiasm for medieval architecture.26
Similar to Goethe in front of the Strasburg minster, he was swayed by the sensory experience
and the sense of the sublime when faced with the architecture of the (then unfinished) Cologne
24
Goethe, Von Deutscher Baukunst.
W.D. Robson-Scott, W.D. The Literary Background of the Gothic Revival in Germany. (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1965), 92.
26
Robson-Scott, 100.
25
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cathedral. Forster praised the creative force and transcendental quality of Gothic architecture.
Yet, “with his cosmopolitan background Forster forms an honourable exception to this Gothic
chauvinism” that believes in the German nature and origin of the Gothic.27
Similarly, the Schlegel brothers, August Wilhelm and Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel –
both influential poets, critics, and thinkers of the Romantic Movement in Germany, had
diverging opinions on the origins of the Gothic. August denied the Gothic’s Germanic origin,
and defended the idea that it had Saracenic or Indian roots, but his brother Friedrich thought
otherwise.28 August advocated a more relativistic and balanced appreciation of Gothic
architecture. He juxtaposed classical and Gothic architecture in his Vienna lectures, asking: “But
does our admiration of the one compel us to depreciate the other? Can we not admit that each is
great and admirable in its kind, although the one is and is meant to be, quite different from the
other?”29 He conveyed a much less particularistic appreciation of the Gothic. His brother
Friedrich Schlegel, in Grundzüge der Gotischen Baukunst, published in 1803, associated the
Gothic to a German architecture, because “it was common to all German peoples, and because
German builders put up many of the most important so-called Gothic buildings in Italy, as in
France, and even Spain”.30 In his Poetisches Taschenbuch of 1804, Schlegel goes further in
claiming that “every nation, every land and clime has its own specific and uniquely appropriate
architecture”, implying that the “style that is native and natural to the German land is Gothic”.31
Unlike his bother’s conception of the style, here it takes on a much more particularistic and even
organic quality. Increasingly, Gothic architecture became qualified as vaterländische Kunst, or
27
Robson-Scott, 103.
August Wilhelm Schlegel, Über schöne Litteratur und Kunst, (1801-02).
29
A.W. Schlegel, A Course of Lectures in Dramatic Art and Literature. London, 1846. p.23
30
Friedrich Schlegel, Grundzüge der Gotischen Baukunst (1803). <http://germanhistorydocs.ghidc.org/pdf/deu/11_LAM_Schlegel_Auszüge%20Schriften.pdf>, accessed April 6, 2016. (Author’s
translation)
31
Friedrich Schlegel, Saemmtliche Werke. (1823). in Robson-Scott, 133.
28
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‘art from the fatherland’. Friedrich Schlegel’s ideas were widely disseminated throughout the
public sphere and through various media – his periodicals “Europa” of 1803-05, and “Deutsches
Museum” of 1812-13 were both particularly influential. Goethe’s and Friedrich Schlegel’s
arguments both suggest a way of viewing architecture as a means of differentiation, setting the
Gothic apart from French and Latin architectural styles. Despite some disagreement on Goethe’s
associations, they laid the foundations for much of the Gothic revivalism to come in redeeming
the style and associating it to a German origin.
The importance of associating the Gothic to a German origin fluctuated throughout the
first half of the 19th century. The patriotic enthusiasm for the Gothic was not there yet at the turn
of the century, but became a reality throughout the early 19th Century. Ludwig Tieck presents a
clear case of this ‘created’ association to German-ness in his 1798 novel, Franz Sternbalds
Wanderungen. Eine altdeutsche Geschichte. The protagonist Sternbald speaks to the sculptor
Bolz of his impressions of the city of Strasbourg and its iconic minster, which Goethe had
praised in his essay: 32
Bring every censurer, every one, who speaks of Greek and Roman architecture, to
Strasburg. . . . No other sublimity can represent the loftiness of this size; the
perfection of symmetry, the most daring allegorical poetry of the human spirit, this
expansion to all sides and upward above it into the sky; the endless yet orderly in
itself; the necessity of the opposing side, which the other half exemplifies and
completes, so that . . . all is there to express the Gothic greatness and magnificence.
Here, Sternbald seemed to be in admiration of the style, but Tieck makes no connection to its
Germanic origin. Most probably influenced by Goethe’s own transcendental experience in
32
Ludwig Tieck, Franz Sternbalds Wanderungen: Studienausgabe. Edited by Alfred Anger. (Stuttgart:
Reclam, 1966), 217.(Author’s translation)
“Führt jeden Tadler, jeden, der von griechischer und römischer Baukunst spricht, nach Straßburg. . . . Das
Erhabene dieser Größe kann keine andre Erhabenheit darstellen; die Vollendung der Symmetrie, die
kühnste allegorische Dichtung des menschlichen Geistes, diese Ausdehnung nach allen Seiten und über
sich in den Himmel hinein; das Endlose und doch in sich selbst Geordnete; die Notwendigkeit des
Gegenüberstehenden, welches die andere Hälfte erläutert und fertigmacht, so daß eins immer um des
andern willen und alles, um die gotische Größe und Herrlichkeit auszudrücken, da ist.”
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Strasburg, Tieck transmitted Sternbald’s mesmerized description of the city’s Gothic features to
the reader, mentioning only that critics who praise Greco-Roman architecture should make their
way to Strasburg. There are no overtly national undertones to this passage, which was not
surprising in 1798. Decades later, after Napoleon, the Liberation Wars, the period of Restoration
and the renewed calls for a German nation leading up to the 1848 revolutions, Tieck revised his
novel to include some patriotic undertones in his description of the Gothic. In this new 1843
version, Sternbald now said, “How I rejoice in how I felt, after having seen this monument of
German art and spiritual elevation”, and Bolz’s modified response was: 33
Fantasize as you wish . . . but it is true that these edifices, which maybe belong
solely to the Germans, must render immortal the name of the people [Volk]. The
cathedral in Vienna, the unfinished construction in Cologne, and that in Strasburg
are the brightest stars . . . Perhaps we may find out once again, that all which
England, Spain, and France own of this marvelous art, was founded by German
craftsmen [Meistern].
Robson-Scott points out that these variations on the text were published two years after Mertens’
study had demonstrated that Gothic was not a German invention, but a French one. Tieck’s
additions to the novel suggest a continued belief in the Gothic’s German origin. This must have
been an important issue to him – important enough to have his work revised to include such an
allusion. Regardless of this reference to the debate on the historical origins of the Gothic,
Tieck’s revision exemplified the infusion of national ideas and political realities of the author’s
time into a text that had previously not included such connotations. His editing revealed a larger
repurposing of the Gothic for national ends.
33
ibid.,Variantenverzeichnis, 456. (Author’s Translation)
“Wie freue ich mich daß es mir so wohl geworden ist, dieses Denkmal Deutscher Kunst und Seelenhoheit
gesehn zu haben”, and Bolz’s response is modified to say: “Phantasirt nur, sagte Bolz; aber wahr ist es,
daß diese Gebäude, die vielleicht allein den Deutschen angehören, den Namen des Volkes unsterblich
machen müssen. Der Dom zu Wien, der unvollendete mächtige Bau in Cöln, und jener in Straßburg sind
die hellsten Sterne . . . Vielleicht erfahren wir auch noch einmal, daß Alles, was England, Spanien und
Frankreich von dieser Art Herrliches besitzt, von Deutschen Meistern ist gegründet worden.”
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Georg Moller, an architect who along with Goethe’s friend Sulpiz Boisserée discovered
original drawings of the unfinished Cologne cathedral, wrote a letter to Goethe in 1815 laying
out his thoughts on the Gothic. He strongly opposed the now ruling ‘Germanomania’ in
architecture, criticizing the use of the Gothic as a model for the present.34
Despite such criticism, the medieval-national connotation continued to be evoked
through architectural interest and projects in the Gothic style. Heinrich von Treitschke, a
nationalist historian of the late 19th Century, looked back at this time period and re-alluded to the
Gothic as vaterländische Kunst in his work Deutsche Geschichte im neunzehnten Jahrhundert. 35
He claimed that Gothic art was lauded as truly German so long as the enthusiasm of the War
years lasted.36 While Goethe and Schlegel were writing prior to the Napoleonic wars, Treitschke
(retrospectively) suggested a relationship between the active state of war against France and the
heightened identification of the Gothic as a German art form. In the face of the Napoleonic
threat, reviving the Gothic meant reanimating the Christian spirit and insight, and a “resurrection
of the culture and glory of the German nation.”37 At times where nationalist interests were high,
the Gothic found itself repurposed as German.
In a way, this retrospective tendency was a way to make sense of one’s own identity by
looking at the past. A necessary foundation for this identification was the “romantic-idealistic
34
Georg Moller to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 24 Oct. 1815, Ref. 6/1737.
Treitschke should be read knowing that he was an ardent nationalist himself, and ultimately may have
strongly infused some of his writing with ideological, nationalist undertones.
36
Heinrich von Treitschke, Deutschc Geschichte im neunzehnten Jahrhundert. (1906)
<https://books.google.com/books?id=YErAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA45&lpg=PA45&dq=vaterländische+kunst+gotik&source=bl&ots=Og0ipqk53z&s
ig=bRiGDOQ_jJCMat-3dTFwf8zs2Oc&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjKJDgmMbKAhUJWD4KHfqkCUUQ6AEITDAI#v=onepage&q=vaterländische%20kunst%20gotik&f=fal
se>, accessed January 24 2015.
