.OD37(7a>
 
 
 Central University Library 
 
 University of California, San Diego 
 Note: This item is subject to recall after two weeks. 
 
 Date Due 
 
 ^^oin 
 
 JbUi 
 
 0139(1/91) 
 
 ^\'^^CALIV0^\ 
 
 •fl 
 
 UCSDLib. 
 
 .^n s.mn - ^ vr 
 
 -^v 
 
 .0031(7 ,
 
 •"7^ t-
 
 PUBLICATIONS 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA 
 
 AMERICANA GERMANICA 
 
 MONOGRAPHS DEVOTED TO THE COMPARATIVE 
 STUDY OF THE 
 
 Literary, Linguistic and Otlier Cultural Relations 
 
 OF 
 
 Germany and America 
 
 EDITOR 
 
 MARION DEXTER LEARNED 
 University of Pennsylvania 
 
 (See List at the End of the Book)
 
 UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA 
 
 ROBERT REITZEL 
 
 BY 
 ADOLF EDUARD ZUCKER 
 
 V 
 
 A THESIS 
 Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School, in Partial Fulfill- 
 ment of the Requirements for the Degree of 
 Doctor of Philosophy 
 
 Attwrtratta C^ermattira 
 
 Number 25. 
 
 AtturUana (Bstmanita Prrao 
 
 Philadelphia 
 
 19 17
 
 All my life I have spoken and written German, drunk, 
 loved and dreamed in German fashion; yes, I've even asked 
 them to notify God, that in case there is such a thing as immor- 
 tality I should prefer the hell of the old Vandals and Saxons 
 who never bowed their necks in baptism to the heaven of the 
 Christians — and still honorable ix)liticians, rich shop-keepers, 
 Philistines with no ideals whatsoever, and other noble folk whose 
 knowledge of German extends no further than the catechism, the 
 multiplication table, and the J Vac lit am Rhcin come to tell me 
 
 that I am no true German! 
 
 Robert Reitzel.
 
 7^7 
 
 OI0
 
 PREFACE 
 
 Robert Reitzel and his Armer Teufel are practically un- 
 known among historians of the German- Americans and their 
 literature. It is the purpose of this little volume to direct the at- 
 tention of those interested in things German-American to this 
 unique and powerful writer, the greatest among German-Amer- 
 ican authors, and possibly to suggest further and deeper studies 
 of his life and his works. His worth has been recognized by his 
 friends, and they have done a great deal to afford him the honor 
 that is his due. Shortly after his death they published Mein 
 Buck (now out of print), a one-volume collection of some of his 
 essays and poems edited by Martin Drescher. In 19 13 the 
 "Reitzel Klub" (Dr. Tobias Sigel, Breitmeyer Building, Detroit, 
 Mich.) issued in three 500-page volumes, leather-bound. Des 
 Armen Teufels Gesammelte Schriften, with an introduction by 
 Max Baginski. These volumes, of the greatest importance both 
 in literary as well as in cultural history, ought to be found in 
 every German library in America, Reitzel's friend, George W. 
 Spier (310 Ninth Street, Washington, D. C.) has published 
 Das Reitsel- Album, a collection of portraits and drawings of 
 Reitzel. Since these books together with the files of the Arme 
 Teufel (now exceedingly rare) represent all the literature on 
 this subject, I dispense with appending a bibliography tO' this 
 dissertation. This monograph is the first on Robert Reitzel, 
 except for a short master's thesis by P. E. Werckshagen under 
 the direction of Prof. O. E. Lessing, of which there is extant 
 but one typewritten copy in the library of the University of 
 Illinois. The first chapter of my dissertation appeared in the 
 German- American Annals in 191 5. 
 
 I am indebted for my acquaintance with the works of 
 Reitzel to Mrs. Fernande Richter, the St. Louis woman who 
 imder the nom de plume of Edna Fern has given us the best short 
 stories written by a German in this country. Last summer she 
 
 (7)
 
 8 Preface 
 
 kindly permitted me to peruse the files of the Arme Ten f el in 
 her library, and in the course of many conversations told me in 
 her delightful way much of the history of Reitzel's paper and 
 the personality of its editor. Without her friendly cooperation 
 this study could not have been made. To her also do I owe 
 my introduction to Martin Drescher, the third in the circle of 
 German-American naturalists and another close friend of 
 Reitzel's whose reminiscences also helped to round out the pic- 
 ture of this German Charles Lamb, as one is apt to call Reitzel 
 after reading his delightful Plandereien. Mr. Konrad Schweier 
 presented me with several volumes of the Arme Teufel. Others 
 who aided me in my work are Dr. Tobias Sigel, Mr. Carl E. 
 Schmidt, Mr. George W. Spier, and Mr. Ernst Kurzenknabe. I 
 also wish to acknowledge some very valuable suggestions by 
 Prof. M. D. Learned and Prof. D. B. Shumway of the Univer- 
 sity of Pennsylvania. 
 
 Adolf E. Zucker. 
 University of Pennsylvania 
 Twelfth-night, 1917
 
 Robert Reitzel 
 
 Doch aus dem Dunkel lodern noch die Flamraen, 
 Die lodernd deine Seele einst entfacht. 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE LIFE OF ROBERT REITZEL 
 
 Robert Reitzel, the editor of the Arme Teufel, stands pre- 
 eminent among German-American authors. For fourteen years 
 his brilHant essays and his inspiring poems fascinated the read- 
 ers of his weekly, the most widely circulated German literary 
 journal ever published in America. Furthermore, he exerted 
 great influence as a speaker in "Freien Gemeinden," or wherever 
 people were willing to hear the gospel of liberty and of beauty 
 in the language of Lessing, Goethe, and Schiller. Tho he 
 can by no means be called a great orator like Ingersoll or Carl 
 Schurz, yet this short, stocky man, with curly black hair and 
 powerful moustache adorning his "Charakterkopf" (in some 
 pictures his profile recalls Nietzsche), made a great impression 
 on his audiences, and many old "free-thinkers" will tell with 
 glowing eyes of the pleasure of listening to their leader and hero. 
 A propagandist for liberty — religious, moral, social — but an 
 artist to the core, who found the inspiration for his work in the 
 varied activities of his life, his loves, his struggles, his suf- 
 fering, and who left the impress of his personality on all that 
 he wrote. There is little melancholy reflection in Reitzel; his 
 is a yea-saying philosophy; he finds great joy in life and little 
 to grieve over in death. Since all his poems are so closely con- 
 nected with his life, and can best be understood in the light 
 of his experiences in the Old and New World, I cite them in 
 connection with the events of his life, "ein Dichterleben." 
 
 The life of Robert Reitzel might be cited in support of the 
 theory that prenatal influences determine to a great extent the 
 later development of a man. For this lifelong revolutionist was 
 
 (9)
 
 10 Robert Reitsel 
 
 not only born in the stormy days of revolution, on the twenty- 
 seventh of January, 1849, but all other circumstances of his birth 
 tended to foster in him a bitter hatred of monarchies and 
 bureaucracies. In the night in which he was born, the police 
 searched the house of the Reitzels for a participant in the revolu- 
 tion, the brother of Reitzel's mother, to whom on this winter 
 night his father had tried to refuse shelter for fear of losing his 
 position. His mother, however, finally prevailed on him to give 
 the refugee protection. This left a deep impression on his life, 
 for it alienated his mother's affection from her husband com- 
 pletely, and, later on, Reitzel's as well. Reitzel's sympathy 
 always was with his mother. She gave him the name Robert, in 
 memory of Robert Blum, the man of the people, who was exe- 
 cuted a victim of the revolution. As the son of a schoolmaster, 
 he was born into the proletariat also, born "ein armer Teufel." 
 
 It goes without saying that being the only child of these un- 
 happy parents Reitzel's childhood was not a bright one. His 
 father, a weak, insignificant village schoolmaster, believed in not 
 sparing the rod, and by this method he spoiled his child, inas- 
 much as he bred in him a contempt for all authority. Further- 
 more, he taught him to lie. Reitzel tells how he was willing to 
 tell any number of lies to escape a whipping, not for fear of the 
 physical pain (he endured far greater pain at the hands of his 
 companions when they played Indians or Spartans), but because 
 of the great depression that invariably followed, when his father 
 would be sullen and silent, his mother sick from the excite- 
 ment, and he sulky and stubborn for days and weeks at a time. 
 He says,^ that every pleasure of his youth was "mit Priigeln 
 gewiirzt." 
 
 A great deal of sunshine, however, was diffused over his 
 youth by his mother, a woman of fine character, who like 
 Goethe's mother did a great deal to rouse his poetic talent. He 
 draws a striking picture of the poor consumptive woman who 
 slaved in the wretched school-house, when he tells - how he read 
 
 ^ Mein Buck, p. 290. 
 
 ' Gesammelte Schriften, Vol. I, p. 2j.
 
 Robert Reitzel 1 1 
 
 the Bible stories to her while she was spinning. When he 
 thought that she was in the slightest degree inattentive, the little 
 Robert would become furious, but she would readily console him 
 by telling him other stories about the characters of whom he had 
 just read. The children's birthdays, Easter, and the other festi- 
 vals, which stands for so much in the life of the German family, 
 left in his mind also many pleasant memories. Hand in hand 
 with these events go his love affairs and his verses in his earliest 
 school days. At one time, when he had bought with his small 
 savings busts of Shakespeare and Byron, long before he had ever 
 read them, a teacher asked him whether he wanted to become a 
 poet, and little Robert answered, yes, betraying for the first time 
 his dearest ambition. The pedagog gave Reitzel a small coin, 
 with the advice to go and buy a rope !" 
 
 In the Gymnasium this precocious, self-willed boy, to whom 
 poetry meant more than his dry daily lessons,^ proved to be a 
 trial to his teachers, and, like Gottfried Keller, he was expelled. 
 However, he reached the university, registering for history and 
 philosophy at Heidelberg. As the son of a poor teacher, the- 
 ology was practically the only line of study open to him, stipends 
 being obtainable only by students of divinity. However, theo- 
 logia sacra sancta occupied him but little, except for the reading 
 of the Bible, and this he read as poetry rather than as theology. 
 He read in addition the poets, chiefly the romanticists, such as 
 Heine, Eichendorff, and Brentano, and wrote much verse him- 
 self. His poems of this period are not on the glory of the study 
 of theology, but on love, wine, revolution, and freedom. Truly, 
 in Reitzel's case the boy was father of the man, for to the end 
 of his life he remained the lighthearted, carefree student of the 
 Heidelberg days, enthusiastic for all that was noble and beauti- 
 ful, and willing at all times to prove by word and deed his faith- 
 fulness to his ideals of freedom. He was one of a group of six 
 students who met regularly, swearing not to rest until Germany 
 
 ' Mein Buck, pp. 1 16 ff . 
 
 * At one time the students were given the liberty to choose their own sub- 
 jects for their compositions, and Reitzel chose Die Poesie meines Lebens. 
 Gesammelte Werke, Vol. II, p. 171.
 
 12 Robert Reitzel 
 
 had become a republic. Twenty years later, two of these icono- 
 clasts were dead, one had become a teacher in the same school in 
 which he had slaved as a boy, another a pillar of the orthodox 
 church, and still another an ambitious man, prominent in gov- 
 ernment circles. The only one still a revolutionist was Robert 
 Reitzel.^ 
 
 It was quite customary in those days for young men, who, 
 for some reason or other, failed to establish themselves as pro- 
 fessional men in Germany, and whose social position forbade 
 their doing any sort of manual labor, to go to America to sur- 
 vive or perish. Accordingly, in 1870, when Reitzel's financial 
 resources were exhausted, his father advised him to go to Amer- 
 ica. Reitzel was only too willing to do so. In his delightfully 
 droll, Ahentcuer eines Griinen, he tells of the pleasures and 
 hardships he met with in this country. Much has been said 
 about the hardships of the "lateinische Bauer" in America, but 
 much harder was the way of the "lateinische Vagabunden," or 
 poet-tramps, like Robert Reitzel and Martin Drescher. These 
 university bred men had to put up with hunger, the hardest and 
 most menial labor, the persecution of the police, and actual im- 
 prisonment, but they also enjoyed many of the charms of the free 
 life of a vagabond. 
 
 "Ich lobe mir das Leben, 
 Juhei ! als Vagabund, 
 Mich driicken keine Sorgen ; 
 Frei bin ich alle Stund'. 
 
 Bei Tage zieh ich munter 
 Des Wegs mit Sang und Klang, 
 Und geht die Sonne unter, 
 So wird mir auch nicht bang. 
 
 Die Erde ist mein Lager, 
 Der Himmel ist mein Dach, 
 Und mit den Voglein werd' ich 
 Des morgens wieder wach. 
 
 ' Mem Buck, pp. 79 ff.
 
 Robert Reitzel 1 3 
 
 Und bin ich audi ein Bettler 
 
 In diirftigem Gewand, 
 
 Doch griiszt niich manches Madchen 
 
 Mit Aug', und Mund, und Hand. 
 
