Exultant cheering and trumpets and kettledrums were the reply. All at once everyone reached for their swords and hurried deeper into the garden where whatever happened subsequently was lost to me.
I am writing this to you now after a short and fitful rest. Only yesterday, before I went to bed, I certainly would not have recorded this scene in my journal, as I would have been more inclined to think it all a dream. Farewell.9
Let us hasten to return from this uncanny nocturnal rite to the light of day. We will now hear something of the inspection conducted by Frederick the Great in the vicinity of Rathenow on July 23, 1779, around the same time this ghost story takes place. The setting was the Dosse floodplain, which after years of work was finally drained. 1,500 settlers were moved there and twenty-five new villages were established. We have the precise transcript of how the king made the head magistrate, Fromme was his name, follow along beside his carriage for hours as he delivered his full report. You can see how sometimes it must not have been all that much fun to answer him.
The carriage was readied and the journey continued. Just as we passed the canals dug in the Fehrbellin marsh at His Majesty’s expense, I rode up to the carriage and said: “Your Majesty, here are two new canals, realized with Your Majesty’s grace, that are keeping the marsh dry for us.”
KING: Tell me, has canalizing the marsh helped you much here?
FROMME: Oh yes, Your Majesty!
KING: Are you rearing more cattle than your ancestors?
FROMME: Indeed, Your Majesty! On this estate I keep forty, on all estates another seventy cows more!
KING: That’s good. But there’s no cattle plague here in this area?
FROMME: No, Your Majesty.
KING: Have you had the cattle plague here before?
FROMME: Oh, yes!
KING: Just use plenty of rock salt and you won’t have the cattle plague again.
FROMME: Yes, Your Majesty, I use that, too; but table salt works almost as well.
KING: I don’t believe that! You mustn’t grind the rock salt, but hang it up so the cattle can lick it.
FROMME: Certainly, it shall be done!
KING: Are there other improvements to make here?
FROMME: Oh yes, Your Majesty. Right here are the Kremmen lakes. If they were canalized, Your Majesty would gain 1,800 acres of meadow where colonists could be settled, and this entire region would become navigable, which would help the town of Fehrbellin and the city of Ruppin tremendously; and many things could come from Mecklenburg to Berlin via water.
KING: That I believe! Indeed, such a thing would help you considerably, and spell ruin for many, certainly for the local landlords, would it not?
FROMME: With all due respect, Your Majesty, the lands belong to the royal forest, where there are only birch trees.
KING: Oh, if there’s nothing more than birchwood, then it should be done! However, you mustn’t make such plans without first checking with the landlord that the costs do not exceed the benefits.
FROMME: The costs will most definitely not exceed the benefits! Firstly, Your Majesty is certain to gain 1,800 acres from the lake; that would be thirty-six colonists, each with fifty acres. Then add a small, reasonable tariff: on the lumber and on the ships passing through the canal and the capital will yield good interest.
KING: Well! Take it up with my privy councilor Michaelis! The man will understand and I should advise you to turn to him on all matters, including when you know where to put the colonists. I don’t demand entire colonies right away; but if there are just two or three families, you can always arrange it with him!
FROMME: It shall be done, Your Majesty.10
Whoever has heard this conversation will also have a picture of the landscape unfurling like a gleaming, freshly laundered tablecloth. There is something extraordinarily broad and expansive in the landscape of the Mark, which comes across vividly in its endless succession of villages and settlements. Its sandy, marly soil does not lend itself to strong shapes; however, one is occasionally surprised to come across a steep precipice, or a gorge ripped into the earth. But the plain of the Mark, with its birch forests and vast acres of fields stretching to the horizon like a broad sea of gray and green, is the landscape’s most beautiful feature. It is so shy, subtle, and unobtrusive that sometimes, at sundown, on the water amid pillars of pine, you think you’re in Japan, and other times, in the limestone hills of Rüdersdorf, you imagine yourself in the desert, until the names of the villages here call you back to reality. Fontane strung some of these names together in a few light and airy lines, which we close with today.
And on this tapestry’s flourishing seam
the laughing villages prosper and teem:
Linow, Lindow,
Rhinow, Glindow,
Beetz and Gatow,
Dreetz and Flatow,
Bamme, Damme, Kriele, Krielow,
Petzow, Retzow, Ferch am Schwielow,
Zachow, Wachow and Groß Behnitz,
Marquardt-Uetz at Wublitz-Schlänitz,
Senzke, Lentzke, and Marzahne,
Lietzow, Tietzow, and Reckahne,
And lastly a garland of lively haunts:
Ketzin, Ketzür, and Vehlefanz.11
“Fontanes ‘Wanderungen durch die Mark Brandenburg,’ ” GS, 7.1, 137–45. Translated by Jonathan Lutes.
The exact date of broadcast is unknown, but the text appears to belong to Benjamin’s broadcasts for Radio Berlin’s children and youth programming on the Berlin Hour, and was most likely produced in 1929 or 1930.
1 This title was provided by the editors of the GS. Benjamin’s typescript does not have a title.
2 The Mark Brandenburg is a German state surrounding Berlin. It is sometimes translated as the March or Margraviate of Brandenburg, from Markgrafschaft Brandenburg.
3 The Wandervogel (“wandering bird”) was a popular German youth movement started at the turn of the century. It promoted excursions in nature as a salutary, community-building alternative to urban life.
4 Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840), German Romantic painter known for his desolate, haunted landscapes; Carl Blechen (1798–1840), German landscape painter.
5 Fontane’s Wanderungen durch die Mark Brandenburg was originally published in five volumes from 1862 to 1889.
6 Fontane, Wanderungen, eds. Gotthard Erler and Rudolf Mingau, Part 1: “Die Grafschaft Ruppin” [County Ruppin] (Berlin: Aufbau, 1976), 1–3. For this passage, as well as for the subsequent references to Fontane, Benjamin’s typescript does not provide full quotations. We follow the editors of the GS, who provided the passages based on Benjamin’s notations.
7 Ibid., Part 3: “Havelland. Die Landschaft um Spandau, Potsdam, Brandenburg” [Havelland: The Region around Spandau, Potsdam, Brandenburg], 1977, 437–9.
8 Radio photography (Bildfunk) was a term used for an early form of television. It could be translated more broadly as the transmission of images.
9 Fontane, Wanderungen, Part 3, 335–7.
10 Ibid., Part 1, 430ff.
11 Ibid., Part 3, 8.
CHAPTER 13. Witch Trials
The first time you heard about witches was in “Hansel and Gretel.” What did you take away from it? An evil and dangerous woman who lives a solitary and purposeless life in the forest and from whom you’d better steer clear. You certainly didn’t rack your brains about her being in league with the devil or with God, or about where she comes from, or what she does and doesn’t do. For centuries people thought exactly as you do about witches. Most people back then believed in witches just like little children today believe in fairy tales. But in the same way that few children, no matter how small, live their lives as if they were fairy tales, people in those centuries thought just as little about incorporating their belief in witches into their daily lives. They were content with simple tokens for protection: a horseshoe above the door, a picture of a saint or, at most, a charm worn under their shirt.