37
Braysmith, 38.
35
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conviction of the shaping of a particular Volkscharakter through works of art”.38 Art and
architecture became a medium of self-identification and self-expression of a people’s character –
a Herderian notion that influenced the public sphere. Writers such as Goethe and the Schlegel
brothers were highly influential in driving this revival in architecture, revealing the importance
of the public sphere in reawakening the Middle Ages; “no movement in the history of
architecture has been so deeply influenced by literary factors as the Gothic Revival”.39
Ultimately, the Gothic style had a number of ideological connotations. It represented
Christianity, “freedom in religion, for the middle classes and urban existence, for community,
for the greatness, depth and spirituality of the German people, for their national identity, and it
was a continuous reminder of what was missing in the new age.”40 It was appreciated both as
particularistic and cosmopolitan, but it fluctuated throughout the first half of the century in terms
of its national association.
Overall, despite the contention over the style’s origins, its perceived linkage to a German
origin by some contributed to the creation of a public consciousness. In another way, the
growing relevance of establishing a national past transformed and infused itself into previous
conceptions of the Gothic, as we see with Tieck. Beyond the theoretical, this Gothic national
consciousness, along with the criticism around it, manifested itself in the perceptions of
architectural projects such as the Kreuzberg War Memorial and the completion of the Cologne
cathedral.
b. Examples of the Gothic Revival
38
Catharina Hasenclever. Gotisches Mittelalter Und Gottesgnadentum in Den Zeichnungen Friedrich
Wilhelms IV.: Herrschaftslegitimierung Zwischen Revolution Und Restauration. (Berlin: Duncker &
Humblot, 2005), 31.
39
Robson-Scott, p. viii.
40
Nipperdey, 492.
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Beyond Gothic architecture’s distinctiveness from ‘French’ forms of architecture and its
‘nationalization’ as a German art form by thinkers such as Goethe and Schlegel on paper, a
number of German architects materialized the thought process by building in the Gothic style.
This Gothic revival had already begun in the mid 18th Century in England, but became more and
more widespread by the early 19th Century throughout Europe. There were numerous rationales
behind reviving this medieval architecture – some religious, some reacting to the industrial age,
some political and critical of the Enlightenment rationalism. 41 In Germany, this revival was
bound up with political ends, such as the search for distinctiveness from the French. Two
examples are worth exploring as reasonably representative cases.
Example I: The Kreuzberg War Memorial
The idea of creating national monuments as such became relevant in France in the
aftermath of the French Revolution, along with its formative value in terms of creating a
common consciousness. In a similar vein, monument-building in the German states conjured a
common consciousness by looking back at the Middle Ages. Schlegel wrote that the “spirit of . .
.the German Middle Ages in particular, finds more complete expression in the monuments of socalled Gothic architecture than anywhere else”42 Yet it remained limited in its reach within
Germany under the restorationist small-state political environment of the first half of the 19th
century.
The Kreuzberg War Memorial was designed in 1818 by the prominent Prussian court
architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel. Commissioned by the Prussian monarch Friedrich Wilhelm
III, the monument was built to commemorate the battles of the Liberation Wars of 1813-1814
41
42
Augustus Pugin, for instance, held the Gothic in high regard for its Christian connotations.
Robson-Scott, 140.
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against Napoleon, and to honor the fallen Prussian soldiers therein. Thus, the very building of
the monument brought to mind the Franco-Prussian enmity of the occupation wars, reflecting
upon the long-awaited and euphoric victory over Napoleon. The Prussian crown prince Friedrich
Wilhelm IV was fascinated by medieval castles and architecture, and took a lot of interest in
determining the style of Prussian-sponsored buildings and monuments, as he also did with the
Kreuzberg memorial. It is believed that the decision to build the memorial in the Gothic style
was largely due to his influence.43 The memorial was to be built on the Tempelhofer Berg, about
40 meters above Berlin’s level, and it was to be made out of cast-iron.
Kreuzberg Memorial in the Viktoria Park, 1910 44
Twelve boards made up the circumference of the neo-Gothic pointy tower, each
representing a particular battle fought in the Liberation Wars. Crown prince Friedrich Wilhelm
IV is depicted in one of these, victoriously standing with a spear faced downwards – a pose that
43
44
Michael Nungesser, Das Denkmal auf dem Kreuzberg von Karl Friedrich Schinkel, 27.
Postcard, 1910. <http://www.zeno.org/nid/20000572314>, accessed March 27, 2016.
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has been compared to that of the holy knight St. George after having slayed the dragon. Another
frame portrays Prince Wilhelm, his uncle, standing over a serpentine dragon holding a medieval
lance at the last battle, at Laon. The laurel wreath he holds above his head symbolizes the final
and ultimate victory over Napoleon.45 The mythical image of the dragon-slayers brought to mind
the heroic victory over a fiend. The dragon recalled the enemy figure of Napoleon, the French
and all revolutionary that comes with them, while the medieval knight was the embodiment of a
victorious Prussia. The memorial thereby reframed the Liberation Wars in medieval imagery,
repurposing the architecture to connote the contemporary political environment.
The monument revealed one of the tensions in repurposing the Middle Ages through
architecture. The Prussian monarch Friedrich Wilhelm III discouraged and hindered national
aspirations, keen on legitimizing his rule over Prussia and maintaining that power. Yet, the
monument contained some explicitly Prussian elements. The iron cross on each of the boards
acted as Prussian symbols, and the crown prince’s armor on the board is marked with a bear,
symbol of monarchical Prussian capital Berlin. The Kreuzberg monument glorified monarchical
authority, in part by conjuring images of victorious knights and Prussian royals leading the fight
against Napoleon. It was conceptualized as a Prussian monument, despite its potential to appeal
to a national audience. Indeed, this is where the tension came into being. The memorial
subsequently did reach a wider audience than just the Prussians. While revolution was something
the king feared, using the Gothic style and the anti-French imagery to complete this memorial
may have contributed to the growing national sentiment that would eventually threaten Prussian
control.
45
Catharina Hasenclever, Kreuzbergdenkmal. 2.
<http://bestandskataloge.spsg.de/local/thementexte/zeichnungen-FWIV/Hasenclever_Kreuzbergdenkmal.pdf>
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Example 2: The Cologne Cathedral
The completion of the Cologne Cathedral was the most spectacular example of the
Gothic revival in Germany. As no other neo-Gothic initiative, it helps to understand the
relationship between this proclaimed ‘national’ architecture and the political environment of the
time. The cathedral’s construction had started in 1248, and was interrupted more than 200 years
later, in 1473. Friedrich Schlegel was particularly influential in advocating for the completion of
the cathedral – already in 1803, his enthusiasm led him to meet with Sulpiz Boisserée, an art
collector and historian from Heidelberg and friend of Goethe. They discussed finding and
completing the plans on paper for the unfinished construction. Finishing the Kölner Dom was to
be no quick or cheap enterprise.
Early discussions of the Cologne cathedral did not yet have a national accent. Georg
Forster’s Ansichten vom Niederrhein of 1791 contained a description of the structure with
organic metaphors and meditations on the infinite – both ways of characterizing the Gothic
which we have encountered in Goethe that prevailed throughout the following decades.46 An
1806 text by Schlegel again described the cathedral in similar terms, providing merely a hint
towards its national significance: “the strangest of all memorials: were it completed, then Gothic
architecture would have this huge work to display, which would be comparable to the proudest
works of the new or old Rome”.47 Schlegel’s mention of pride seemed almost competitive in its
comparison to Rome, recalling the previously encountered particularism of the Gothic style in
general.
46
47
Stremmel, Jochen. “Der deutsche Dom und die deutschen Dichter”, 170.
Friedrich Schlegel, Poetisches Taschenbuch für das Jahr 1806. (1806) (Author’s translation).
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View of the Domplatz in Cologne, the cathedral, and the inner court (1799) 48
During the Napoleonic occupation, the motivation to complete the cathedral was
negligible. Most emblematic of this was Johann Friedrich Benzenberg’s comment on the
monumental fragment: “This colossus cannot be completed, because the all-destructive time has
already broken up much of the foundations, on which would have to be built.”49 This statement,
accompanied with Benzenberg’s belief that the Gothic was of ‘East Asian’ origin, exposes a
48
Laurenz Janscha, Kupferstich: Domplatte – Ansicht des Domplatzes zu Kölln, Dom und Domhof von
Südosten (1799), Rheinisches Bildarchiv. < https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Köln__Domplatte_Ansicht_des_Domplatzes_zu_Kölln._Dom_und_Domhof_von_Südosten_Laurenz_Janscha_
%2B1812,_1799,_RBA.jpg>, accessed 27 March 2016.
49
Johann Friedrich Benzenberg, (1810) in Georg Germann, Der Kölner Dom als Nationaldenkmal, 163.
(Author’s translation)
“Vollendet kann dieser Coloss nicht werden, denn die alles zerstörende Zeit hat schon vieles von den
Grundlagen aufgelöst, auf denen fortgebaut werden müßte.”