 Viel Dank, viel Dank, mein Liebchen, 
 Jetzt bin ich auf dem Hund ; 
 Doch einst besucht dich wieder 
 Als Prinz der Vagabund."** 
 
 With the happy-go-lucky spirit of Eichendorff's Taiige- 
 nichts, Reitzel met all the bitter realities of life that the romantic 
 hero was spared. Never did his sense of humor forsake him. 
 During the days when he was tramping along the roads of Penn- 
 sylvania, he made a jest of his hardships in this epigram:" 
 "Und klafft die Sohl' vom Schuhe weit, 
 Wenn nur der Fuss nicht wund, 
 1st auch zerfetzt das letzte Kleid, 
 Wenn nur das Herz gesund." 
 
 It was one of the most comical coincidences imaginable that 
 led this youth of twenty-one into the ministry. A few months 
 after his arrival in this country, Reitzel was tramping in Penn- 
 sylvania with two companions when the first signs of winter 
 compelled them to look for some sort of employment for the 
 cold months, and when the question arose as to which city they 
 should choose, Reitzel remembered a student song: 
 "Zu Freiburg lebt und tat viel Busz 
 Der Pfarrer Carl Pistorius. 
 
 Dem Tod durchs Rad entging Pistor, 
 Er schifift sich ein nach Baltimore." 
 
 This song caused the three tramps to select Baltimore for 
 their winter quarters. Reitzel was soon separated from his com- 
 panions, and went begging for work with an empty stomach 
 about the streets of Baltimore, until he seriously contemplated 
 
 • Gesammelte IVerke, Vol. I, p. 64. 
 ' Gesammelte Schriften, Vol. I, p. 69.
 
 14 Robert Reitzel 
 
 suicide. Suddenly, one day, he saw on a churcli a sign giving 
 the address of the pastor, "The Reverend Pister." This sign 
 recalled to him the whim which had led him to Baltimore, and 
 with grim humor he knocked at the pastor's door. The maid 
 on seeing the tramp tried to slam the door in his face, but with 
 the desperation of hunger he resolutely forced his way into the 
 house, and into his career as a clergyman. For the Rev. Mr. 
 Pister, after feeding the starved lad, and hearing his story, 
 showed him clearly that the logical thing for him to do was to 
 pass an examination before the Board of the German Reformed 
 Church, and to take charge of a congregation. The details are 
 portrayed humorously in Die Ahenteuer eines Grilnen. 
 
 Reitzel in 1871 was appointed minister of the German 
 Reformed Church in Washington. About a year later he mar- 
 ried. 
 
 Because it is so characteristic of him I shall quote here 
 what Reitzel wrote later in his Ahenteuer eines Grunen concern- 
 ing this important step. It was, of course, part of Reitzel's 
 frank honesty, but it must be said that he had a somewhat un- 
 . pleasant way of washing his linen in public in regard to his 
 "Ehekrieg." 
 
 ". . . Unhaltbar war meine Stellung namentlich durch 
 meine Heirat geworden. 
 
 Das war aber auch ein dummer Streich, den ich mit meinem 
 ganzen Leben statt gut nur immer schlimmer und diim- 
 mer machen kann. 
 
 "Ich spreche hier nicht in Bezug auf die Wahl, die ich getrif- 
 fen, oder die Erfahrungen, die ich gemacht habe. Aber was ich 
 mir zum Vorwurf mache ist, dass ich damals schon wissen 
 konnte: Du bist nicht der Mann, der das Recht hat eine Familie 
 zu griinden. Es gibt Manner die in der Jugend schon wissen, 
 die es in alien Knochen fiihlen, dass sie ihren Weg in der Welt 
 machen werden, dass sie ihres Gliickes Schmiede sind, dass sie 
 dereinst ebensowohl Gesehafts-als Hausbesitzer sein werden. 
 Fiir solche Manner ist es Pflicht, Vorteil und Genuss zu hei- 
 raten. Es gibt aber auch junge Menschen, welchen das Vag- 
 abundentum in Fleisch und Blut steckt, die es mit achtzehn Jah-
 
 Robert Reitzel 15 
 
 ren schon wissen konnen, dass sie nie einen eigenen werd besitzen 
 werden, dass die Freuden der Familie fiir sie stets sehr proble- 
 matischer Natur sein werden, da sie niemals ordentlich dafitr be- 
 zahlen werden konnen, ja, die ausserdem schon aus Erfahrung 
 wissen, dass ihnen keine Gewohnheitsakkommodation, welche 
 man in der Liebe Treue nennt, eine absolute Unmoglichkeit ist, 
 fiir solche Menschen ist das Heiraten geradezu ein Verbrechen." 
 In this work as pastor no one could have been more sincere 
 than Reitzel, if sincere is not taken to mean orthodox. He had 
 vague dreams of bringing together religion and science, of initi- 
 ating a reformation of the Church on a large scale, of becoming 
 a Luther or Calvin of the nineteenth century. But it goes with- 
 out saying that he became a martyr to his cause. He seems to 
 have met with so many discouraging weaknesses in the people 
 who called themselves Christians that he despaired wholly of the 
 traditional forms of Christianity. He tells us later on, that he 
 considers Christianity to have erred ^ so far from its tenets, that 
 it can find no better criticism than the Bible itself. As an ex- 
 ample he quotes the story of the Good Samaritan. On one occa- 
 sion at Christmas time, when the dreadful condition of the poor 
 was impressed upon his mind most forcibly, he wrote bitterly:^ 
 
 "Soil noch immer das Marchen gelten: 
 Dulden das Leid 
 Unserer Zeit 
 Fiir Triumphe in andern Welten?" 
 
 Another phase of his experiences we see in his gripping 
 sketch, Der Kidtus des Teufels,^^ in which he shows how the 
 children of the world often show more real Christianity than the 
 professed Christians. His own youth had led him to think that 
 free development was better for children than baptism and other 
 ceremonies, "Der Kirche alte Zauberlist." What he said, how- 
 ever, was the sincere expression of his ideas derived from his life 
 as a minister. 
 
 ^ Mein Buck, p. 211. 
 * Mein Buck, p. 425. 
 *• Mein Buck, p. 105.
 
 1 6 Robert Reitzel 
 
 It is true, he had begun without either orthodox or hetero- 
 dox convictions, but he worked along steadily in a straight line 
 toward freedom — freedom from all that he thought hampered 
 the development of the human spirit. ^^ 
 
 "Ohne Gott und ohne Himmel, 
 Ohne Opfer und Gebet, 
 Ohne korperlose Geister, 
 Deren Wesen uns umweht, 
 Sag, was bleibt uns denn auf Erden? 
 Sind wir trostlos nicht und arm — 
 Nein, es halt die holde Liebe 
 Unsre Herzen f roh und warm ! 
 Liebe nur heisst unser Dogma 
 Liebe sei von uns gelehrt — 
 Erd' und Sonne, Meer und Sterne 
 Sind dem Liebenden verklart. 
 Das ist unsre Offenbarung, 
 Wenn du in ein Aug geschaut, 
 Draus ein Herz entgegenleuchtet. 
 Das in Liebe dir vertraut. 
 Gott und Teufel, Holl' und Himmel — 
 Seien sie der Andern Lohn, 
 Seien sie der Andern Schrecken— 
 Lieb' ist unsre Religion!" 
 
 As in the case of Ibsen's Brand, his congregation followed 
 him part of the way — they cut loose from the Synod and 
 founded a free congregation — but part of the way only. One 
 day the Church Board put the alternative to the pastor either of 
 returning to more orthodox views, or of leaving his well-paid 
 post and going forth with his young wife and child to seek 
 another occupation. Reitzel bravely chose the latter course. One 
 of his poems will perhaps give the best idea of his struggles for 
 his ideal freedom during the four years of his life as pastor: 
 
 " Gesammelte Schriften, Vol. II, p. 13.
 
 Robert Reitzel 17 
 
 "Schon langst ist der Stundenzeiger 
 tJber die Zwolfe geriickt, 
 Noch immer sitzt Einer im Pfarrhaus 
 tJber die Biicher gebiickt. 
 Und sitzt und sinnt und griibelt, 
 Was wohl die Wahrheit sei, 
 Und wird nicht los den Gedanken: 
 O war' ich nocli einmal f rei ! 
 
 Wie torichte Miicken schvvarmen 
 
 Rings um das Lampenlicht 
 
 Erinnerungssiisse Gestalten, 
 
 Ach! und er verscheucht sie nicht. 
 
 Nur manchmal fliistert er leise 
 
 Und faltet die Hande dabei: 
 
 O fiihre uns nicht in Versuchung! 
 
 O war' ich noch einmal f rei ! 
 
 Der sitzt und schreibt seine Predigt 
 
 Von dem eriosenden Christ, 
 
 Und weiss doch, dass er selber 
 
 Nicht mehr zu erlosen ist."^- 
 
 Reitzel was always proud of his attitude at this period. His 
 spirit had matured during these struggles, and ever afterwards 
 he never hesitated to speak or w-rite the truth as he saw it, fear- 
 less of what the consequences might be. He adds:^^ "Ich habe 
 doch immer dieselben Drachen bekampft, die Liige, die Heu- 
 chelei, die Ungerechtigkeit, und mein Riickhalt, die Burg, wel- 
 che ich verteidigte, der Wundertrank, welcher mich erfrischte, 
 war immer die Huttensche Devise: 'Und sollt es brechen vor 
 dem End', nie werd' ich von der Wahrheit lassen !' " 
 
 His enthusiasm, his love of truth and freedom, although 
 they had made difficulties for him in the church, were appreciated 
 
 Gesammelte Schriftcn, Vol. II, p. 13. 
 Gesammelte Werke, Vol. I, p. 146.
 
 i8 Robert Reitzel 
 
 in other circles. For the next years he travelled through most 
 of the States of the Union as a lecturer on literary and social 
 topics, and his fiery eloquence led many to regard him as the 
 ablest German- American speaker. ^^ To enable him to extend 
 his influence, his friends in Detroit founded for him in 1884 a 
 paper, which Reitzel edited until his death in 1898. In editing 
 this paper Reitzel found his real calling. 
 
 In naming his paper Der arme Teufel, Reitzel had in mind 
 partly men like Feuerbach, Schiller, Lessing, Faraday, and 
 others, who were contemned by many of their fellow men as 
 "arme Teufel," but especially a chance acquaintance of his, a 
 Norwegian tramp, who had lost his wife after a year of the 
 greatest happiness, and then had become a vagabond, traveling 
 over the entire world and fighting for freedom whenever oppor- 
 tunity offered, as in the revolution of '48 and in our own Civil 
 War. This man had not slept in a bed for years, but he told 
 Reitzel that when he lay under a tree at night and saw the stars 
 shining and heard the winds blowing, he felt that he was the 
 happiest of men, free from all the worries that troubled the set- 
 tled citizen. This man embodied two qualities that were to be 
 essential in Reitzel's paper; independence of all influences that 
 might hamper his freedom of judgment, and ideal love of liberty, 
 ready to seek expression in action. ^^ 
 
 Four short stanzas give us the whole man Reitzel. his pro- 
 gramme, all that Der arme Teufel stood for: 
 
 "Mir bleibe fern der Unkenchor der Heuchler, 
 M\ bleibe fern wer lachelt stets und witzelt, 
 Mir bleibe fern, wen nur Gemeines kitzelt, 
 Mir bleiben fern die Hiindler und die Schmeichler. 
 
 Ich lieb' sie nicht, die stets bedachtig Weisen, 
 Und nicht, die stets das Rosz des Pathos reiten, 
 Und nicht, die jammern stets von schlechten Zeiten, 
 Und nicht, die stets im selben Ringe kreisen. 
 
 Cf. Edna Fern's enthusiastic report, Werckshagen, p. 13. 
 Gesammelte Werke, Vol. Ill, p. 9.
 
 Robert Reitzel ly 
 
 Ich lob' mir leichte, lustige Gesellen, 
 
 Die geriie sind wo voile Becher winken, 
 
 Die gern der Schonheit an dem Busen sinken ; 
 
 Doch die auch, wenn zum Kampf die Horner gellen, 
 
 Begreifen unsrer Zeit gewaltiges Ringen, 
 Im Herzen heil'gen Zornes Springquell tragen, 
 Der Freiheit ihre Schlachten helfen schlagen — 
 Und kostlich Herzblut ihr zum Opfer bringen." ^^ 
 
 A short poem that Martin Drescher loves to quote and 
 which he thinks affords a deep insight into the character of 
 Reitzel is the following :^'^ 
 
 "Von den zwei Herzen in meiner Brust 
 Sagt das eine: Vertragen! 
 Das ist doch nur Bubenlust, 
 Sich um nichts zu schlas:en. 
 
 'fe^ 
 
 Und das andre frohlich geigt 
 Noch im nacht'gen Grauen: 
 Wenn sich dir was Schlechtes zeigt, 
 Gilt es drauf zu hauen." 
 
