Fritz Reuter: “De Urgeschicht’ von Meckelnborg”

• Manuscript, 49 pages, 1859-1867

In 1859 Fritz Reuter began to write a satire about Mecklenburg, in which he intended to “respectfully entertain our dear knights and region, our most serene government and Herr Kliefoth, the member of the High Consistory, with all kinds of little jokes.” Yet “De Urgeschicht von Meckelnborg” remained a fragment and was published posthumously for the first time in 1874.

“Chapter 1” was the most popular: “When God created the world, he started in Mecklenburg, from the Baltic sea side, and made it by his own hand nervously, on the one hand near Ratzeburg in Schwerin, on the other hand near Stavenhagen in Brandenburg, and knew that it was his holy angel that had to be made …”