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general sense of discouragement which reflected the atmosphere in Cologne, a city that had been
made into a French province under Napoleon.50
Nonetheless, as the occupation neared its end and the Liberation Wars approached, a
number of writers and politicians expressed an interest in the cathedral for national reasons.
Sulpiz Boisserée writes in 1812 how torn he felt that “the poor fatherland stands in pieces,
incomplete and left to the mercy of the impetuosity of the spirit, like the loftiest memorial – the
dome”.51 Here he equated the fatherland to the cathedral, both yet to be completed. Ernst Moritz
Arndt, a popular patriotic writer - outspokenly anti-French – wrote in 1814 after the decisive
defeat of Napoleon at Leipzig, that Germans should honour that battle with a monument. He
advocated for the construction of a memorial “large and majestic like a colossus, a pyramid, a
dome for Cologne” to commemorate the renewed feeling of once more becoming a “complete
people . . . a strong and powerful link of all Germans”.52 Crown Prince Ludwig of Bavaria
expressed a similar plea: “the Germans must complete the dome in Cologne entirely in its style
as a memorial of their liberation”.53 This revealed how, in the process of finishing the Cologne
dome, the burgeoning neo-Gothic interest was subsumed into the nationalist movement.
Associating the Gothic to Germanness automatically then meant understanding the Cologne
cathedral as a memorial for Germans, rather than Bavarians, Prussians etc. By commenting on
‘the Germans’ as a larger people, he revealed how even as the head of a fairly large and
autonomous German-speaking state such as Bavaria he could conceive a larger nation-state
through architectural projects.
50
The reference to East Asian influences adds itself onto the spectrum of beliefs and opinions previously
encountered regarding the Gothic’s origins (Goethe, Schlegels et al.)
51
Letter by Sulpiz Boisserée (1812), in Stremmel, Jochen. “Der Deutsche Dom und die Deutschen
Dichter”, 171.
52
Arndt, E.M. Ein Wort über die Feier der Leipziger Schlacht, Frankfurt 1814. in Nipperdey, Thomas.
Der Kölner Dom als Nationaldenkmal. 595.
53
in German, 164.
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Joseph Görres had a pivotal role in spreading this notion of completing the dome for
national purposes. 54 In his weekly publication, Der Rheinische Merkur, Görres wrote in
November 1814: “In its shattered incompleteness and its abandonment has been an image of
Germany, since the confusion in language and thought; so may it also become a symbol of the
new empire we want to build”.55 Görres equated the unfinished cathedral to an incomplete
Germany, and the common mission to restore the cathedral to that of a common goal to create
the nation. Finishing the cathedral would be a symbol of gratitude for the liberation from French
subjugation. According to Nipperdey, Görres gave the aesthetic-historical interest a decidedly
nationalist and political character.56
The Liberation Wars remained engrained in debate, both oral and written. Nipperdey
writes: “the dome stands as a memorial of liberation -, revitalized with regard to the French
threat on the Rhine: the national project is also interwoven with security against exterior threats,
the dome acts as a symbol of guardianship over peace.”57 Furthering this point, the city of
Koblenz gifted the ruins of the Stolzenfels castle to the crown prince of Prussia Friedrich
Wilhelm IV in 1823. As mentioned previously, Friedrich was fascinated with all things
medieval. Serving as Governor of the Prussian Rhine provinces at the time, he ordered for it to
be rebuilt in the Gothic style, and the castle was completed in 1842. Due to the rivalry with
France, Friedrich “concentrated his Gothic visions along the French border”, notably along or
54
Joseph Görres (1776-1848) was a Heidelber Romantic writer and thinker teaching at Heidelberg, an
outspoken critic of Napoleon. He founded the Rheinischer Merkur, a weekly publication that called for a
united Germany.
55
Görres, Joseph. “Der Dom in Köln”, in Rheinischer Merkur, vol. 151. (20 November 1814). (Author’s
translation)
“In seine trümmerhaften Unvollendung, in seiner Verlassenheit ist es ein Bild gewesen von Deutschland,
seit der Sprach- und Gedankenverwirrung; so werde es denn auch ein Symbol des neuen Reiches, das wir
bauen wollen.”
56
Nipperdey, Thomas. Der Kölner Dom als Nationaldenkmal, 596.
57
ibid., 597.
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near the Rhine river.58 This ties in to the perceived feeling of security provided by a national
architecture.
The architectural return to the Middle Ages served the interests of two major groups,
reactionaries who favorably extracted the feudal power structure from the Middle Ages, and
liberals who saw in the time period a sense of unitary drive amongst Germans. The Kreuzberg
memorial was perhaps intended more to serve the first group’s interest, as a show of Prussian
power. But what both groups had in common was a particularistic drive that sought to
distinguish itself from France – either rational, republican France that was a product of the
Enlightenment, or Napoleonic and then restorationist France. The victory of the Liberation Wars
provided a temporary relaxation between a number of groups – the restorative and the nationalliberals, but also between Catholics and Protestants, and between the classes of society.
However, tensions built up again in the years following this moment of proto-national success.
Shortly after 1815 and as the war increasingly ceased to be present in peoples’ minds, these
political undertones were overshadowed by the purely historical and aesthetic deliberations
around the completion of the cathedral.
Heinrich Heine embodied the growing disillusionment around the project of the ‘national
dome’ of Cologne. In his 1823 essay, On Poland, Heine dreamed of a future in which “where
one will recognize the medieval splendor from its organic cohesiveness and only compare it to
itself, and where the Nibelungenlied is called a verified cathedral and the Cologne cathedral the
Nibelungenlied in stone”.59 Praising the Gothic structure and its cohesive power, he conflated it
58
Samuel Wittwer, “Vision and Duty: Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia and the arts in the early Victorian
era”, (Royal Collection Trust, 2010)
<http://www.royalcollection.org.uk/sites/default/files/V%20and%20A%20Art%20and%20Love%20(Witt
wer).pdf
59
Heine, Heinrich. “Über Polen” (1823), <http://www.zeno.org/nid/20005028515>, accessed April 6,
2016. (Author’s translation)
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with an old ‘Germanic’ myth (see Section II), thereby reaffirming his belief in the style’s
Germanic origin. More than a decade later, in his 1837 letters from Über die französische Bühne,
Heine wrote of an interaction with a friend over the Amiens cathedral, one of the most
impressive Gothic buildings in France. When his friend asked him, full of awe, why people do
not make such things in the present day anymore, Heine replies: “Dear Alphonse, people in that
past time had convictions, in our time we have only opinions, and more is required than merely
an opinion to erect a gothic cathedral”. 60 This revealed his frustration with the seemingly
interminable deliberations around the Cologne cathedral. His comment seemed to have been
more about criticizing the authority behind the project than actively calling for its completion.
Yet, the statement on having “only opinions” in Heine’s time suggests a form of limitation and it
may be inferred from this that Heine wished for more than just opinions. Self-exiled in Paris
since 1831 for his political views, he even contributed financially to the project as member and
vice president of the Parisian Dombauverein. This was an association modeled after and meant
to help the Cologne Zentral-Dombau-Verein, the central group raising money for the completion
of the cathedral.
Soon thereafter, Heine radically departed from his prior attachment to the completion of
the cathedral, and starkly criticized it in his satirical poem, Deutschland Ein Wintermärchen: 61
“Möge bald die Zeit kommen, . . .wo man die Mittelalterherrlichkeiten aus ihrem organischen
Zusammenhange erkennt und nur mit sich selbst vergleicht und das »Nibelungenlied« einen versifizierten
Dom und den Kölner Dom ein steinernes »Nibelungenlied« nennt.”
60
Heine, Heinrich. Über die französiche Bühne. Brief Neun. (1837). (Author’s Translation),
“Teurer Alphonse, die Menschen in jener alten Zeit hatten Überzeugungen, wir Neueren haben nur
Meinungen, und es gehört etwas mehr als eine bloße Meinung dazu, um so einen gotischen Dom
aufzurichten.”
61
Heine, Heinrich. Deutschland Ein Wintermärchen. (1843), Caput IV (Author’s Translation).
“Er sollte des Geistes Bastille sein, . . ./ Er ward nicht vollendet – und das ist gut./ Denn eben die
Nichtvollendung/Macht ihn zum Denkmal von Deutschlands Kraft
Und protestantischer Sendung./ Ihr armen Schelme vom Domverein,/ Ihr wollt mit schwachen
Händen/Fortsetzen das unterbrochene Werk,/ Und die alte Zwingburg vollenden!/ O törichter Wahn!
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It was to be the spirit’s Bastille, . . .
It wasn’t completed - and that is good.
As this very incompletion
Makes it a monument of Germany’s strength
And protestant mission.
You poor fools of the Domverein,
You seek with weak hands
To carry on the interrupted work,
And complete the old stronghold!
O foolish delusion! In vain
The purses are shaken,
Begging of heretics and even Jews
Is all fruitless and to no avail.
In vain the great Franz Liszt
Will play for the cathedral’s sake,
And in vain will a talented king
Make declamations!
It won’t be completed, the Cologne Cathedral,
Despite the Swabian fools’
Shipment of a whole vessel
Full of stones for its building.
It won’t be completed, despite all the clamor,
Of ravens and owls,
Who, ancient-minded, so gladly
Dwell in high church towers.
Yes - even the time will come
Where one, instead of completing it,
Will make use of the inner spaces
As a stable for horses.