 About one-half of the paper was filled with original contribu- 
 tions, most of them written by Reitzel himself. Some of his col- 
 laborators were: Bruno Wille, John Henry Mackay, Karl Hen- 
 ckel, Michael Georg Conrad, and Karl Heinzen. The rest of 
 the paper Reitzel filled with reprints from modern German 
 writers, such as Keller, Dehmel, and others. In this manner, 
 and also by his wonderfully charming criticisms of men like 
 Goethe, Uhland, Seume, Heine, Boerne, Reuter, Andersen, and 
 others, Reitzel educated the German-Americans. But not only 
 
 ^^ Gesammelte Werke, Vol. Ill, p. 9. The last stanza was selected by 
 Martin Drescher as motto to Reitzel's poems in the Reitzelbiich. Drescher'.s 
 name does not appear in this collection that he compiled as a tribute to his 
 friend, only the simple dedication, "Einem Vielgeliebten zum Gedachtnis." 
 
 " Gesammelte Werke, Vol. II, p. 24.
 
 20 Robert Reitzel 
 
 Germans, also Hawthorne, Whitman, Jerome, and especially 
 Shakespeare, were celebrated by him in most original apprecia- 
 tions. In his capacity of critic, a comparison to Karl Heinzen, 
 another German-American journalist, enables one to understand 
 more clearly Reitzel's position. Heinzen's hobby was the materi- 
 alistic philosophy ; his stand is summarized in a recent disserta- 
 tion:^^ "All poets who favor the idealistic philosophy are con- 
 demned as obstructing the way to truth and freedom. Similarly 
 all Christian poets, 'the stand-patters,' the conser\^atives, share 
 the same fate. ... In fact, only the propagandist has a right 
 to literary activity. . . . 'All the great . . . literary men 
 who have not comprehended and represented the rights of all 
 men, are in my eyes, in spite of their distinctions, stupid, abso- 
 lutely stupid, more stupid than the most stupid school boy!' 
 . . . A poet must be a man in the first place, i. e., he must be 
 radical, consistent, democratic, etc. If he does not fulfill this re- 
 quirement he has thereby lost all claim to consideration as a 
 poet !" Perhaps these views are typical of what is generally ex- 
 pressed by socialists and labor leaders in regard to poetry, but 
 Reitzel was a man of different stamp. To quote his own words: 
 "I am never more proud of being a German than when I recall 
 that in no country of the world the literary and scientific achieve- 
 ments of other nations are recognized more willingly and with 
 less envy than among the cultured classes of Germany. "^^ His 
 ambition was to bring the poets near the hearts of all the people. 
 It might be said, though, that he found this to be a very hard 
 task, indeed among the German-Americans, whom he considered 
 to be falling away from their language and their ideals very 
 rapidly in their endeavors to become rich as quickly as possible. 
 Reitzel felt very sharply that he was "heimatlos" among a people 
 to whom the things that were nearest and dearest to his heart 
 meant nothing. Very bitterly he complains of the shallowness 
 and the truckling before the money powers of the German- 
 American press, but 
 
 " Schinnerer, Karl Heinzen as a Literary Critic, pp. 72 ff. 
 ^*Mein Buck, pp. 181 ff.
 
 Robert Reitzel 21 
 
 "Nur wenn's urn's Bier geht — 
 Ritter und Knapp — 
 Da gehn sie einig 
 Vom Thema nicht ab."-*^ 
 
 Unlike many other lovers of literature and art, he did not 
 stand aloof from the low and ugly. His warm heart drew him 
 to all oppressed. He broke lances for all those who have 
 been traditionally maligned by the self-righteous, e. g., Judas, 
 Ahasuerus, and the Jews in general.-^ He spoke sympathetically 
 for those unfortunates whom all the world despises and scorns, 
 and this many years before the appearance of Shaw's Mrs. War- 
 ren's Profession.^- He hated every kind of Pharisee. 
 
 He regarded the satisfied bourgeois who favored the status 
 quo that it might enable him to continue in "his filthy money 
 making," and whose religion he described as being "Render unto 
 Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that 
 are God's, so that we can keep the rest for ourselves" — these he 
 regarded as the worst enemies of society.-^ In seeking liberty 
 for the oppressed working classes, he followed Schiller, whom 
 he quotes as saying: "Hatte jeder freigesinnte Kopf geschwie- 
 gen, so ware nie ein Schritt zur Verbesserung geschehen." 
 
 Reitzel became a socialist, even an anarchist, but his nature 
 would not allow him to become the follower of any dogmatic 
 creed. He says -^ that as the Christians had driven him to for- 
 sake Christianity, so the socialists spoiled socialism for him, and 
 the anarchists, anarchism. But any injustice aroused him to 
 action. At the time when popular opinion found it impossible to 
 believe that the death sentence against the men involved in the 
 Haymarket Affair would be carried out, Reitzel saw the "lust 
 for blood of the monster capitalism, "^^ and tried to arouse the 
 
 ' Gesammelte Werke, Vol. II, p. 30. 
 
 ^ Mein Buck, pp. 161 ff. 
 
 ' Mein Buck, pp. 267 ff. 
 
 ' Mein Buck, pp. 167 ff. 
 
 ' Mein Buck, p. 29. 
 
 ' Gesammelte Werke, Vol. Ill, pp. g6 ff.
 
 22 Robert Reitzel 
 
 workingmen to action to save their leaders from the gallows. But 
 in spite of all that he could do, four of the men were hanged. 
 The death of these men he thought would rouse the working- 
 men to action at last, and so he wrote in 1887, in the first number 
 of the new Wajfengang, as he called his Jahrg'dnge: 
 
 "Was f rommen bei zertretnen Saaten 
 Der Sehnsucht friedliche Schalmeien? 
 Wir wollen statt der Tranen Taten, 
 Und Blut statt Wein." 
 
 But the people to whom he appealed were too terrified to do 
 anything, and the social order went on as before. For the new 
 year, 1888, Reitzel wrote grimly: 
 
 "Es war wie immer, 
 Es blieb beim Alten, 
 Wir schauten zu 
 Recht brav gehalten. 
 
 Wir hatten Mut 
 Im Wirtshausorden, 
 Wir schauten zu 
 Wie andere morden. 
 
 Wir sagten uns selber 
 Es musz so sein, 
 Und tranken grimmig 
 Unseren Wein. 
 
 Wir haben dem Volk 
 Recht brav geraten, 
 Jedoch der Henker 
 Verzeichnet die Taten." 
 
 Reitzel the fighter very often became Reitzel the lover — 
 the two for him were the chief expressions of his character:
 
 Robert Reitsel 23 
 
 "Wenn ich auf dem Bett der Liebe 
 Wollustheiszen Sieg errungen, 
 1st mir doch der Schwerter Klirren 
 Immer noch im Ohr erklungen. 
 
 Denn der Freie nur kann lieben, 
 Und es war zu alien Zeiten: 
 Willst du eigne Wage gehen, 
 Muszt du urn die Freiheit streiten. 
 
 Wenn mich in dem Kampfgewiihle 
 Totlich scharfe Hiebe trafen, 
 War mein letzter Frohgedanke: 
 Bei der Liebe darfst du schlafen."-^ 
 
 Love played a great part in Reitzel's life. Love to him did 
 not mean life-long faithfulness, but love with all his heart. As 
 to the place it should occupy in a man's life, he said that when 
 the half-gods of love for the woman go, the gods of love for 
 mankind arrive. "Humanity is your Dulcinea."^"^ 
 
 It is very interesting to note traces of Heine and Nietzsche 
 in these poems, showing how he had absorbed the spirit of these 
 men (in fact the entire heritage left by the German poets and 
 thinkers of centuries was his) and also how in his style he stood 
 shoulder to shoulder with the writers of his own day. 
 
 "Als ich Abschied nahm in Liebe, 
 Stromten Tranen in die Kiisse — 
 Bittersitsse letzte Kiisse — 
 Doch dem Herzen blieb die Hoffnung. 
 
 Als ich Abschied nahm in Ziirnen, 
 Gosz sich von den matten Augen 
 Heisz der Tranenquell zum Herzen, 
 Und mein Herze wollte brechen." 
 
 ** Gesammelte Werke, Vol. II, p. 31. 
 " Mein Buch, p. 30.
 
 24 Robert Reitzel 
 
 "Der Friihling kam, wie fand er mich? 
 Mit ein paar Sonnenstrahlen, 
 Mit einem Schimmer, der griinlich strich 
 tJber die Graser, die fahlen. 
 
 Mit ein paar Blattern am diirren Baum — 
 Wie sie im Friihhauch beben ! 
 Mit ein paar Blumen, den Jugendtraum 
 In einer Gruft zu verleben. 
 
 Der Friihling kam — ob seiner Pracht, 
 Musst ich ein Lacheln heucheln — 
 Ziindet ein Licht in oder Nacht, 
 Einem Blinden zu Schmeicheln. 
 
 Borstig die Zeit voriiberkroch, 
 Und die Vampyre saugen. 
 Erst als ich an den Syringen roch, 
 Brannten mir plotzlich die Augen."^^ 
 
 The second poem takes us to his last years, the years spent 
 in bed with a lame back. It was very hard for Reitzel, the man 
 of action, to be tied down helpless.-^ But only his body could be 
 tied down; his unconquerable soul was free. From his "Lugins- 
 land," as he called his couch, which was set up before a window 
 from which he could look on the life of the street and across 
 some fields, he sent many an essay and many a poem out into the 
 world to the great joy of his many friends. 
 
 ^In the Gesammelte IVcrkc his poems are collected in the first part of 
 the second volume. 
 
 °' It was half a year before his death that Reitzel became acquainted with 
 Martin Drescher, and the two formed a very firm friendship. Every night 
 for half a year Drescher spent at his bedside. In the course of these months 
 the two became intimately acquainted, and Reitzel wished that Martin Dre- 
 scher continue Der arme Teufel. The latter did this very ably for two 
 years, until finally unfortunate financial conditions put an end to the publica- 
 tion. — Reitzel was already at the brink of the grave when Drescher came to 
 Detroit, but he seldom thought of death. At one time, and at one time onlj-, 
 his friend tells that he spoke of death, but without the least show of fear. 
 He said, that death appeared to him like a black curtain from behind which 
 a satyr showed his laughing face. — When after his death an autopsy was held, 
 it was found that practically all his organs were diseased, his lungs, his 
 kidneys, his liver, all but his heart. In his active life he had worn himself 
 out completely, only his heart was still strong and whole I
 
 Robert Reitsel 25 
 
 "Ihr wiszt es, ich bin gefangen 
 In meinem engtrauten Zelt, 
 Doch kann ich mit Armen erlangen 
 Die ganze weite Welt. 
 
 Ich mocht mich in Frieden bescheiden 
 
 Seit ich meine Schwingen verlor, 
 
 Doch mein Bhit, mein Bhit will's nicht leiden, 
 
 Das stromt noch so heisz wie zuvor." 
 
 Of course, pessimistic moments were not lacking: 
 
 "Ich wollte es war' zu Ende, 
 Das eklige Puppenspiel, 
 Wenn man die Drahte gesehen, 
 Dann wiegt der Spasz nicht viel."^*^ 
 
 But on the whole he was very cheerful. As long as there 
 was so much of the beautiful in the world for him to see and to 
 read and so many dear friends to visit him, there was no reason 
 why he should not be glad to live. Whenever a number of friends 
 visited him the sick-room became the scene of a joyous festival, 
 at which wine and song rejoiced the hearts of the poet and his 
 visitors. As to his life and its achievement, however, Reitzel 
 was rather pessimistic. All his fighting for ideals, his love, his 
 great dreams for humanity, seemed to him to have exerted but 
 little influence on others. 
 
 A deeply stirring, somber funeral dirge is his last message 
 to the world in his poem Zuletzt}'^ 
 
 "Das Schlimmste, was dem Menschen aufgehoben, 
 1st nicht die Not und nicht der Tod. — 
 Es war dein Traum, 
 Dass du der Sonne gleichen wolltest, 
 Die ihre Glut ausstrahlt verschwenderisch ur*-' ohne Riickhalt. 
 
 ^ Gesammelte Werke, Vol. II, p. 46. 
 " Gesammelte Werke, Vol. II, p. 48.
 
 26 Robert Reitzel 
 
 Und Wenn der Sonne nicht, so doch der Blume, 
 Die jedem Hauch ihr Herz eroflfnet 
 Und ihren Duft verstreut. 
 Doch bleibt dir nichts vom reichen Erbteil, 
 Wenn in den Schatten stirbt der Tag 
 Und Blatt auf Blatt in welker Not verblasst. 
 In deinen letzten Stunden einsam. 
 Streckst du vergebens deine Arme 
 Nach Liebe aus, 
 
 Der du ein Leben lang geopfert. 
 Es mag die Treue stehn an deinem Lager, 
 Die, sich zum Lohn, ausharret bis zuletzt, 
 Und auch die Reue, die sich gramt, 
 Dass ihr das Heucheln nicht gehngt; 
 Der Strauss, den man dem miiden Kampfer schickt, 
 Und auch ein Becher mit dem edlen Trank, 
 Der dir ein letztes Lacheln auf die Lippen lockt. 
 Doch was dir vorgeschwebt als letzte Labung 
 In Stunden, da das Gliick — 
 Das lachende, kiissende Gluck — 
 Den Tod dich denken Hess mit Lust, 
 Sie wird dir nicht gereicht. 
 Nur hinter den geschlossnen Lidern 
 Siehst du in weiter Feme Sterne bhnken, 
 GeHebte Augen, die von Tranen feucht, 
 Als ob sie jetzt die Botschaft schon vernommen. 
 Und naher tritt mit der gesenkten Fackel 
 Die sanfte Schwermut, die den Knaben schon, 
 Wenn ihm das Herz in Schluchzen brechen woHte 
 In Schlaf gewiegt, 
 
 Und fliistert dir ins Herz das kiihle Wort, 
 Das aller Weisheit letzter Trost, 
 ' Dass man die Sterne nicht begehrt, 
 Und dass man arm dahinfahrt, wie man kam." 
 