Heine placed a double meaning into the description of the cathedral when comparing it to the
“spirit’s Bastille”. Was the dome, as the Bastille, symbol of liberation or of oppression? Was it a
symbol of revolution, or of feudalistic authority? Beyond this ambiguity, Heine made clearer
allusions to his new anti-cathedral stance. It was “good” that the dome hadn't been finished; its
incompleteness made it a symbol of Germany’s power. Is Germany’s power one of
incompletion, the reader may ask? He went on to criticize the “poor fools of the Domverein”,
and their feeble attempts to initiate the reconstruction. “It won’t be completed, despite all the
clamor of ravens and owls, who, ancient-minded, so gladly dwell in high church towers.” Here,
through the image of ravens and owls in high towers, Heine may have alluded to the Prussian
monarch and other figures of authority throughout the German Confederation who supported the
project. Heine skeptically viewed the ancient-mindedness and high status of such individuals,
Vergebens wird/Geschüttelt der Klingelbeutel,/ Gebettelt bei Ketzern und Juden sogar;/ Ist alles fruchtlos
und eitel.”
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who to him made only clamor and noise. Through the final stanza of the excerpt, Heine reduced
the cathedral project to a future stable for horses. This verdict radically downplayed the
idealization of the dome in previous descriptions, and would have been received as outrageous
and blasphemous by many of its advocates, particularly the Catholic Church. Why Heine
departed from his previous views is unclear. Perhaps he had lost all hope in the dome as a
symbol of a democratic-liberal nation when the reconstruction of the cathedral started,
celebrated at the Dombaufest in 1842 by both monarchs and subjects.62 Heine felt the need for
such imagery to ground some of the overtly fanatical notions of authoritarian national
medievalism. Ultimately, however, his satirical pessimism was largely rejected at the time.
Following Goethe’s 1772 text, the Gothic became once again a subject of discussion
throughout the German-speaking provinces. Decidedly national tones around the Gothic style
and architectural projects in the style only came to life around the time of the Liberation Wars.
While having been redeemed and reintegrated into aesthetic discussion after the 1770s, the
Gothic became repurposed ideologically in the Napoleonic aftermath. In part, it became
repurposed against the French, as through its German origin story, its perceived contrast to
French architectural norms, and its direct response to France through physical manifestations
such as the Kreuzberg War Memorial. It also became repurposed in the creation of a national
consciousness, which partly arose out of the desire for differentiation from the French occupiers.
In the three decades following the victory over France, the failure to complete the Cologne dome
became a symbol of the failure to complete the national state. This led to a decreased enthusiasm
around the project and around the romanticized Middle Ages, as revealed by Heine.
62
See Appendix for picture of the Cologne cathedral upon completion in the late 1880s.
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Section II – Medieval Myths and Tales
In their search for an authentic and unique identity, German writers brought to life a
number of narratives from the Middle Ages. Rewriting and reawakening tales such as the
Kyffhäuser Legend and the Nibelungenlied had an ideological dimension. Patriotic writers
consciously or unconsciously politicized these tales to fit their contemporary causes. As with the
enthusiasm around the Gothic revival, there seems to have been a shift in the uses of these
narratives during the Napoleonic occupation and the Liberation Wars. Some linguists, poets and
writers revisited these old tales and increasingly framed or used them to support a national cause.
Others were more reluctant to do so, and ridiculed the conflation of medieval themes of
supposed Germanic origin with the political environment of the time. Two tales stood out in this
regard – the Nibelungenlied and the Kyffhäusersage. After shortly recalling the stories of each
tale, this section chronologically explores some of their implications and interpretations from the
turn of the 19th Century up to the period of restoration in the German Confederation following
Napoleon’s defeat. There seems to have been a shift in the politicization and appeal of the tales
prior to Napoleon’s presence to the Liberation Wars of 1813-14.
The Nibelungenlied
Rediscovered in the late 18th Century, the Lied der Nibelungen, written in medieval high
German, is based on historical events and individuals of the 5th and 6th Century, and has played
an important part in the search for a German national identity. The story is about a knight called
Siegfried who has killed a dragon and become invincible as a result, after bathing in the dragon’s
blood. He comes to King Gunther’s court and asks for the monarch’s sister’s hand. The king
accepts under one condition - that Siegfried help Gunther win over the Queen of Iceland,
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Brunhilde, to be his wife. Brunhilde has vowed to marry only the man who can match her
strength and defeat her in a tournament. Siegfried helps Gunther defeat her by putting on an
invisibility cloak, and the two couples marry. Gunther asks Siegfried to sleep with Brunhilde as
the King himself does not have the strength to do so. Siegfried puts on the cloak again and
Brunhilde submits to Gunther. Years later, Brunhilde finds out that King Gunther had not beaten
her nor overpowered her, and someone avenges her by stabbing Siegfried in the back at the one
spot he is not invulnerable. This is later on followed by a bloodbath as Siegfried’s wife seeks to
avenge him.
The epic poem began to be identified by some as a national epic, a ‘German Iliad’ of
sorts, and its themes of heroism and chivalry as virtuous models to follow in the present day. Its
enthusiasts praised the ‘manly virtues’ it contained, such as “hospitality, honesty, integrity,
loyalty and friendship to the death, humanity, gentleness and generosity in time of distress,
heroism, unswerving courage, superhuman bravery, daring and willing sacrifice in the name of
honor, duty and right”.63 However, the virtuous nature of the text and its association to German
roots is somewhat ironic since the tale is actually set in Burgundy and includes some fairly
gruesome themes of vengeance and betrayal.
While at the turn of the 19th Century, German-speaking early Romantic literary circles,
such as that of Ludwig Tieck and the Schlegel brothers, expressed a newfound enthusiasm about
the Nibelungenlied, its reach remained limited until the Liberation Wars of 1813-14. The text
itself originated sometime around 1200, but was largely forgotten until the middle of the 18th
century. Small interest-based literary and philological circles sought out such medieval texts, and
in 1755 a manuscript was discovered in Switzerland, but interest in the epic poem was close to
non-existent in Germany. While in the process of writing his version of the Nibelungen, Tieck
63
Friedrich von der Hagen, Preface to Der Nibelungen Lied, (1807). (Author’s translation)
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expressed a strong feeling of anticipation to his publisher G.A. Reimer. Tieck told him that
“because of my work, and because I believe that this work, if all odds are not against it, will
have a sensational impact”, which incited Reimer to offer him a special honorary deal.64 Despite
Tieck’s sensationalist prediction, he never got around to publishing it, discontinuing it when a
major edition came out in modern German [neuhochdeutsch] in 1807 by Friedrich von der
Hagen. Either way, the epic poem was limited in its reach in the first decade of the 1800s.
In his 1807 edition, von der Hagen sought to arouse a patriotic reaction from his readers
and conflated elements of Germanic medievalism with one another. In his foreword, he alerted
the reader of the national qualities of the poem and its beneficial value to the fatherland. As the
“loftiest and most complete monument of a national poetry long kept in the dark”, the
Nibelungenlied was “comparable to the colossal and awe-inspiring construction of Erwin von
Steinbach”. Using the Strasburg cathedral as a point of comparison, von der Hagen brought
together separate realms of ‘re-purposed medievalism’ – architecture and myth. In an effort to
emphasize the very magnitude of the epic poem to the reader, he alluded to a Gothic cathedral.
Perhaps he wanted to incite the reader of his Nibelungenlied to react similarly to Goethe when
facing the Strasburg minster.65 Von der Hagen went on to state that “no other song can so rouse
and take hold of, so delight and strengthen a patriotic heart [vaterländisches Herz] as this one”.66
Through this foreword, von der Hagen likely hoped to extend his patriotic excitement to the
readers. However, his work was met with little success in the first few years. In 1811, Hagen’s
64
Ludwig Tieck to G.A. Reimer, August 8th 1804. in Zeydel, Edwin., Matenko, Percy., Herndon Fife,
Robert. Letters of Ludwig Tieck, Hitherto Unpublished, 1792-1853. Modern Language Association of
America (London: Oxford University Press, 1937).
65
See section I (a) of the thesis
66
von der Hagen, 2. Author’s translation
“. . . als das erhabenste und Vollkommendste Denkmal einer so lange verdunkelten Nationalpoesie . . .
dem kolossalen Wunderbau Erwins von Steinbach vergleichbar. Kein anderes Lied mag ein
vaterländisches Herz so rühren und ergreifen, so ergötzen und stärken, als dieses”
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publisher wrote “besides those . . . which Mr. v. Hagen gifted; of 30 dedicated, 29 returned”.67
Hagen was offered a position to teach German language and literature in Berlin in 1810. At this
time of strong animosity towards the French, von der Hagen strove to offer a “nationalpedagogical conditioning of old-German texts”.68 But similar to his book’s lack of appeal, his
lectures were at first attended only by a single auditor.69
As the Napoleonic occupation came into full swing after the Holy Roman Empire was
dissolved in 1806, there seems to have been a sudden wave of interest in anything ‘old German’
[Altdeutsch]. The sudden lack of a unifying power of a binding entity such as the empire led the
educated public sphere to look towards other culturally binding commonalities. Sulpiz
Boisserée, who was seen as largely responsible for the completion of the Cologne cathedral (see
Section I), rooted this renewed interest in the sociopolitical context of his era. He wrote that, “in
this time of German misfortune, where one seeks consolation in all that belonged to a better past,
one famously looked into the long neglected antiquities of our language.”70 Josef Körner went
further than this in claiming that “old German [altdeutsche] studies were the only possible
opposition to the French” since 1806.71 Nonetheless, at the time of the occupation, only small
circles of writers and philologists gathered together to read ‘old German’ texts – and the
Nibelungenlied was no exception as it remained highly limited in its reach in print form.72
67
F.H. Unger to A.W. Schlegel, Berlin, May 24 1811. in Schulte Wülwer, Ulrich. Das Nibelungenlied.