 According to a statement by his physician, Reitzel's death 
 was due to tuberculosis, a predisposition for which he had in-
 
 Robert Reitsel 27 
 
 herited from his mother. His disease attacked the spine, caus- 
 ing his lower Hmbs to be lamed. 
 
 In one of his last years Reitzel wrote a dream about his 
 death. His corpse was placed on two flat-boats loaded with 
 inflammable material. At dusk the funeral pyre was lighted 
 and floated slowly away from the shore across the quiet waters 
 of Lake Orion to the accompaniment of "Integer Vitae," sung 
 by his friends in boats that drifted in the wake of the larger 
 boats bearing his body. As soon as his body had been con- 
 sumed by the flames his friends returned to the summer house 
 and celebrated his memory over the wine cups. 
 
 Tho Reitzel did not meet his death at Lake Orion, yet his 
 body was cremated and his friends honored his memory in the 
 manner he had wished. In poems written to him we find 
 frequent allusions to his dream of his funeral. 
 
 "Wir konnen keinen Kranz aufs Grab dir legen, 
 Wie wackre Freunde es am Sterbetage 
 Geliebter Menschen gern zu halten pflegen. 
 Wir wollen nicht in triiber, dumpfer Klage 
 Dem iibergrossen Schmerze Worte geben; 
 Die Jammernden sind immer feig und zage. 
 Wir wollen frisch die vollen Glaser heben, 
 Den ersten Trunk dem stillen Freunde weihn, 
 Dann aber trinken auf das laute Leben : 
 Auf unser eignes Bliihen und Gedeihn, 
 Auf unser Gliick in dieser bunten Welt — 
 Und wieder soil der letzte Trinkspruch sein : 
 Hurrah, dem nachsten, der im Kampfe fallt!" 
 
 — Martin Drescher. 
 
 "Der Friihling kam. Du sahst es kaum. 
 Du harrtest wunschlos ihm entgegen 
 Und ahntest nicht, dass leises Regen 
 Beffinnt an deiner Wiese Saum.
 
 28 Robert Reitzel 
 
 Du hortest nur noch wie im Traum 
 Den Lenzsturm durch die Lande fegen, 
 Mit Flammenblitz des Friihlings Segen 
 Herniederspriihn in Weltenraum. 
 Und es ist recht so. Lenzesbeben 
 Das stand dir nimmer nach dem Sinn, 
 Und deiner Seele spate Ruh 
 Mit tausend Oualen kauftest du. 
 In Flammenzeichen schrieb dein Leben, 
 Und so in Flammen gehst du hin." 
 
 — Edna Fern.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 HISTORY OF DER ARME TEUFEL 
 
 On December 6, 1884, the first number of Der arme 
 Teufel appeared. In the upper left-hand corner of the first 
 page, Reitzel's dashing poem, Fiir Freund und Feind, quoted 
 in the preceding chapter, announced the program of the paper. 
 Robert Reitzel would fight to the last hypocrisy, philistinism, 
 cringing cowardice, conservative smugness, tyranny in all its 
 forms, on the other hand standing for a yea-saying philosophy 
 of life, enjoyment of all beauty, and a willingness to lay down 
 his life in the fight for liberty. Dcr arme Tciifcl promised not 
 to do any pussy- footing, but always to call, a spade a spade. In 
 this respect the words of Mirza Schaff y were to be his motto : 
 
 "Leicht schartig sagt man werden scharfe Messer, 
 Doch schneidet man darum mit stumpfen besser?" 
 
 In the eight pages are to be found editorials and essays 
 from Reitzel's pen, mostly on literary subjects, articles by vari- 
 ous contributors, two pages of advertising, and several an- 
 nouncements, typical among them the one stating that no ad- 
 vertisements of lotteries, patent medicines, and other frauds 
 will ever be printed in this paper, a promise that was scrupu- 
 lously kept as long as the paper existed. Reitzel encourages 
 advertisers by telling them that owing to its originality the 
 paper's circulation would be far greater than the number of 
 subscribers would seem to indicate. The price of the paper was 
 two dollars and a half a year (five cents a copy). 
 
 The paper was launched with great promises, and they were 
 also fulfilled. To the last Reitzel stood by his ship; not even a 
 four years' mattress grave could dampen his enthusiasm ; he 
 did not give up in the very grip of death. "Noch lebt der arme 
 Teufel" was the first line of an article in the number published 
 a few days before his death. 
 
 (29)
 
 30 Robert Reitzel 
 
 The first issue mentions the hoisting in Chicago of the 
 black flag, the symbol of the starving proletariat, a bit of news 
 which Reitzel glossed Mene Tekel. For this very Chicago prole- 
 tariat Reitzel was to break many lances; the stirring events of 
 '86 on the Chicago Haymarket cast their shadows before them 
 and for years after them in the columns of Reitzel's paper. 
 
 But Reitzel never gave the impression of taking himself 
 and his lifework too seriously. In the eyes of this big curly 
 headed boy there lurked the love of fun of the student, an 
 irrepressible humor that nothing could crush. A biirschi- 
 koser Ton runs thru all his editorial announcements and his 
 Briefkasten, a column in which the editor answered his cor- 
 respondents. This latter column contains in a very high degree 
 the different types of humor that have made famous so-called 
 "colyumnists" on large dailies. Reitzel prints what Mr. Taylor, 
 of the Chicago Tribune, calls "our esteemed contemporaries," 
 that is, curiosities from exchanges, for example, from an article 
 against cremation the argument that if a man had his wife 
 cremated instead of buried, it would be impossible to prove 
 that he had not poisoned her! Everybody enjoys the news of 
 a marriage of a couple with interesting names, thus Reitzel 
 quotes Heine when he reads of a match between Teufel and 
 Engel in Cleveland. 
 
 "Die Engel, die nennen es Himmelsfreud, 
 Die Teufel, die nennen es Hollenleid, 
 Die Menschen, die nennen es Liebe!" 
 
 From a Milwaukee paper he prints an advertisement of a 
 man desiring a wife, a good housekeeper, pretty, etc., who also 
 possesses "die notige Lebenswarme.'' "Dem Manne sollte ge- 
 holfen werden," remarks Reitzel. 
 
 Another favorite trick of Reitzel's was to use abbreviations 
 for well-known words, especially in the names of his correspond- 
 ents. Dr. Richter, of St. Louis, who is small in stature, was 
 called "klein Erchen," printed with a small German r. He 
 spoke of Milwaukee as "Deutsch-Athen." In original humorous 
 expressions he was inexhaustible.
 
 Robert Reitzel 31 
 
 A little side light on the German-American press is found 
 in the announcements that the reader need never fear to run 
 into a boost (Puff) for some saloon when reading" a column 
 beginning perhaps with the news of another revolution in Paris. 
 nor that the reading matter would ever be interrupted by highly 
 interesting notices about Dr. August Koenig's bronchial tea. 
 For many weeks the following is found in the Arme Teufel : 
 *'Avis aux visiteurs : Herrenbesuche sind auf der Office des A, T. 
 immer willkommen, ausgenommen Mittwoch und Donnerstag, 
 Freitag erst nach elf Uhr vomiittags; Damen und auswartige 
 Freunde jederzeit. Zugleich erinnern wir nochmals daran, dasz 
 fiir bediirftige arme Teufel jederzeit ein Obolus als Viaticum 
 bereit liegt." Reitzel was extremely good-hearted and tried to 
 help "down-and-outers" either by his ow^n means or thru his 
 friends. He called this not charity, but his duty. He covered 
 his kind deed with a mantle of humor as may be seen from the 
 following advertisement which appeared January 21, 1888: 
 "Stellgesuch : Ein junger Mann von angenehmen x\euszern, 
 welcher einer ausgedehnten Reisebekanntschaft sich erfreut, 
 durch personliche Liebenswiirdigkeit alle Herzen erobert, trotz- 
 dem aber keinen weiblichen Anhang hat, in Deutsch, Englisch, 
 Russisch, Polnisch, Esthnisch conversieren kann, in beiden 
 Weltteilen geeicht ist, und notigenfalls mittrinken kann, em- 
 pfiehlt sich den Herren Hoteliers, Restaurateurs, Hallenbesit- 
 zern und Wirten als theoretisch und empirisch durchgebildete 
 Barkeej>er. — Nachzufragen in der Office des A. T." 
 
 A special target for Reitzel's wit was a Detroit Catholic 
 paper, Die Stimnie der Wahrheit, and its editor, a certain Mr. 
 Miiller. This editor seems to have been, unfortunately, ex- 
 tremely naive and bigoted, hence his paper presented Reitzel 
 with one opening after another for his humorous thrusts. This 
 was the case particularly in the first few years of the Anne 
 Teufel when Reitzel, fresh from his religious tilt at Washing- 
 ton, was filled with an ardor to enlighten people and to fight 
 religion with his bitter satire. In this vein he quoted advertise- 
 ments and news items from the Stimme der Wahrheit, speaking 
 of the editor alwa3^s as "der Stimmenmiiller." The Catholics 
 have a version of "HaufT's Marchen" "von alien irreligiosen
 
 32 Robert Reitzel 
 
 und sittengefahrdeten Auswiichsen sorgsam gereinigt." He 
 also mentioned that Stimmenmiiller explained to a reader who 
 could not see the difference l3etween the work of the apostles 
 who cured by laying on of hands and present-day healers, that 
 there is a vast difference between humbug and humbug. There 
 appeared one day in this paper "poetry" by a trappist monk in 
 Africa to tell of the splendid work the Lord was doing thru 
 them among the Zulus: 
 
 "In Zululand in Banden 
 Die schone Keuschkeit war, 
 In alien Kaffernlanden 
 Mit ihr war's aus und gar. 
 Es blutete der Christen Herz, 
 Doch endlich lost sich unser Schmerz. 
 
 O mog' St. Josef's Ilg 
 Erbliihn im Land Natal, 
 Erbliihn in Berg und Tal, 
 Erbliihn in jedem Kraal. 
 
 Der groszte Kaffernadel, 
 
 Die groszte Weiberzahl, 
 
 Die Eh' gilt ohne Tadel, 
 
 Wenn Kinder ohne Zahl. 
 
 Drum weisz die Kaffernsprache nix 
 
 Von Jungfrau wie von Stiefelwix. 
 
 Das Madchen in der Wiege 
 1st schon bestimmt zur Eh' 
 1st kauflich wie die Ziege 
 Wenn auch von Kopf zur Zeh', 
 1st armlich wie 'ne Kirchenmaus, 
 Es findet dennoch Mann und Haus. 
 
 Das Weib lauft oft vom Gatten, 
 
 Sucht eine andre Hand, 
 
 Damonen langst schon batten 
 
 Gewalt in diesem Land! 
 
 Docht jetzt wird rein der Ehebund 
 
 Wenn g'segnet er vom Priestermund."
 
 Robert Reitzel 33 
 
 This song is to be sung to the popular melody of Zu Mantua 
 in Bandcn. Reitzel lauds the good priest's spirit and proffers 
 his assistance in this popularization of holy things with verses 
 such as the following, which he also composed to be sung to 
 familiar airs: 
 
 "G'rad aus der Kirche da komm ich heraus, 
 Wie klang so herrlich der Orgel Gebraus! 
 Wie sprach der Pfarrer so lehrreich und gut, 
 Starkte mir wieder den christlichen Mut, 
 Trula, dirula," etc. 
 
 "Schluszstrophe : 
 
 "Wie mich's hier schaudert, der Teufel geht um, 
 Weltkinder tanzen nach seinem Gebrumm, 
 tjberall liegt mir zum Fallen ein Strick, 
 Da geh' ich lieber zur Kirche zuriick. 
 Trula, dirula," etc. 
 
 In hearty concurrence with the idea of the African priest, 
 tho perhaps not appreciated by him, Reitzel offered more re- 
 ligious adaptations of popular German airs: 
 
 "Madele, komm, komm, komm, 
 O komm zu mir zur Beichte, 
 Die Straf die ich dir geb ist ja nur 'ne leichte 
 Bist du vom Siinden rein, fiihlst du nochmal so fein, 
 Madel komm, komm, komm, O komm zu mir zur Beichte!" 
 
 Other gleanings from the Stimnie der Wahrhcit were the 
 news that Herr Konrad Klippel, the beloved ex-sheriff and 
 owner of a brick-kiln, altho a Protestant, has donated ten thou- 
 sand bricks for the building of the church "zur schmerzhaften 
 Mutter Gottes." What a good thing that we have the "Stimme," 
 says Reitzel, otherwise such flowers would bloom to blush un- 
 seen. 
 
 On May 16, 1885, "Der arme Teufel: das gottloseste Blatt 
 des Erdkreises, welches jede Woche von haarstraubenden 
 Blasphemien strotzt, wird in der Office des Michigan Volks-
 
 34 Robert Rcitzcl 
 
 blattcs gedruckt. l^er Katholizismus der Gebriider Kramer ist 
 elastisch. you bet!" Reitzel pointed out immediately that the 
 Stimmc der Wahrhcit was printed by Lutherans; furthermore, 
 that the lowest wages are paid to these printers, tho working 
 for this pious paper must mean for a typesetter what it means 
 for a Russian to be condemned to work in the Siberian mines! 
 However, two weeks later pressure must have been brought to 
 bear on the Kramer brothers, for they refused to print the 
 world's most godless paper, putting Reitzel to the inconvenience 
 of looking for another printer. In many other ways the Catho- 
 lics of Detroit made things unpleasant for the "Free-Thinkers." 
 The latter had an organization with Sunday meetings at which 
 times they were addressed by different speakers, most prominent 
 among them Robert Reitzel. Shortly before the appearance of 
 Der arme Teufel these meetings at the "Arbeiterhalle" were 
 disturbed in the rudest manner by Catholics. Reitzel tells in 
 his first number how he called on Mr. Miiller, introducing him- 
 self, "Ich bin der freche Gotteslasterer Reitzel." The Catholic 
 editor on hearing Reitzel's story agreed with him that what- 
 ever the dififerences between them might be, disturbing a public 
 meeting was an uncalled for rudeness, and offered to print a 
 protest by Reitzel in his paper. But he did not print the pro- 
 test, for Reitzel. possibly taking a bit of unfair advantage of 
 the situation, wrote an article that must have been extremely 
 provoking to the Catholics, for he made sarcastic remarks about 
 things that are most sacred to pious believers. Instead of Reit- 
 zel's communication there appeared an article beginning "Rob- 
 ert Reitzel, der freche Gotteslasterer," while another article con- 
 cluded "denn das Freidenkertum stammt hauptsachlich vom 
 Dreck, namlich von den Pfiitzen der Fleischeslust und des 
 Geizes." No other paper in Detroit would print Reitzel's pro- 
 test, for which one can hardlv blame them. Here was a most 
 bigoted fight with narrowmindedness on both sides. Naturally, 
 an enthusiastic idealist like Reitzel felt a strong need for an 
 organ in which he could express the message which he felt 
 called upon to deliver to the world, and thus he founded his 
 own paper. The fact that Reitzel published in the first volumes
 
 Robert Reitsel 35 
 
 of his paper under the heading Aus meinen Vortr'dgen, essays 
 on the folk song, Shakespeare, the minor characters in Goethe's 
 Faust, the Apocrypha, and a wide range of Hterary subjects, 
 seems to indicate that he had long been yearning for a good 
 literary journal in America in which he could publish the works 
 of his pen. Born, however, directly out of the spirit of Freiden- 
 kertum, the Anne Teufel for three or four years shows an un- 
 flagging hatred of the church, but gradually it grows away from 
 this somewhat cramped position and broadens out into a belle- 
 tristic journal the like of which we have never again seen in 
 America. Tho Reitzel never becomes a friend of the church — 
 either Protestant or Catholic — yet he forgets to fight the church 
 over all the more important and more beautiful things that at- 
 tract his eager spirit. 
 
 For the first years a most humorous fight goes on between 
 these two papers. Reitzel always delights his readers with the 
 terrible things "Stimmenmiiller" says about him, also when 
 "Stimmenmiiller" shows particular intolerant tendencies, e. g., 
 in protesting against having a Protestant organist play at a 
 Catholic wedding. March, 1888, the Catholic editor reports the 
 death of a member of his church who left thirty-five thousand 
 dollars to his two children, but not one cent to the church. He 
 goes on to say that this man now burning in purgatory is very 
 sorry for his failure to remember the church, and that he hopes 
 that his children will rectify this sin and help their father out 
 of his suffering. Reitzel scatters such examples of medievalism 
 in Detroit very freely thru the first volumes of his paper, such 
 as the six articles listed by a young Catholic priest as Women's 
 Rights! "i. A woman has a right to take care of her children 
 and to whip them when they do not l^ehave. 2. A woman has 
 a right to sew the buttons on the shirt of her husband. 3. A 
 woman has a right to go out into company when her husband 
 accompanies her. 4. A woman has a right to be quiet when 
 it is not her business to interfere. 5. A woman has a right 
 to be kind to her husband, even if he is a scoundrel. 6. She 
 has a right to bear her lot in Christian patience and to earn her 
 reward in Heaven."
 
 36 Robert Reitsel 
 
 An example of the kind of thing that must have irritated 
 every good beHever is the following: "The Anglican bishop 
 of Hongkong has ordered that tea be used in the sacrament in- 
 stead of wine, for, he says, had Christ lived in China, he and 
 his disciples would have used tea. According to this logic 
 the blood of Christ would change with the Bavarians into beer, 
 with the Irish into whiskey, with the Laplanders into whale 
 oil, with the Kansans to water, and with the fools of all na- 
 tions into ink." 
 
 The feud between the two camps was not confined to the 
 editorial rooms, for Reitzel reports one day that one of His 
 agents sold a copy of his paper in a saloon and invested the 
 proceeds in a drink. While he was thus refreshing himself, for 
 further sales, a good Catholic present in the same saloon threw 
 all the remaining copies of the agent, twenty-two in number, 
 into the fire. Reitzel says in a "Public Announcement to the 
 Gentleman concerned : The bold assassin is known. It is a poor 
 joke at all events, but the man shall pay for the papers. If 
 he does not send the money, I will have his name published in 
 the columns of the Stimmc dcr IVahrhcit by my friend Miiller 
 and also have it publicly announced from the pulpit next Sun- 
 day by 'father' Friedland. N. B. The money might also be de- 
 posited at said saloon to form the nucleus of a drink fund for 
 thirsty proletarians." It can be readily understood that such 
 witty thrusts irritated the Catholics considerably, and Miiller 
 mentioned Reitzel frequently in his paper. One week Reitzel 
 finds no attack on himself in the St inline dcr VVahrhcit and asks, 
 "Is it possible that I have insulted friend Miiller?" But in 
 the very next number Reitzel finds that this conjecture was 
 false. In an article about Germany, Miiller mentions Schopf- 
 heim and remarks parenthetically, "Wo unsers Wissens der arme 
 Teufel Robert Reitzel, der frechste aller Gotteslasternden 
 Zeitungsschreiber, herstammt." "S 'ist wenig," says Reitzel, 
 "aber man sieht die Liebe!" 
 
 Here then was Reitzel's own paper which aimed to give 
 the editor's personality and views, strictly non-partisan, kein 
 Tendenzhlatt. The editor, sworn enemy of society and of most
 
 Robert Reitzel 37 
 
 contemporary newspapers, recommended to his readers the Mil- 
 waukee Freidenker, a paper dedicated to the fight against the 
 church and against patriotism, tho he wanted it known that he 
 would never swear by all that this paper printed. In fact, Reit- 
 zel very frequently had heated arguments with the editor of 
 the Freidenker, Bobbe, tho he agreed with him in the main. 
 Practically, however, Reitzel's paper had its firm principles for 
 which it carried on propaganda, it was a Tendenzblatt. These 
 principles cannot be enumerated as tersely as, for example, those 
 of the Freidenker, but we might say Reitzel stood in the first 
 place for liberty. By liberty he understood freedom of the 
 mind from dogma and superstitions ; freedom from irksome moral 
 laws and hypocritical conventions, i. e., he was against marriage, 
 prohibition, and various forms of Puritanism; freedom from 
 political oppression, oppression by capital and military force; 
 freedom from a narrow nationalism, the fosterer of wars, free- 
 dom from monarchs and tyrants. He stood for education of 
 the masses, enlightenment, sincere truth, hatred of all sham and 
 pretense, and the call of beauty in all the arts. In this combina- 
 tion he was unique among German-American papers — in fact, 
 we can compare this Kraftmensch, this iconoclast, this modern 
 writer, this enfant terrible in journalism only to a literary paper 
 with socialistic and anarchistic tendencies founded a little later 
 in Munich, Die Gesellschaft. We shall come back to a com- 
 parison of the two journals later, and present here a few criti- 
 cisms of this newest among German-American publications. 
 
 The Illinois Staatszeitung speaks of the Arme Teufel as 
 a fine paper for free-thinkers, more radical than the Milwaukee 
 Freidenker, also "frischer und beiszender." Besides its rich and 
 spicy food for the intellect it offers food also for those suffering 
 from bodily hunger, as is shown by an announcement which is 
 most honorable indeed to the big heart of the editor: "All 
 transient poor devils are invited to call at our office to receive 
 a small viaticum, not as alms, but as a tribute which we feel 
 that we owe to society in general." The Belletristische Journal 
 calls it "original und pikant, es ist eine geistreiche und gesin-
 
 38 Robert Reitzel 
 
 nungstiichtige journalistische Erscheinung, deren Schneidigkeit 
 besonders in dem etwas stillen Detroit Epoche machen sollte." 
 One can gain an idea of the enthusiastic fire of youth 
 aflame in Reitzel's soul which is so typical of social and religious 
 reformers, from the letter written to Reitzel from Switzerland 
 by Professor Dodel-Port, a professor of philosophy and editor 
 of the works of the Bauernphilosoph Deublcr. February 14, 
 1885, Reitzel quotes him as follows: "Sie wiinschen mein Ur- 
 teil. Gas gebe ich Ihnen gern und halte nicht hinterm Berge 
 zu behaupten, dasz das der respektabelste Teufel ist, den ich 
 kennen lernte. Der nimmt gleich alien Blodsinn und alle 
 Ungerechtigkeit, wo er sie findet auf seine Homer und peitscht 
 manniglich die Verrottung und Verlotterung unserer modernen 
 Zustande. Der tiefe ethische Hintergrund aller dieser wackern 
 Teufeleien verleiht ihrem Blatt einen hohen kulturelleri Wert; 
 das werden Freunde und Feinde bald erkennen. Ich meine, dasz 
 Sie da eine hohe kulturelle Mission iibernommen haben und die 
 Sympathie aller ehrlichen Menschenfreunde erobern werden. 
 Der arme Teufel wird also kaum eines friihzeitigen Todes 
 sterben und nicht etwa nach Wunsch und Gebet der Feigen und 
 Heuchler 'selig im Herrn entschlafen.' Ich wiinsche ihm von 
 Herzen ein langes. langes Leben, ein cwigcs Leben, wie jedem 
 braven armen Teufel ein solches ohnehin schriftlich verheiszen 
 ist. Ganz besonders hat mich der Artikel betrefifs der Sterilitat 
 der reinen Wissenschaft in Amerika interessiert. Das ist reine 
 unverfalschte Wahrheit und solches musz man doch immer und 
 immer wieder sagen. Was Sie iiber Erziehung in Waisen- 
 hausern sagen, gilt auch fiir die europaischen Verhaltnisse. Nur 
 
 drauf! 
 
 "Mogen die Freidenker Amerikas im Interesse ihrer guten 
 Sache so zusammenhalten, wie es die Katholiken auf dem ganzen 
 weiten Erdenrund auch tun. 
 
 "Mit herzlichem Grusz und biederem Handschlag. 
 
 "Ihr, 
 
 "A. DoDEL-PORT.'' 
 
 As one might readily surmise from this letter, Reitzel was 
 taking a stand for humanity over against all tyranny, cruelty,
 
 Robert Reitzel 39 
 
 or pettiness that came to his notice. He uncovered and held 
 up to public gaze shocking conditions in the administration of 
 orphans' homes, county poor farms, the street railway company, 
 the school board, revivalism similar to campaigns as Billy Sun- 
 day carries them on, and other public matters. Moreover, he 
 believed in being personal and direct in his attacks, quoting the 
 P'rench Socialist, Claude Tillier, as a noble exponent of this 
 course of action. "Telling the truth" in this manner made many 
 enemies for Reitzel and got him into many scrapes. One of 
 the most amusing of these, as Reitzel tells it, is the affair with 
 a certain Mr. Flintermann, a member of the board of health. 
 One fine day when Reitzel with a day's work behind him left 
 his editorial sanctum to bring the gods a drink offering in a 
 near-by inn, this Mr. Flintermann attempted to horsewhip 
 Reitzel for something he had printed about this prominent 
 German of Detroit. As Reitzel was the younger, stronger, and 
 more agile man of the two, Flintermann did not succeed in 
 his attempted assault and battery, but had his murderous weapon 
 wrenched from his hands and his face punched for his pains. 
 A policeman impartially arrested both men and conveyed them 
 to the police station in an open patrol wagon crossing straight 
 thru the German section of Detroit to the great chagrin of the 
 honorable member of the health board, and the corresponding 
 delight of Robert Reitzel. Both gave bail for their appearance 
 the next morning. There was a trial in the police court at 
 which Reitzel's friends appeared displaying roses in their but- 
 tonholes and the effects of a jolly night in their general boister- 
 ous behavior. The judge very quickly dismissed the case and 
 a good time was had by almost all present. Reitzel told the 
 whole story in his paper in the drollest possible manner and 
 ever afterward spoke of his assailant as "der verstorbene 
 Flintermann" or "der selige Flintermann," altho the unhappy 
 gentleman lived to enjoy his notoriety for many more years. 
 