19.
68
Chrisitan Niedling, “Helden wie wir? Die Rezeption von ‘Kalevala’ und ‘Nibelungenlied’ als
Nationalepen im 19. Jahrhundert. in Detering, Hoffmann, Pasewalck, Pormeister, Nationalepen zwischen
Fakten und Fiktionen, 227.
69
Schulte-Wülwer, 12.
70
Sulpiz Boisserée, Erster Band. Stuttgart 1862. 35. (Author’s translation)
“In jener Zeit des Deutschen Unglücks, wo man in Allem Trost suchte, was einer besseren Vergangenheit
angehörte, warf man sich, wie bekannt, auch auf unsere lang versäumten Sprachaltertümer.”
71
Josef Körner, Nibelungenforschungen der deutschen Romantik. 1968. 63. in Müller, Jörg Jochen.
Germanistik und deutsche Nation, 1806-1848. 75.
72
Schulte-Wülwer, 19.
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This changed in the enthusiastic context of the Liberation Wars of 1813-14. A number of
writers consciously began to popularize and spread the Nibelungenlied in a variety of ways. The
themes of chivalry, heroism and courtly love should serve as models for much of the youth
according to Hagen and other philologists. An interesting example is professor of geography and
Germanic languages August Zeune, who also served as director of the Berlin foundation for the
blind at the turn of the century. Convinced of the pedagogical and spiritual quality of the text,
Zeune published a pocket-sized ‘Feld- und Zeltausgabe’, a portable ‘field-edition’ of the
Nibelungenlied in 1815. 73 This smaller format was made for the soldiers to be taken with them
on their campaigns against Napoleon. 74 Suddenly, a long-forgotten medieval text had come to
be used as a very pointed political weapon.
Zeune further politicized the work in his introduction to it. Therein, he associated
Napoleon with the mythical snake of the Nibelungenlied, and the French with snakes sucking
life out of Germany: 75
we still have seen these days in our dear fatherland many gruesome snakes, real rattle
and chatter snakes, which have stripped the land of its best juices, and with their
poisoned geysers and stinking breaths have infested the earthly kingdom and the air.
And as other honest snakes have a snake-king, these had their snake-emperor. . . . But
the powerful snake-slayer has risen, and our holy German soil is again pure and freed
from the foreign vermin.
The passage displays strong patriotic and proto-national overtones through the references to the
‘fatherland’ and the ‘German soil’, and an extreme expression of anti-French sentiment. Zeune
73
August Zeune. Das Nibelungenlied, ins Neudeutsche übertragen. (Berlin: Maurer 1814).
Robert Bartlett, Medieval Panorama, (Los Angeles, CA: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2001), 18.
75
Zeune (Author’s translation)
“. . . also haben wir noch in diesen Tagen in unserm lieben deutschen Vaterlande viel gräuliche
Schlangen gesehen, echte Klapper- und Plapperschlangen, welche die besten Säfte des Landes auszogen,
und mit ihrem giftigen Geiser das Erdreich, so wie sie mit ihrem stinkenden Athem die Luft verpesteten.
Und gleichwie andere ehrliche Schlangen ihren Schlangenkönig haben, so hatten diese ihren
Schlangenkaiser. . . Doch der mächtige Schlangentöder had sich erhoben, und unser heiliger deutscher
Boden ist wieder rein und frei von dem fremden Gewürme.”
74
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made a clear reference to Napoleon through the distinction of ‘snake-emperor’ vs. ‘snake-king’.
He extended this metaphor in the end of the passage through the Prussian or pan-German
embodiment of Siegfried the dragon slayer, having fended off the French ‘vermin’. Zeune
instrumentalised the Nibelungenlied ideologically against the French.
Zeune held a number of lectures on the Nibelungenlied during the Liberation Wars.
Thematically, the lectures were similar to those previously held, but attendance grew
considerably; while only one auditor came to a Breslau lecture in 1811, 300 of a total of 600
students attended a lecture in Berlin in the winter of 1812/13 to listen to Zeune’s “Germaninflammatory speeches on the Nibelungenlied”.76 There was a clear correlation between the war
times and the interest in the epic poem. According to Joachim Heinzle, it was ultimately political
and “should serve as the spiritual armor against the Napoleonic occupation, and set up the nation
to ward off (shed) the ‘foreign shackles’.”77 Analogies between the Nibelungen and the
Liberation Wars became increasingly widespread, and the nationalistic exuberance emanating
from Zeune’s lectures was soon shared by the majority of the educated citizen class.
The Nibelungenlied was politicized in a number of ways beyond this. A number of
“images and scenes were detached from their historical and societal contexts in an ahistorical
manner, through the creation of the Nibelungenlied and its application to the present”.78 Some
images were explicitly repurposed to arouse an anti-French sentiment. Others criticized
absolutism in general, and by extension, German monarchs.79 There existed a difficult tension –
most rulers and monarchs were reluctant to see their powers undermined by the national project
76
Schulte-Wülwer, 31.
Joachim Heinzle, “Die Rezeption in der Neuzeit” in Das Nibelungenlied und seine Welt. (164)
(Author’s translation),
“Sie sollte der geistigen Aufrüstung gegen die napoleonische Okkupation dienen und die Nation in den
Stand versetzen, die ‘fremde Feßel’ abzustreifen.”
78
Schulte-Wülwer, 34.
79
ibid.
77
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but similarly cooperated in the fight against Napoleon. This resulted in yet other interpretations
of the Nibelungenlied, like that of dramatist and writer August von Kotzebue, who rejected the
liberal nationalism and supported the monarchical structures in place. Kotzebue was overall
critical of the work’s supposed ‘pedagogical’ qualities, and rather than seeing a German
Siegfried slaying Napoleon, he equated the knight to a ‘German Napoleon’. The epic poem’s
reception was largely positive, but different political viewpoints tended to inform the more
critical reactions to it; those in favor of a national state were more likely to read a proto-national
subtext than those in power.
The general ‘national’ enthusiasm waned in the aftermath of the wars against Napoleon,
particularly when the Carlsbad Decrees dismantled patriotic student fraternities in 1819. These
restorationist measures challenged the perpetuation of patriotism associated with the
Nibelungenlied. In the 1820s, the preoccupation with the poem had passed. Despite the poem’s
faded appeal, what Zeune, Hagen, and Tieck among others had put into play through their
dedication to a literary reawakening of the Middle Ages was a transition from an aesthetic
appeal to a larger interest in philology and the study of a Germanic past.
Friedrich Barbarossa and the Kyffhäuser Legend
Another mythical tale that was repurposed ideologically and gained particular
momentum in the Romantic revival of a ‘Germanic’ past was the Kyffhäuser legend. According
to the story, Frederick I (nicknamed ‘Barbarossa’ for his long red beard) – iconic emperor of the
Holy Roman Empire from 1155 to 1190 – is not really dead, but instead sleeping on a throne of
ivory, inside a hidden enclave in the Kyffhäuser hills of Thuringia. Therein, he awaits with his
faithful men to emerge at a time of need to save his country. His beard has grown so long that it
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has gone through the marble table according to some, around the table according to others. He
occasionally sends one of his youngest men to check on whether ravens are still flying above the
hill – he is said to awaken when they have stopped flying, and go back to sleep for a hundred
years if they are still there.
Similarly to the Nibelungenlied, Barbarossa and the Kyffhäuser tale were used for a
number of political ends. Barbarossa, representing both a past hypothetical Germany and a
future Germany through the Kyffhäuser legend served as an important figure for all who sought
to reconcile the two time periods, or understand their identity through the simultaneous
retrospective and forward-looking emperor. As emperor of a unified Holy Roman Empire,
Barbarossa was idolized by virtue of ruling the collectivity of territories that made up the empire.
To associate the Kyffhäuser enthusiasm with a set political program or ideological ambition of a
particular social group is nearly impossible, especially in the immediate aftermath of the
Empire’s end.80 Nonetheless, the transformative line of events from the dissolution of the Holy
Roman Empire in 1806, the Napoleonic occupation and the Wars of Liberation, and finally the
Restoration period following the Congress of Vienna in 1815 all impacted the ways in which
Barbarossa and the Kyffhäuser legend were viewed and politicized.
The Holy Roman Empire dissolved soon after the Battle of Austerlitz in 1805. Napoleon
victoriously reorganized a large part of the Western German territories into the Confederation of
the Rhine, and grouped smaller principalities and dukedoms together. Prussia remained
independent, until it was eventually defeated by the French following the War of the Fourth
Coalition in 1806-07. The end of the Holy Roman Empire, when Emperor Francis II abdicated
his title in 1806, came as a shock to many. Some peasants in Thuringia were convinced that the
80
Camilla Kaul, Friedrich Barbarossa Im Kyffhäuser: Bilder Eines Nationalen Mythos Im 19.
Jahrhundert. (Köln: Böhlau, 2007), 106.
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Kaiser was still there and that the news of the empire’s dissolution were lies.81 The event
prompted doubts and uncertainty amongst Germans about their identity, and despite the
Empire’s “multi-confessional character and its tolerance”, churchgoers in Southern Germany
and Hamburg protested the riddance of daily intercessions made for the emperor and Empire “in
the churches and synagogues of the realm”.82 The reaction was largely one of disillusionment
rather than a forward-looking, euphoric drive to act.
The end of the Empire challenged early nationalist aspirations. There was a stark
decrease in postal communications, both because of the structural issues of the new
configuration of the territories and because of people’s reluctance to express personal political
views. Rather than commenting on contemporary politics, much writing delved back into the
Middle Ages. The dissolution of the Empire created widespread incomprehension, and a vacuum
of authority. This prompted the idealization of a strong, central and unifying force at the head of
the German-speaking states – such as the historical icon Barbarossa. While it was not possible to
associate him with a clear political program yet, Barbarossa entered the world of literature and
poetry of the time.
One of the first examples thereof is in Joseph Görres’ imaginative preface to his 1807
Teutsche Volksbücher. This work referenced figures of the Middle Ages, and included
Barbarossa as a character. In a wider commentary on the breaking between old and new, Görres
alluded to the past existence of the Holy Roman Empire and the contemporary confusion
following its dissolution. The preface begins with the narrator failing to understand the
“Elementarsprache”, or elementary language of nature when faced with the sounds made by a
stream. Görres may have been commenting on the disconnect between man and his
81
82
Robert Evans, Peter Wilson, The Holy Roman Empire, 1495-1806. (Brill, 2012), 52.
ibid. 56
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contemporary environment in the aftermath of the empire’s dissolution. The narrator then meets
a monk, who takes him behind a large stone wall, where Barbarossa greets him among a number
of old heroes (contrary to the Kyffhäuser legend where the emperor is alone and sleeping).
Barbarossa asks him: “What do you search amongst the dead, stranger?”, to which the narrator
responds, “I search for life, one has to dig deep into the wells during the drought, until one
stumbles upon the sources. . . . Let me once more from your deeds extract the spirit of life
[Lebensgeist].”83 The ‘drought’ in which Germany found itself in 1807 was that of the postimperial confusion and of Napoleonic occupation, and Görres used Barbarossa and the medieval
past as a way to find meaning in this time of disorientation. The deeds of the ancients –
Barbarossa, Siegfried, and other historical and mythical figures he encounters – were to provide
the narrator (and by extension the contemporary reader) with the ‘spirit of life’ necessary to
reunite man with nature.
During the Napoleonic occupation and the Wars of Liberation, Barbarossa inspired and
embodied ideas of national unity. According to Peter Paret, “the dream of German unity found
models and inspiration in the Hohenstaufen empire and its Carolingian and Ottonian precursors;
for every schoolboy in Germany, Barbarossa—the emperor who had died on a crusade and like
an earthly Messiah would one day reappear—became a symbol of what had been and would be
again.”84 Idealizing a unified nation became intertwined, if not synonymous, with idealizing
83
Joseph Görres. Die Teutschen Volksbücher. (1807), (Author’s Translation),
“Was suchst Du bei den Toten, Fremdling?
Ich suche das Leben, man muß tief die Brunnen in der Dürre graben, bis man auf die Quellen stößt.
Das Leben ist nicht mehr bei uns, wir haben es als Erbe euch zurückgelassen, ihr habt übel damit
hausgehalten.
Dann laßt aus euern Taten von neuem den Lebensgeist mich ziehen.
Von unsern Taten sind die Schatten nur uns hinabgefolgt, willst du mit ihnen sprechen, lies in diesen
Büchern.”
84
Peter Paret, Art as History, 147.
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Barbarossa during the Liberation Wars. The Wars changed the discourse on Barbarossa and the
Kyffhäuser legend, and marked the beginning of political poetry in 19th Century Germany.85
In Max von Schenkendorf’s 1813 poems, Barbarossa embodied monarchical power and
Christian piety, two elements of a larger societal order opposed to Napoleon’s revolutionary
empire.86 In his portrayal of Barbarossa, he brought together contemporary politics with emperor
Barbarossa, depicted as a warrior-like medieval figure coming to save Germany in time of need.
In his poem “Bei den Ruinen der Hohenstaufen-Burg”, written at the start of the Liberation Wars
in April 1813, Schenkendorf recalled an older German era, invoking the Volk’s plea for the
Kaiser: 87
Old, good, German era, You don't awaken grief and envy, Now out of your deep tomb,
The people’s voice calls you. Again shall songs resound, Again one hears merry myths,
Of German victory and honor, As in Kaiser Friedrich’s halls. / March out into God’s war,
Old Hohenstaufen house . . . March ahead of the German army.
Schenkendorf called upon Barbarossa to lead the army, thereby pitting the Germanic Middle
Ages against Napoleon and the contemporary French. Moreover, the mention of God’s war
connoted the crusades. Barbarossa is believed to have fallen in battle at the Crusades, and
Schenkendorf recalled this image in relation to a contemporary crusade against Napoleon.
Barbarossa took on a messianic character in Schenkendorf’s poetry. In another poem of
his of July 1813, entitled “Die Deutschen an ihren Kaiser”, Schenkendorf explicitly calls upon a
German Kaiser to wake up and avenge the Germans, with a similar emphasis on Christianity:
German Kaiser! German Kaiser! Come to avenge, come to save, Sever your peoples’ chains, Take the
crown for you intended. . . . Come in your holy armor! They blessedly signal and angrily remind / you
- the imperial forefathers, calling you to the battle of nations [Völkerschlacht] . . . What you steer,
85
Kaul, 96.
Löcher in Hasenclever, Die Zeit der Staufer, vol III, 296.
87
Max von Schenkendorf, “Bei den Ruinen der Hohenstaufen-Burg”. (1813), (Author’s translation).
“Alte, gute, deutsche Zeit, / Weckest nimmer Gram und Neid, / Nun aus deiner tiefen Gruft / Dich des
Volkes Stimme ruft. / Wieder sollen Lieder schallen, / Wieder hört man frohe Mär, / Von der Deutschen
Sieg und Ehr, / Wie in Kaiser Friedrichs Hallen. / Zeuch in Gottes Krieg hinaus, / Altes HohenstaufenHaus! . . . Zieh' dem deutschen Heer voraus, / Altes Hohenstaufen-Haus . . .”
86
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what you rule, All follow glad and willingly, All find it right and proper, Product of the highest
majesty. . . . Be the star of Christendom! 88
The language conveyed the very urgent need for a German emperor. The terms ‘holy armor’ and
‘star of Christendom’ again suggested Schenkendorf’s desire for a Christian emperor. Yet, rather
than equating the sought for Kaiser to a peaceful figure, Schenkendorf made him out to be a
bellicose and vengeful emperor through the overly militaristic language. Barbarossa was
depicted not as a source of inspiration for a defeated empire anymore (as in Görres’
Volksbücher), but instead as an active participant in the wars fuelled by nationalistic ambition.
Nonetheless, both Schenkendorf poems expressed the redemptive nature of Barbarossa and
depict him in a soteriological manner – casting him as a messianic savior of the nation.
The redefinition of Barbarossa was illustrative of a wider move towards more patriotic
poetry and Lieder composition resulting from the Liberation Wars. Literary scholar and writer
Otto Weddigen writes in 1880 about the poetry during the time of the Liberation Wars: “There
was a large stream of Lieder that gushed over the fatherland, and this patriotic singing became
one of the mightiest weapons against the hated Corsican.” 89 The creation of a unifying poetry
was a way for the public sphere to incite a common reaction throughout the German-speaking
territories against Napoleon, here referred to as ‘the hated Corsican’.
88
Max von Schenkendorf. “Die Deutschen an ihren Kaiser”. (1813). (Author’s translation),
“Deutscher Kaiser! deutscher Kaiser! / Komm' zu rächen, komm' zu retten, / Löse deiner Völker Ketten, /
Nimm den Kranz, dir zugedacht. . . . / Komm' in deiner heil'gen Rüstung! / Segnend winken, zürnend
mahnen / Dich die kaiserlichen Ahnen, / Rufen dich zur Völkerschlacht. . . . / Was du lenkest, was du
herrschest, / Alle folgen froh und willig, / Alle finden's recht und billig, / Ausfluß höchster Majestät. . . . /
Sei der Stern der Christenheit!”
89
Otto Weddigen, Die Patriotische Dichtung von 1870-1871. Essen: Silbermann, 1880. 15. (in Kaul, 96)
(Author’s translation)
“Das lang gepreßte Herz des Volkes machte sich Luft in seinen frischen Liedern, welche die Freude des
offenen Kampfes gebar. Groß war der Liederstrom, welcher sich über das Vaterland ergoß, und dieser
patriotische Gesang wurde eine der mächtigsten Waffen gegen des verhaßten Korsen.”