 Quite characteristic of his independent judgment in all 
 things is Reitzel's position with reference to the German thea- 
 tre in Detroit. German theatres in America have always been 
 hothouse plants whose precarious existence the German news-
 
 40 Robert Reitzel 
 
 papers have always feared to endanger by frank crushing criti- 
 cism at any time. A historian of the German theatres in Amer- 
 ica, who uses as his sources the German newspapers, is amazed 
 or gratified by finding recorded only most excellent high-class 
 performances by first-class actors. But Reitzel believed that in 
 this case, as in all others, the undisguised truth would be best 
 for the actors as well as the public. Therefore he told the 
 truth as he saw it most frankly in regard to all the plays and 
 performers that he criticized, while the Detroit Abendpost and 
 other German dailies sang indiscriminate hymns of praise on 
 the German drama as presented in the "Turnhalle." Yet Reitzel 
 could not be said to be hypercritical, either, quite frequently he 
 praised a play or a concert and urged the people to support these 
 efforts. Tho he asked to be spared invitations to all the "Stif- 
 tungsfeste" and "masked balls" of the Detroit Germans, yet he 
 could at times go there, enjoy himself thoroly, and write a droll 
 description of the editorial adventures). In this democratic 
 tendency we find him closely related to the group about Conrad 
 in Munich, who attacked Heyse for his aristocratic manner of 
 life. Of course, this relationship was not due to any correspond- 
 ence between Reitzel and the group of the Gesellschaft, it was 
 quite accidental, or rather deeply rooted in the characters of the 
 editors on both sides of the Atlantic. This is shown beyond 
 doubt by the fact that in the second year of the Arme Teufel 
 Paul Heyse wrote a letter to Reitzel expressing a high opinion 
 of Reitzel's paper and wishing him the best of success, a senti- 
 ment which Heyse probably did not entertain for the Munchener 
 Gesellschaft. Reitzel's sense of fairness was not one-sided, 
 either. No one could have accepted criticisms with greater grace 
 or acknowledged corrections more frankly than he. Very fre- 
 quently he would answer his friends simply, 'Thr habt Recht." 
 As a more or less consistent anarchist, Reitzel was the foe 
 of all so-called legitimate governments by the grace of God. The 
 emperor of Brazil who abdicated voluntarily at the wish of the 
 people was regarded by him as one more step toward ending 
 dynastic rule. To him William I, German emperor, was the 
 "Kartatschenprinz" and Bismarck with his imperialism one of
 
 Robert Reitzel 41 
 
 the most baneful influences in the world, the breeder of future 
 wars. Reitzel greeted the news of German colonies in Africa 
 with the remark, "musz das deutsche Reich noch nach Afrika 
 gehen, gibt es nicht genug Kaffern in Deutschland!" His heart 
 was with 'forty-eighters like Marcklin who sounded a warning 
 to the new empire lest after their victories there should follow 
 a new period of Metternichean reaction v'~ 
 
 "Mein liebes Deutschland pasz mir auf 
 Statt dich auf's Ohr zu legen, 
 Nimm mit der Einigkeit in Kauf 
 Die Freiheit allerwegen ! 
 Die Augen auf! Nimm dich in aclit! 
 Um's Beste bist du sonst gebracht — 
 Denk nur an Anno fiinfzehn!" 
 
 or like Fr. Stolze, who writes in the Arnie Teufel, April 10, 
 1886, Aus der Geisterschau, recalling Uhland's "Wenn heut ein 
 Geist hernieder stiege" : 
 
 "Ich hab' das ganze Land durchfahren, — 
 Wer wird in uns'rer Zeit auch gehen ! — 
 Doch hab ich von der wunderbaren 
 Der Freiheit keine Spur gesehn 
 
 Der Freiheit konntet ihr entsagen 
 Und Macht — die nennt ihr Volkergliick! 
 Mir will's in Deutschland nicht behagen, 
 Ich wend' nach oben mich zuriick, 
 Ihr mogt's hier unten weiter treiben 
 Bis man euch einst die Tiire weist, 
 So lang will ich im Himmel bleiben, 
 Ihr braucht in Deutschland keinen Geist !" 
 
 On the other hand Reitzel had little sympathy with revolu- 
 tionists of '48, who were intoxicated by the German success in 
 arms and now were reconciled to a German empire. The lat- 
 ter position was taken by the great majority of 'forty-eighters 
 
 ' Strom der Zeit, Milwaukee, C. N. Caspar.
 
 42 
 
 Robert Reitzel 
 
 in America and abroad, the empire meant to them the very real- 
 ization of the dreams of their youth for which they were ex- 
 patriated. Naturally enough a man like Titus Ulrich, who 
 wrote in his Landsturmlied of '48: 
 
 "Und wenn die Welt voll Kon'ge war 
 Mit Schwerten und Kanonen 
 Wir wollen's ihnen lohnen !" 
 
 and in 1886, bowing low in deep gratitude, received from the 
 Kaiser a statuette of his majesty, seemed to Reitzel no better 
 than a traitor. Likewise he considered the eulogies of William I, 
 which appeared in German-American papers at the time of his 
 death, as quite superfluous. This antagonism against the Ger- 
 man empire was augmented by the Sozialistengesets, which ex- 
 iled many excellent and brilliant men and the 1994 prosecutions 
 for lese majeste in the year 1888. With bitter scorn he writes 
 February 17, 1894, that the emperor took a sudden interest in 
 literature, inasmuch as he refused to allow the Schillerpreis to 
 be awarded to Ludwig Fulda, "because he is too young." "Also 
 Wilhelm darf mit dreiszig Jahren schon den Zerschmetterer 
 spielen, aber der Dichter ist mit einunddreiszig noch nicht reif 
 fiir eine literarische Auszeichnung." The real reason Reitzel 
 finds in Fulda's Talisman, "wo der Hemdzipfel des Gottes- 
 gnadentums einigermaszen unehrerbietig behandelt ist." This 
 is sufficient reason for the German emperor to meddle with 
 literature. All we need is that the Kaiser himself write a play 
 and command his subjects to attend the performances. William 
 would like to be a Nero, but he is nearer to "Blodsinn" than to 
 "Wahnsinn." 
 
 In this respect Reitzel stood shoulder to shoulder with his 
 own generation in Germany. The enthusiastic group of ideal- 
 ists who brought on the literary revolution of the 'eighties were 
 all inclined toward socialism. The literary revolution which 
 brought on naturalism was born out of economic causes, chiefly 
 because art was so foreign to the particular kind of life that 
 modern capitalism and its concomitant Marxism were putting
 
 Robert Reitzel 43 
 
 into the foreground. Kretzer's Die V erkommenen, DehmeFs 
 Der Arheitsmann, Hauptmann's Weber, Fritz von Uhde's and 
 Liebermann's paintings, these are just a few of the signs of the 
 times picked at random to illustrate the entrance of the masses 
 into literature. There was no "Hurrahpatriotismus" among this 
 group either, many were quite anti-militaristic,, very prominent 
 among them Bertha von Suttner. The thousands of expatria- 
 tions thru the Somalistengesetz and the prosecutions for lese 
 majeste bear witness to the temper of the times in Germany. 
 The fact that these two offenses ceased gradually to be consid- 
 ered criminal, bears out the vigorous protest of this generation 
 against them, just as the socialization of Germany vindicates to 
 a great extent the socialist theories. 
 
 Reitzel was extremely anti-Treitschke, just as he was dis- 
 gusted with Heyse, Bodenstedt, Hamerling, and others for their 
 veneration of Bismarck. The unrelenting Herwegh, "der nie 
 zu Kreuse kroch," the poet of the song of class hatred and 
 the workman's Marseillaise, was a man after Reitzel's heart. 
 In his opinion justice could be achieved only thru force, not 
 as the Milwaukee poet, Otto Soubron, wrote, "Wir kampfen fiir 
 das Menschentum mit Feder und Papier." Of him Reitzel said 
 that if it is true that Nero decapitated one hundred poets who 
 were praising the power of the word and sweet peace, it was 
 not the worst thing this tyrant had done. Reitzel advised the 
 workingman to assert himself, rather than to permit himself to 
 be made "Kanonenf utter" under such rulers as William II and 
 his chancellor, Caprivi, who endeavored to equal Bismarck in 
 his catch words, such as the one about the duty of the Ger- 
 mans to civilize Africa "mit der Bibel und der Flinte." As to 
 books showing the benefits of wars, he warns that a politician 
 could very well write on the good effects of stuffing the ballot 
 boxes. Why all this glorifying of the soldier, why not pension 
 the ^orkingman? And right along we find this perfectly sin- 
 cere man testing himself as to the reality and sincerity of his 
 opinions, as when he says that he would like to be an Interna- 
 tionalist, that he has lost all enthusiasm for wars, that he enter- 
 tains no dreams of the political greatness of his fatherland.
 
 44 Robert Reitzel 
 
 yet he cannot avoid a feeling of satisfaction when he finds the 
 best thoughts in a German author, or a feeling of depression 
 when a German has made a fool of himself. 
 
 As especially unworthy it appears to Reitzel when Ger- 
 mans in this country show a humble devotion for the German 
 monarch by the grace of God. He is eager to expose all 
 German-American papers subsidized by the "Reptilienfund." 
 Because Reitzel is no "Deutschtiimler" (as well as for many 
 other reasons) he is attacked by many German-American pa- 
 pers. Dr. Goebel of the Bellctristische Journal calls "A. T." 
 "ein Winkelblatt im Sumpf." Reitzel could find no better term 
 for Goebel's nationalistic ideals than the expressive "Ouatsch." 
 With a characteristic striking expression he said of Professor 
 Goebel, "vom tristebellischen" that he was going "back to Cal- 
 vary" in his veneration of the empire by the grace of God. For 
 Goebel, Rattermann, Seidensticker, and other historians of the 
 German-Americans he had but little sympathy. "Lobliches 
 wurde geleistet, dem Patriotismus ein Wohlgefallen, und es tut 
 auch einem Heimatlosen wohl, wenn er erfahrt, dasz bei dem 
 groszen Ereignisse dieses Kontinentes auch einmal ein Miiller 
 mitmarschierte oder ein Schulze sein Leben verloren hat. Wie 
 gesagt, an Patriotismus und gutem Willen fehlt es den deutsch- 
 amerikanischen Geschichtsschreibern nicht, aber was mir bis 
 jetzt zu Gesicht kam mutet mich sehr diirftig an und ist so ge- 
 schrieben dasz es eben nur Patrioten interessieren kann." Under 
 the head, "Und bist du nicht willig, so branch ich Gewalt," he 
 tells of the entry of his name and a few of his poems into the 
 second edition of Zimmermann's Deutsch in Amerika. When 
 Dr. Zimmermann — whom Reitzel, incidentally, had exposed in 
 a patent medicine fraud in connection with the notorious Dr. 
 Pusheck — had asked for contributions, Reitzel had indignantly 
 refused to appear in the same volume with a lot of "Nachtlich- 
 ter," but now it was brought to his attention that his works also 
 adorned the volume together with a request to buy the book! 
 
 The antagonistic feeling in political, scientific, and religious 
 questions of the German poets of this generation — Reitzel in- 
 cluded — was derived from sources like Karl Marx, Das Kapital;
 
 Robert Reitzel 4^, 
 
 Biichner, Kraft und Stoff; Darwin, Origin of Species; Haeckel, 
 IVeltrdtsel; Strausz, Lehen Jesu. To this must be added an im- 
 patient attitude toward the conventions and morality of the 
 times, to quote Karl Bleibtreu, "Zugleich gilt es das alte Thema 
 der Liebe nun im modernen Sinn, losgelost von den Satzungen 
 der herkommlichen Moral zu beleuchten." This background gives 
 a general idea of what attitudes one might expect to find taken 
 in the Arme Teufel on all questions. Of course, a man of the 
 caliber of Reitzel was always bigger than even his broad creed, 
 and moreover he grew and developed as the years went on. 
 
 In the second volume Reitzel prints a letter from Calvin 
 Thomas, professor of German at Ann Arbor, asking the Ger- 
 mans to contribute to a fund for a Goethe library at the Uni- 
 versity of Michigan. Reitzel encourages this most heartily, only 
 he says, this Professor Thomas is a church member and a pro- 
 hibitionist, "armer Goethe!" 
 