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In the aftermath of the wars, Barbarossa was re-politicized from his warrior-like
depiction to a more peaceful character. The emperor who until then had “served as legendary
national comrade [Bundesgenosse] in the passionate fight for the liberation from the French
yoke, that Barbarossa has considerably lost his dynamism and messianic spirit of action in
literary representations.”90 The Congress of Vienna of 1814-15 and the ensuing period of
Restoration led poets and authors to revise Barbarossa. Friedrich Rückert’s 1817 poem,
“Barbarossa” can be understood as an answer to the anti-nationalist politics of the Restoration; it
was welcomed by nationalists who were angry at the particularism of the small-state system.
This poem quickly became widespread, was introduced in schoolbooks and reached different
strata of society.91 It was relatively easy to memorize, and ambiguous enough to be read as myth
rather than political commentary.
The 1817 poem recalls the Kyffhäuser legend, in which Barbarossa will return to save
the empire once the ravens have stopped flying. Rückert writes: 92
He has taken down with him, The empire’s splendor, And will return again, With it, in
fitting time. . . . In his sleep he tells a stripling, Go forth, to the entrance of the castle, and
see if still the ravens, Are flying around the hill. And if the old ravens, still fly around
there, then I must keep on sleeping, Another hundred years.
Rückert’s choices left open a number of interpretations. The empire’s splendor [Herrlichkeit]
was, according to the line, not there anymore in his time. Yet Rückert does not specify when the
‘fitting time’ will be, and what it entails besides the return of Barbarossa. Moreover, the ravens
could have represented a number of entities that prevent the return of a Kaiser – perhaps they
90
Kaul, 102.
Kaul, 104.
92
Friedrich Rückert, “Barbarossa” (1817). (Author’s translation),
“Er hat hinabgenommen, / Des Reiches Herrlichkeit, / Und wird einst wiederkommen, / Mit ihr, zu seiner
Zeit. . . . / Er spricht im Schlaf zum Knaben: / Geh hin vors Schloß, o Zwerg, / Und sieh, ob noch die
Raben / Herfliegen um den Berg. / Und wenn die alten Raben, / Noch fliegen immerdar, / So muß ich
auch noch schlafen / Verzaubert hundert Jahr.”
91
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referred to the little states’ desire for autonomy and anti-nationalistic attitude. They would not, at
this point, be associated with the French anymore, but they could well have been interpreted as
the plurality of fragmented units within the Germanic provinces. The Kyffhäuser Legend still
served the purposes of the nationalist movement, but here the more extreme elements of it –
“hatred of the French and of despots, messianic faith and odour of sanctity, the prophetic tone
and ‘Teutomania’ – had fallen away”.93 Rückert’s poem remained the most famous account of
the Kyffhäuser legend around the medieval emperor.
Throughout the 1820s and 1830s, the short-lived nationalist dreams of the Liberation
Wars were downplayed by a period of political restoration, which stifled some of the myth
telling. The regression to small-state authoritarianism saw the enacting of strict censorship laws,
which made it difficult for poets and writers to express their political views. With regard to the
Barabrossa re-telling, this shift to silence on the part of the poets was particularly noticeable in
the decade following Rückert’s poem.94 Throughout this time period, the spirit of censorship
silenced overtly liberal voices, which could challenge the authority of the small monarchical or
princely states. It also quieted nationalist voices, which undermined the authority of these
smaller rulers in favor of a larger Germany. The press censorship law resulting from the
Carlsbad Decrees of 1819 required all works under 20 pages to be submitted to the authorities
for censoring, which at that point simply meant crossing out parts of the text. Heinrich Heine,
expressing both national and liberal views, became increasingly opposed to the oppressive
mindset of Prussian censorship, which led him to self-exile in Paris.
Frustrated at the lack of change towards the ideals expressed around the Liberation Wars,
Heine presented a more critical view about the Barbarossa fanaticism. In his 1844 work,
93
94
Nipperdey, 267.
Kaul, 105.
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Deutschland Ein Wintermärchen, he aimed to stress the importance of detaching a medieval
cultural heritage – as represented, for example, through myths – from a real German heritage.
Through a satirical depiction of the medieval Kaiser, he criticized the chauvinistic and
backwards-looking idealization of the Reich, and instead advocated for a more cosmopolitan and
democratic order. In sections XVI and XVII (Caput XVI & XVII), Heine as the narrator
encounters Barbarossa in a dream. After explaining the guillotine to the Kaiser, the conversation
goes as follows: 95
‘The King and Queen!
Strapped! on a board!
That goes against all respect
And rules of etiquette!
And you, who are you, to dare
To speak to me with such intimacy? . . .
Already your breath is high act of
treason,
And a lèse-majesté.’
As the old man went into such a rage,
Not holding back,
I too was overcome,
And allowed by inner thoughts to burst.
The Republicans make fun of us,
Seeing as our leader
A crowned and sceptered spectre;
Prone to ridicule and jokes.
Also your flag pleases me no more,
The old-German fools spoiled
Already through the Burschenschaften
My desire for the Black-Red-Gold.
The best would be, you stay inside,
Here in the old Kyffhäuser Thinking of the matter in more depth,
We do not even need a Kaiser.
"Sir Barbarossa” - I called loudly “You are an old fable being,
Go back to sleep, we will also
Save ourselves without you.
95
Heine, Heinrich. Deutschland Ein Wintermärchen. 1844. (Author’s Translation),
Der König und die Königin!/ Geschnallt! an einem Brette!/ Das ist ja gegen allen Respekt/Und alle
Etikette!/ Und du, wer bist du, daß du es wagst,/ Mich so vertraulich zu duzen?/ Warte, du Bürschchen,
ich werde dir schon/Die kecken Flügel stutzen!/ Es regt mir die innerste Galle auf,/ Wenn ich dich höre
sprechen,/ Dein Odem schon ist Hochverrat/Und Majestätsverbrechen!«/ Als solchermaßen in Eifer
geriet/Der Alte und sonder Schranken/Und Schonung mich anschnob, da platzten heraus/Auch mir die
geheimsten Gedanken./ »Herr Rotbart« – rief ich laut –, »du bist/Ein altes Fabelwesen,/ Geh, leg dich
schlafen, wir werden uns/Auch ohne dich erlösen./ Die Republikaner lachen uns aus,/ Sehn sie an unserer
Spitze/So ein Gespenst mit Zepter und Kron';/ Sie rissen schlechte Witze./ Auch deine Fahne gefällt mir
nicht mehr,/ Die altdeutschen Narren verdarben/Mir schon in der Burschenschaft die Lust/An den
schwarzrotgoldnen Farben./ Das beste wäre, du bliebest zu Haus,/ Hier in dem alten Kyffhäuser –/Bedenk
ich die Sache ganz genau,/ So brauchen wir gar keinen Kaiser.«
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The mention of the guillotine to open the conversation emphasized the sharp divide between the
far-off feudal structures of the Middle Ages and the Modern Age. Heine satirized the emperor
through his exigent disdain of the narrator who talks to him in the second person singular
(German ‘du’, instead of the more respectful ‘sie’). Caricatured as holding on to the respect he
thinks is due to him, Barbarossa fails to impress the narrator who shows his true colors in the
dream, and the Kaiser comes across as superfluous. Heine has the narrator skillfully discard the
need for a fable-like figure of authority within his own dream – ‘go back to sleep’, he tells him.
This statement, along with Barbarossa’s extended sleep in the legend, recalled the passivity
amongst political rulers of Heine’s own time. Through this passage, Heine expressed his
republican sympathies and rejected the fascination around a ‘crowned and sceptered specter’ as
farcical and ridiculous. The Caput ends with the strong statement rejecting the need for an
emperor, probably promoting Heine’s support for a republic instead. Heine departs from the
previous allusions to Friedrich I. which all pointed to a central figure of authority – be it as an
emperor, a messiah, a valiant hero who would guide the Germans in their fight against
Napoleon, or some combination of these.
Perhaps in an attempt to confuse the censors, Heine reminded the reader that such
behavior would be unacceptable in reality. Much of his work had previously been censored, due
to its perceived anti-German or unpatriotic message. Not long before its publication, Heine’s
publisher Julius Campe wrote him in a letter: “You will have to suffer a lot for this poem. . . .
Not to mention that you are putting new ammunition against you in the hands of the patriots, and
thereby recalling the French-haters into the playing field.”96 However, Heine cast off these
criticisms already in the foreword of the Wintermärchen: “I already hear their beer-voices: You
even abuse our colors, despiser of the fatherland, friend of the French, to whom you want to cede
96
Julius Campe to Heinrich Heine, 10 July 1844.
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the free Rhine! Calm down. I will respect and honor your colors, if they deserve it, when they
are not anymore a pointless and servile gimmick. Plant the black-red-gold flag on the height of
German thought, make it into the standard of free mankind, and I’ll want to give it my best
lifeblood. Calm down, I love the fatherland as much as you do.”97
Heine’s stance was more complicated than a simple rejection of all patriotic
medievalism. The nuanced approach he used in the epic poem, announced in his foreword,
informs the earlier passage too. In the following section, Caput XVII, Heine’s narrator wakes up
to realize: 98
97
Heine, Heinrich. Deutschland Ein Wintermärchen. Foreword, (Author’s translation).
Heine Heinrich, Deutschland Ein Wintermärchen. Caput XVII. (Author’s translation),
Ich habe mich mit dem Kaiser gezankt/Im Traum, im Traum versteht sich –/Im wachenden Zustand
sprechen wir nicht/Mit Fürsten so widersetzig./ Nur träumend, im idealen Traum,/ Wagt ihnen der
Deutsche zu sagen/Die deutsche Meinung, die er so tief/Im treuen Herzen getragen./ Als ich erwacht',
fuhr ich einem Wald/Vorbei, der Anblick der Bäume,/ Der nackten hölzernen Wirklichkeit,/
Verscheuchte meine Träume./ Die Eichen schüttelten ernsthaft das Haupt,/ Die Birken und Birkenreiser,/
Sie nickten so warnend – und ich rief:/ »Vergib mir, mein teurer Kaiser!/ Vergib mir, o Rotbart, das
rasche Wort!/ Ich weiß, du bist viel weiser/Als ich, ich habe sowenig Geduld –/Doch komme du bald,
mein Kaiser!/…/Das alte Heilige Römische Reich,/ Stell's wieder her, das ganze,/ Gib uns den
modrigsten Plunder zurück/Mit allem Firlifanze./ Das Mittelalter, immerhin,/ Das wahre, wie es gewesen,
Ich will es ertragen – erlöse uns nur/Von jenem Zwitterwesen,/ Von jenem Kamaschenrittertum,/ Das
ekelhaft ein Gemisch ist/Von gotischem Wahn und modernem Lug,/ Das weder Fleisch noch Fisch ist./
Jag fort das Komödiantenpack,/ Und schließe die Schauspielhäuser,/ Wo man die Vorzeit
parodiert/Komme du bald, o Kaiser!«
98
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I’ve quarreled with the emperor
In my dream, dream of course Awake we do not speak
With princes so insubordinately.
...
The old Holy Roman Empire,
Restore it, all of it,
Give us back the musty junk,
And all the nonsense with it.
Only dreaming, in an ideal dream,
The German dares to voice
The German opinion, which he so deeply
Carries in his faithful heart.
The Middle Ages, after all,
The true ones, as they were,
I will endure - just free us
From this bastardisation,
As I awoke, I drove past
A forest, the sight of its trees,
and the naked wooden reality,
Drove away my dreams.
From this mongrel chivalry,
That repulsively intermeshes
Gothic craze with modern pose,
That is neither meat nor fish.
The oaks gravely shook their heads,
The birches nodded warningly,
And I called:
“Forgive me, my dear Kaiser
Expel the comedians’ pack,
And shut the theatres,
In which this time is parodied
Do come soon, o Kaiser!"
Forgive, o Barbarossa, my rash words!
I know you are much wiser
Than I, I have so little patienceBut do come soon, my Kaiser!
He ends with a call for Barbarossa to return and restore the Holy Roman Empire, but also
reminds the reader of the downsides to it, the ‘musty junk’ and ‘nonsense’. Heine responded to
the fanaticism that had existed in the time prior and contested the authenticity the public tended
to draw from a highly fictionalized medieval past. Rather than the ‘bastardisation’, ‘mongrel
chivalry’, and the repulsive intermeshing of ‘Gothic craze and modern pose’, Heine called for
the true Middle Ages. His nuanced view on nationalism did not express itself in the particularism
of small states or in the association to deceitful Germanic roots. Yet, though he disapproved of
the intermeshing of medieval traditions with the national movement, he did not see all of it
negatively. Despite his point that Germany could very well do without a Kaiser, he did not
50
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assess the imperial symbolism as purely negative, and was conscious of these elements’ capacity
to create a public consciousness.99
Heine’s Wintermärchen was received in mixed ways. While some writers in Germany
greeted it with positive reviews, “conservative and national-liberal critics in Germany were not
amused”.100 Prussian advisor Seebode, in charge of censorship, declared the poem to be made up
of “almost continuously disgraceful discourses having been put into verse, dangerous to the
public, on the character of the German people, disgraceful to the socio-political institutions of
Germany and in particular the brutal sorties on the hallowed person of the current head of
state”.101 Prussian ruler Frederick Wilhelm IV banned the poem in Prussia and issued an arrest
warrant against Heine, who had returned to the safer environment of Paris. Through his
Wintermärchen, Heine pleaded for a more rational patriotism based on liberal values rather than
irrational Kamaschenrittertum - the false idealization of the Middle Ages and the fanaticism, as
well as the chauvinism it engendered.102 Obviously, he was met with much criticism and
opposition.
Overall, Barbarossa was politicized in a number of ways between 1800 and 1848. The
historical figure symbolized unity to some, militaristic inspiration to others, and overly excessive
fanaticism to a few, such as Heine. One aspect all iterations of the Kyffhäuser or depictions of
Barbarossa seem to have shared was the character’s ability to create a sense of community. Even
99
Wolfgang J Mommsen. “Heinrich Heine und die Deutschen”. in Aufklärung und Skepsis.
(Internationaler Heine-Kongreß, 1997), 122.
100
George F. Peters. The Poet as Provocateur, Heinrich Heine and His Critics. (2000), 59.
101
Heinrich Hubert Houben, Verbotene Literatur von der klassishcen Zeit bis zur Gegenwart. Vol. 1.
(Georg Olms Verlag: Hildesheim, 1992), 417. (Author’s translation)
“fast durchgehends in Verse gebrachte gemeingefährliche Schandreden über den Charakter des deutschen
Volkes, die politisch-sozialen Institute Deutschlands und ins Besondere die brutalsten Ausfälle auf die
geheiligte Person des diesseitigen Staatsoberhauptes“
102
With the notion of Kamaschenrittertum, Heine means that mixture of ‘Gothic craze and modern pose’,
a bastardization of true chivalry and thus a departure from real medieval values.
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if just through his entry into discussion among the literary circles of the German Confederation,
Barbarossa’s myth contributed to a collective sense of identity, and its propagation facilitated the
creation of a public sphere. For all nationalist enthusiasts, Barbarossa acted as a unifying symbol
from the past, which aided their striving for the creation of a national identity and state.
However, the hopes for his return were but a dreamy myth, lacking a clear consensus on how
exactly to establish such a nation-state, and what form it would take.
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Conclusion
The return to the Middle Ages in architecture and myth represented a strong current in
German political thought and national consciousness following the demise of the Holy Roman
Empire. It was largely intertwined with the political climate of the German provinces during and
after the Liberation Wars. Up until the turn of the century, interest in the Middle Ages had been
at best “fitful and sporadic” for Germans, representing a “living reality which was almost
entirely bad”.103 Independent interests in aspects thereof were apolitical and largely unrelated.
Goethe found an interest in Gothic architecture in a late 18th Century that seemed disinterested in
and unappreciative of the style. Medieval manuscripts that were found or discussed in small
circles did not reach the wider public at the time.
With Napoleon and the end of the Holy Roman Empire came a shift in the appeal of
elements of the Middle Ages. In a climate of political disillusionment and confusion,
architecture and myth were repurposed and politicized for a number of ends. Following the
dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, there was a loss of orientation and unity. The
romantic politicization of the Gothic and medieval myths came from a desire to establish a
certain cultural footprint in the face of French occupation and territorial fragmentation. The
search for a cultural rootedness turned to the past, to a heritage in language, in literature, and in
an architectural particularism. This heightened aesthetic nationalism peaked during the
Liberation Wars against France, which united German provinces in a common political desire to
rid themselves of the French occupant and distinguish German nation building from what was
largely conceived to be perverted republicanism in imperial France. In the years of 1812-1814,
myths took on an overtly nationalistic tone, and the ensuing victory against the French called for
103
Robson-Scott, 113, 120
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the creation of monuments and architectural symbols of the larger German nation. The
Liberation Wars repurposed the Middle Ages to fit the national cause and oppose the French.
Overall, a series of changes in the political climate gave momentum to a politicized
appreciation of medieval architecture and tales. Yet the instrumentalization of art arose both
from a particularism that sought to relativize Germany with respect to France or directly
confront it, and from an opposition to the small-mindedness of the many states that spanned
Germany. It was both particularistic in the sense that it sought to contain a Germanic cultural
footprint different from the French, and universalistic in the larger aspiration for a nation-state
encompassing the numerous small remnant states of post-imperial Germany.
During the almost seven decades between the end of the Holy Roman Empire and the
emergence of the new imperial Germany in 1871, medieval myths gained a degree of importance
far beyond their impact at any given previous period of German history. Their life span would
eventually last throughout the 19th Century, with the completion of the Cologne Cathedral not
before 1880, and the Nibelungenlied finding its contemporary artistic expression only in 1876
when Richard Wagner’s Ring tetralogy, based on the old myth, was first performed at Bayreuth.
Had Barbarossa finally woken up from his long sleep? Heinrich Heine, possibly the most critical
mind of his time in Germany, had then long died, but he would otherwise certainly have
dismissed once again Germany’s ability to become a nation state, as he had reduced his fellowcountrymen’s capacities in this respect to only creating “ein Luftreich des Traums” – an aerial
empire of dreams.104
104
Heine, Heinrich. Deutschland Ein Wintermärchen. Caput VII. (Author’s translation).
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Appendix
CompletedColognecathedral,1886/1890
PhotographbyTheodorCreifelds,RheinischesBildarchivKöln
60