 At the same time there occurred the tragedy on the Chicago 
 Haymarket, now believed by many to have been one of the 
 greatest legal crimes in history as, for example, by Governor Alt- 
 geld, who in his pamphlet vindicates and completely exonerates 
 the victims. Reitzel asks for contributions to help fight against 
 this conviction in the court in Chicago. Then he travels to Chi- 
 cago and visits the men in "murderers' row." A letter from 
 Spiess appears in the Armer Teiifel which Reitzel says sounds 
 like a monolog from Biichner's Danton's Tod. The paper be- 
 comes much more serious in these days when Reitzel saw clearly 
 thru the issue at stake, but could not arouse the people to action. 
 No one believed that the men would really be condemned to 
 death, while Reitzel said in his paper and at mass-meetings that 
 the only way to save the men was to get them out of jail and 
 the hands of the legal machinery by force. The editorials now 
 are Gedanken i'tbcr den Tod, Aphorismen eines Uehelgelaimten, 
 while the gay mockery of Stimmenmiiller ceases. And when the 
 death sentence was pronounced the paper went out draped in 
 black with an article by the editor, "Was weben sie dort um den 
 Rabenstein." As tho gifted with the vision of a Cassandra, he 
 had foreseen the execution of the seven idealists and also their
 
 46 Robert Reitzel 
 
 ultimate vindication in many quarters, but like the tragic prophet- 
 ess of old he also preached to deaf ears. No other event left 
 such deep marks in the many volumes of the Arme Teufel as did 
 the death of the anarchists in Chicago. 
 
 At the beginning of the third volume we find Die Ahen- 
 teuer eines Griinen, Reitzel's biographical novel filling one hun- 
 dred and twenty pages in a quarto volume. This novel is a fine 
 contribution to humorous German literature, recalling Reuter, 
 Scheffel or Hauff. Likewise criticisms of musical events by 
 Ariolus, a pseudonym of Reitzel himself. The editor is mak- 
 ing lecture tours to the East and West, and speaks very fre- 
 quently at Detroit. Frau Hedwig Hendrich-Wilhelmi, a Ger- 
 man free-thinker touring this country, is favorably commented 
 upon in the Arme Teufel. Robert Seidel, the Swiss revolution- 
 ary poet, sends a protest against "das (^hicagoer Bluturteil" and 
 poems by him appear very frequently in the columns of Reitzel's 
 paper. The paper is for the most part devoted to belles-lettres, 
 strongly political in a radical direction, but there are also many 
 articles on scientific subjects, frequently on new developments 
 in medicine and psychology. We find that Konrad Nies begins 
 to publish his short-lived magazine, Deutsclir-Amerikanische 
 Dichtung, to which Reitzel contributes and which he reviews 
 monthly. The first number appeared January i, 1888, in Omaha, 
 Nebraska. One finds notes about most radical papers in Amer- 
 ica, Tucker's Liberty in Boston ; Most's paper in New York, and 
 Schumm's Libertas. also in Boston. Compared to the Arme 
 Teufel, these papers are extremely ephemeral. They had no 
 personality like Reitzel's to fascinate readers for years, instead 
 they bored them to death by the preachments of single-track 
 minds. There also appear radical poems by the classic poets of 
 German literature, often poets in whom one hardly expects 
 to find this side, as, for example, in Theodor Storm. The 
 young Schiller is quoted often, just as he was a favorite of this 
 generation in Germany, where they said, "Were Schiller living 
 today, he would be a socialist." But right along with all these 
 radical articles there appear essays on esthetic subjects by C. W., 
 Carl Weiss, of Milwaukee, a lover of literature and the arts,
 
 Robert Reitzel 4.7 
 
 who would have none of sociaHsm. There is found also under 
 the head Also so herrlich zveit hatten zvir es nun gcbracht, the 
 following from the Chemnitzer Wochenhlatt: "Verboten wurde 
 auf Grund des Sozialistengesetzes die Nummer 14 des laufenden 
 Jahrgangs von der Londoner Freien Presse, ferner die laufen- 
 den Nummern 86, 88, 93, 100, 104, and 107 der von Robert 
 Reitzel redigierten in Detroit (Nordamerika) erscheinenden pe- 
 riodischen Druckschrift mit der Ueberschrift Der Arme Teufel." 
 Claude Tillier's Onkel Benjamin and Meyer's Der Schusz von der 
 Kanzel api>ear serially. 
 
 In the fifth volume we find Henckell, Mackay, Seidel, and 
 other writing "fiir den A. T." Characteristic of Reitzel's fair- 
 mindedness and balance is the way in which he handled the 
 subject of the Russian painter Wassilli Werestschagin. This 
 painter of the horrors of war is now safely embalmed in the his- 
 tories of art as quite a rhinor light of no lasting significance, but 
 at the time he stirred the press of America to very hot contro- 
 versies. Reitzel did not condemn him nor laud him to the skies, 
 but he simply printed what the painter himself had to say about 
 his then new technique. On the first of May, 1889, there begin 
 the Reisebricfe, the vivid descriptions of Reitzel's visit to Ger- 
 many. In Germany Reitzel formed a close and lasting friend- 
 ship with German poets of his generation like Henckell, Mackay, 
 Tarnuzzer, and others. His friendship with Georg Michael Con- 
 rad began later. Auf dem Vierzvaldstdttersee, a fine poem by 
 Henckell, describing a boat ride these friends enjoyed on the 
 historic lake. May, 1891, Reitzel was again jailed, this time for 
 speaking in the interest of the strikers in Detroit. It was on this 
 occasion that he printed the advertisement, "Verlangt im Wayne 
 County Jail von 7 Uhr morgens bis Mitternacht ein drifter 
 Mann zum Skat!" Articles from Die Gesellschaft, Modernc 
 Dichtung, and the Nebelspalter, appear. Wedekind's Friihlings- 
 erwachen is favorably commented upon; but with qualifica- 
 ,t)ions. Stirner's Der Einziffe nnd sein Eigentmn is reviewed. 
 There appear Predigten aiis der neiien Bibel, viz., Nietzsche's 
 Also sprach Zarathustra. These articles ran through more than 
 a dozen numbers. There was a strong religious feeling in Reit-
 
 48 Robert Reit::el 
 
 zel just as there was in the whole radical Moderne, the school 
 in which Kretzer's Gcsicht Christi and Uhde's and Gebhardt's 
 paintings of Christ in a modern garb appeared. Reitzel retold 
 beautifully many biblisclie Gcschichten and he loved Christ, but 
 not the Christ of the catechism, about whom he spoke the clas- 
 sic word, "Philister iiber dir, Jesus." 
 
 Spring, 1894, there begins the series Atn Luginsland, as 
 Reitzel called the window before his Matrazengrtift. The paper 
 has now become much more sombre and much more literary, 
 rather than religious or political. Competitions in translation are 
 begun among the readers; the first verse offered as a test was 
 Dowling's 
 
 *'Ho! stand to your glasses steady, 
 'Tis all we have left to prize, 
 A cup to the dead already, 
 Hurrah for the next that dies!" 
 
 About a dozen translations were sent in by readers. In 
 June, 1895, there appear Ruhcbricfc von Villa Weidenlaiib, the 
 summer home of Mr. Karl Schmidt, a trusty friend of Reitzel. 
 In a wonderful article Hcrbsttrainn, Reitzel pictures in the words 
 of a little servant boy at the Inn at Stratford the last years of 
 Shakespeare, running through three numbers. Now instead of 
 jolly tales about his lecture tours we read about Die Reise um 
 niein Zimmer. A friend sends to Reitzel, then for years on his 
 bed of suffering, the poems of Francois Villon. He expresses 
 his thanks for them and adds, "But my heart yearns for the 
 snows of yesteryear." 
 
 It was on the night of April i, 1898, that the angel with 
 his darker draught entered Robert Reitzel's room, and in this 
 same room where he had often quaffed gaily with many compan- 
 ions he did not shrink from this last cup, and the career of the 
 Arme Teiifel, as far as Robert Reitzel was concerned, was at an 
 end. Martin Drescher continued it for about two years, but 
 without the force of Reitzel's personality the paper was doomed. 
 Three months after Reitzel's death the number of subscribers had 
 dwindled to two thousand seven hundred, which compared to
 
 Robert Reitzel 49 
 
 more than seven thousand during Reitzel's lifetime, spelled ruin. 
 If Reitzel had been of a more practical disposition he could 
 probably have made a fortune out of his paper, but his Bo- 
 hemian characteristics caused him to remain a "poor devil" all 
 his life. Georg Gottman, whom Reitzel called "der Boss," was 
 of a far more prosaic disposition, a Sancho Panza unable to 
 follow his master's poetic flights, but he must be given great 
 credit for keeping the business end of the paper in some sort of 
 shape. Reitzel had a number of traveling representatives who 
 toured the country from New York to California — in the good 
 old days of railroad passes. "Polytlas" Brand was a faithful 
 worker in this capacity for many years. Many of these agents 
 defrauded Reitzel, as one might expect to happen where such 
 loose business methods prevailed. But Dcr arnie Teufel was 
 never troubled very much by such losses, it was his nature to 
 bear them lightly and to speak generously of the offenders.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 REITZEL's position in GERMAN LITERATURE 
 
 Robert Reitzel is an anomaly in German-American letters, 
 inasmuch as he is no anachronism. He is part and parcel of 
 the movement in the 'eighties, Jiingstdeutschland, Socialism and 
 Naturalism, two tendencies which are not intrinsically related, 
 but which we see side by side in German writers of the 'eighties 
 and early 'nineties. There is no great writer in this period who 
 is not touched at some time or other by both of these tendencies. 
 It was in the air, an inevitable reaction to what had gone before 
 in art, as well as of the economic conditions of the times. The 
 movements unfolded in a different manner in each individual 
 writer, most of whom later gained a position beyond the stormy 
 j>eriod of their youth. The writers most closely related to Reit- 
 zel and with whom he must be grouped are Karl Henckell, John 
 Henry Mackay, Bruno Wille, and Reinhold Maurice von Stern. 
 All of them were contributors to Reitzel's Arme Teiifel, and the 
 first two were united with him in a close friendship. Reitzel 
 quoted frequently from Moderne Dichtercharaktere and Die 
 Gesellschaft in turn printed many contributions from Reitzel's 
 pen. 
 
 If we compare Reitzel to Henckell we find that both — 
 two very pugnacious natures — are fighting for the iconoclastic 
 ideals of the day, that both, especially in their youth, were 
 strongly influenced by Heine, Lenau and Herwegh. Both are for 
 the laborer against capitalism, for freedom from Kaiser and 
 militarism, for free love and against pruder\^ Lines like the fol- 
 lowing from Henckell's Ein Lied might have been written by 
 Reitzel : 
 
 "Ich bin ein schwertgegiirteter, 
 
 Vorkampfer in der Schlacht, 
 
 Ich bin ein zartbemyrteter 
 
 Spielmann auf stiller Wacht, 
 
 Protzt die Gelegenheit 
 
 (50)
 
 Robert Reitsel 51 
 
 Bin ich zum Hieb bereit, 
 
 Lieb ich ein siiszes Kind 
 
 Wind' ich ein Angebind ; 
 
 Kein Wahn von himmHschblinkender 
 
 Unsterblichkeit mich narrt 
 
 Ich bin ein Zukunftwinkender 
 
 Poet der Gegenwart." 
 
 A comparison with Reitzel's poems printed elsewhere in 
 this volume shows the same manner of picturing the self as 
 warrior, minstrel, lover, pagan, enemy of the church, and leader 
 of men. In the 'nineties both poets assume a much more gentle, 
 resigned tone, but Henckell's was a more flexible spirit than 
 Reitzel's, he arrived finally after his period of storm and stress 
 at a gentle estheticism, while Reitzel remained ever conscious 
 of his ideals as a fighter for freedom. He never could have 
 written the verse that appeared in Henckell's Zzvischenspid, 
 1894: 
 
 "Zeit meiner Ausrufkunst, du bist vorbei, 
 Nach Lauschereinsamkeit die Seele schmachtet . . . 
 Zuriickgezogen in den Kreis der Kraft 
 Geniig ich zarter Dichterleidenschaft." 
 
 This note is typical of the Jiingstdeutschen in the 'nineties, 
 but it finds only a faint echo in Reitzel. This can be accounted 
 for by his character, which was such as to cling most stubbornly 
 to his ideals, the fact that he addressed himself for fourteen 
 years to much the same circle of readers as editor who must 
 stand for some more or less fixed policy, and lastly his espousal 
 of anarchism, which made him a propagandist once more. 
 
 This worship of Stirner, Reitzel had in common with John 
 Henry Mackay. Both men are chiefly Gedankenlyriker. As to 
 their Weltanschauung, both pass thru about the same phases, 
 youthful revolution, intense participation in the events during 
 the "anarchist week" in Chicago, and finally a pessimistic resig- 
 nation. The joy in life and in wine, women, and song, which
 
 52 Robert Reitzel 
 
 was so great in Reitzel, seems to be lacking in the sombre 
 Mackay. 
 
 Another great agitator with a longing to lead men aright 
 in the 'eighties and 'nineties was Bruno Wille, whose work, 
 Einsiedler und Genosse, appeared in 1891. He was an ardent 
 socialistic speaker in Berlin for a time, like Reitzel, too, he was 
 a Sprecher einer freicn Gemeinde, and wrote many social poems. 
 His ideals were very similar to Reitzel's ; an unhampered devel- 
 opment of the individual personality, and the avoidance of all 
 coercion in education, such as corporal punishment, uniformity, 
 military education and war, prison and capital punishment, the 
 use of any kind of force on the part of the state, exploitation 
 of labor, and government by caste or precedent. Like Reitzel, 
 too, he later on renounced allegiance to any party. The party 
 itself covers a multitude of sins like tyranny, intolerance, selfish- 
 ness, and servility. His ideal is covered neither by anarchism 
 nor by communism, but strives to combine the best in social and 
 liberal thought. Reitzel's words about "Das letzte Ideal" invite 
 comparison :^^ "Mit einem wehmiitigen Bekenntnis meiner traur- 
 igen Lage will ich schlieszen. Wie mir die Christen am Chris- 
 tentum, die Sozialdemokraten am Sozialismus, die Anarchisten 
 am Anarchismus, die Freude verleidet haben, so geht's mir 
 jetzt auch mit den Individualisten." However, if Reitzel turned 
 away from these it was not to turn to new theories, but to act. 
 His was not a philosophic nature, but an extremely practical 
 one. 
 
 The early life of Maurice von Stern shows many parallel- 
 isms with Reitzel's. Both came to America in their early youth, 
 both learned here by bitter experience what it means to be a 
 proletarian, and both founded papers in America with socialistic 
 tendencies. Von Stern's Proletarierlieder dcm arbeitenden Volke 
 gewidmet show a tendency closely related to Der armc Teiifel. 
 But Reitzel had nothing of the ascetic monk in his full-blooded 
 nature, such as von Stern became in later life, nor could he ever 
 
 ^ Gesammelte Werke, Vol. Ill, p. Zi^.
 
 Robert Reitzel 53 
 
 have written (in a serious vein, as von Stern intended the verse 
 to be taken) : 
 
 "Zwar fehlt der Wein, die Quelle ist mein Wirt, 
 Gottlob, ein Fleck wo nicht gesoffen wird ! 
 Gottlob, ein Eiland oline Lagerbier! 
 Ein Mensch der trinkt steht tiefer als das Tier," 
 
 Reitzel tells in his essay on Walt Whitman that in his Wash- 
 ington days, when he was getting the first inklings of his later 
 ideals of emancipation of the flesh, the right of all things nat- 
 ural, the freedom of love and of the individual, he wrote to sev- 
 eral German poets in whom he recognized kindred spirits, among 
 them Peter Rosegger and Richard Voss. Later, November, 1884, 
 Reitzel founded his organ with a program similar to that of the 
 Gesellschaft, founded in Munich two months later, and of Mod- 
 erne Dichtercharaktere , which appeared in December, 1884. It 
 was some time before Reitzel heard of the other publications — 
 at least before he begins to quote from them — and some of 
 Reitzel's essays appeared in Die Gesellschaft. Here are three 
 children of one mother — the spirit of revolt in art and in social 
 life — all of them full of the fires of youth, iconoclastic, self- 
 confident, socialistic. Naturally Der arnie Teufel must suffer in 
 any comparison with Die Gesellschaft, it appears as quite pro- 
 vincial over against the paper to which all the great younger 
 poets of Germany contributed, the coryphei of modern Ger- 
 man literature, Hauptmann, Liliencron, Dehmel, Holz, and 
 others. Its scope is not nearly so wide, its interests more revolu- 
 tionary rather than artistic, the fight against the church and 
 Aufkldrung are emphasized much more strongly in Detroit than 
 in the city of artists and old culture. And yet their basic philos- 
 ophy is the same, both manifestations of the Zeitgeist. This will 
 be illustrated in a comparison of Reitzel's attitude as a critic 
 and that of Die Gesellsclmft. The material printed in both pa- 
 pers was similar; short stories, poems, plays, reviews, political, 
 religious, and literary essays, correspondence with readers, the- 
 atrical and musical notices. The same iconoclastic note and the 
 frische, burschkikose Ton are common to both. Naturally enough
 
 54 
 
 Robert Reitzel 
 
 Der arme Teufel was much more modest in its make-uj 
 number of pages, quality of paper, illustrations, etc. 
 
 In January, 1894, Reitzel's work begins to appear in Die 
 Gesellschaft. We notice, "Zum Kehraus von Robert Reitzel. 
 Vorbemerkung der Redaktion : Unser siiddeutscher Landsmann 
 Robert Reitzel gab in seiner Wochenschrift Der arme Teufel, 
 eine so impressionistisch f rische Schilderung seines Besuches der 
 Weltausstellung in Chicago, dasz wir mit des Verfassers giitiger 
 Erlaubnis unsere Leser gern mit diesem hervorragenden Pro- 
 sastiick deutschamerikanischer Literatur bekannt machen." One 
 month later: "Das letzte Ideal. Unter dieser Ueberschrift bringt 
 Robert Reitzel in seiner Wochenschrift Der arme Teufel eine 
 fesselnde politische Plauderei. Wir teilen daraus folgende 
 Stichproben mit . . . Soweit unser pfalzisch-schwabischer 
 Robert Reitzel in seinem deutschamerikanischen Armen Teufel. 
 Gewisse Renomistenhengste der modernen Bewegung mogen 
 sich seine bitteren Wahreiten hinter die Ohren schreiben." In 
 the December number appeared Reitzel's essay. Das Recht auf 
 den Tod. Number 12 of the volume of the year 1898 prints a 
 Nachruf, by Wilhelm Spohr, together with Reitzel's portrait and 
 a poem by Edna Fern, "Robert Reitzel." 
 
 Essays such as the above mentioned constitute by far the 
 greatest part of Reitzel's work. Max Baginski has collected 
 out of the files of the Arme Teufel three large volumes of 
 them, each containing about five hundred pages. These essays 
 are written in a brilliant, forceful, witty style. The forceful- 
 ness of his expressions, the stormy impatience of youth, recall 
 the stormers and stressers of all periods, particularly the young 
 enthusiasts whose revolutionary essays appeared in Die Gesell- 
 schaft, while his wit which had at its command the entire vast 
 heritage of German literature, and also liked to indulge in un- 
 exf)ected anticlimaxes, recalls Heine. However, there is never 
 the filth with which Heine in very poor taste interlarded his 
 most beautiful works. Moreover, we find that Reitzel takes his 
 lifework seriously, and, unlike Heine, does not feel moved to 
 mock his own works by ironical conclusions. As a character
 
 Robert Reitzel 
 
 55 
 
 Reitzel stands far above Heine — one need only read of his visit 
 to his father on his return to Germany, or of his pious filial 
 regard for his mother — while as a brilliant essayist he is a 
 close rival of the leading "Feuilletonist" of German literature. 
 In German-American literature he is by far the greatest artist 
 this country has seen. 
 
 Unfortunately as yet very few people have written on Rob- 
 ert Reitzel, but the few who have are unanimous in assigning to 
 him the first place in German-American letters. Amalie von 
 Ende, in an essay appearing in May, 1899, in the Literarisches 
 Echo says: "Reitzel founded his Arme Teiifel, this precious 
 enfant terrible of German-American journalism, an organ which 
 swore allegiance to no 'ism' whatsoever, but which for a period 
 of fourteen years tossed week for week its flaming torch into 
 the camp of philistinism and brought to its friends a bouquet of 
 the most splendid flowers which Reitzel collected in the garden 
 of world poetry. It is an achievement which is not sufficiently 
 recognized that it was Reitzel who introduced the German-Amer- 
 ican public to Ada Negri, Detlev von Liliencron, Bruno Wille, J. 
 H. Mackay, Karl Henckell, Karl Busse, C. J. Bierbaum, Lud- 
 wig Jacobowski, and many others. Reitzel himself was the 
 greatest master of German prose whom German- American lit- 
 erature has produced. His Plaudereien, whether they dealt with 
 Gottfried Keller, Hansjakob, or the poet of Dreisehnlinden, or 
 the charm of his own sick room, or the jolly student days were 
 unique {einzig in Hirer Art). He himself confessed rather sadly 
 that his lyric poetry was recognized but little beside his prose." 
 The introductory essay by Max Baginski in the three-vol- 
 ume edition of Reitzel is the best that has thus far been writ- 
 ten on Der Arme Teufel. He says:^"* "Dieser Sonnenwanderer 
 durchtrankte sein und vieler anderer Dasein mit Poesie, mit ta- 
 tenfroher Poesie, die durchaus keinem Zeitproblem aus dem 
 Wege ging, das dichteste, heisseste Kampfgwiihl am liebsten auf- 
 suchte." 
 
 " Cesammelte Werkt, Vol. I, p. 31.
 
 56 Robert Reitzel 
 
 "Alle Lust, alle Freude der Welt wollte er unarmen, aber 
 audi alles Leid der Welt drang zu seinem Herzen. Die Bilder, 
 Essays, welche er aus dieser Mischung in seinem Blatt gewoben 
 hat, sind das Beste was im deutschamerikanischen Schrifttum 
 hervorgebracht worden ist. Es sind herrliche Streifziige durch 
 Leben, Welt, Literatur darunter, die als zu den kostbarsten 
 Perlen deutschen Schrifttums gehdrend betrachtet vverden mo- 
 gen, wenn sie erst hier und in Deutschland zuganglich und be- 
 kannt geworden sind." 
 
 Furthermore: "Mit Heine ist Reitzel oft verglichen worden. 
 Ein Zusatz Boerne wiirde nichts schaden. Seine eigene Art 
 ware aber damit noch nicht geniigend bezeichnet. D'en klassikern 
 bewahrte er unwandelbare Treue, doch war er auch Fleisch vom 
 Fleische des jiingsten Deutschlands, das Holz, Henckell, Panizza, 
 Mackay, Wille, Hartleben, Hauptmann, Wedekind hervorge- 
 bracht hat." 
 
 Martin Drescher writes in a study on German-American 
 poets in Dr. Singer's Jahrbuch fiir 191 7 : "Unbestritten war Rob- 
 ert Reitzel unter den deutschamerikanischen Schriftstellern der 
 letzten Jahrzehnte der grosste Stilst; er war auch einer der ge- 
 dankenreichsten. Souveran wie der grosse Virtuose sein Instru- 
 ment beherrscht, beherrscht er die deutsche Sprache. Fiir jede 
 Empfindung die auf ein Menschenherz eindringen kann, fand er 
 mit bewundernswerter Feinheit das treff ende Wort : fiir das erste 
 Erwachen scheuer, keuscher Liebe, wie fiir den leidenschaftlichen 
 Schmerz der Emporung. Er war vornehmlich ein Dichter in 
 Prosa dessen Skizzen und Schilderungen, dessen Erinnerungen 
 und Bekenntnisse nicht so bald vergehen. Aber auch von seinen 
 Versen konnen manche sich getrost den besten Erzeugnissen der 
 deutschamerikanischen Literatur an die Seite stellen." 
 
 Two of Reitzel's longer works are Abenteiier eines Griincn 
 and Ein Herbsttraum. The former are the memories of his first 
 years in America as tramp, day-laborer, minister, ending with 
 his attempt at church reformation. The style is extremely droll, 
 suggesting Fritz Renter or Claude Tillier, and it is written not 
 as Dichhing tmd Wahrkeit, but his real experiences are por- 
 trayed with Rousseauan frankness. Besides being one of the
 
 Robert Reitzel 57 
 
 most entertaining books of its kind, it stands as a fine piece of 
 Kultiirgcschichtc. The second work is an imaginative picture of 
 Shakespeare in his last years in Stratford. Reitzel dreams that 
 he is the servant-boy in the tavern which Shakespeare visits daily. 
 Reitzel's Shakespeare has more real flesh and blood about him 
 than Tieck's rather too sensible figure in his Dichterlehen. The 
 joy in life of this great genius is very powerfully contrasted 
 with the Puritanism of his environment, which is especially op- 
 pressing and hypocritical in the poet's own family. The style is 
 naturalistic, vivid, but the whole is somewhat loosely joined to- 
 gether — as one might expect a dream to be. The Novelle was 
 not Reitzel's forte, he excelled more in the essay, especially the 
 Plauderei. 
 
 The influence of Robert Reitzel among the Germans in 
 America cannot be said to have been great. His attacks on 
 religion made impossible, of course, any contact with the Kir- 
 chendeutsche who are far more orthodox in this land of religious 
 liberty than the believers in their respective creeds in Germany, 
 while his ridicule of philistinism lost for him the sympathy of 
 many "free-thinkers" who would readily have forgiven him his 
 lack of godliness. Thus the Arme Teiifel Gemeinde could not 
 but be a small select circle composed of authors, lovers of lit- 
 erature, socialists, anarchists, bohemians — anything but the 
 Prominentcn. We might mention Edna Fern, for years a con- 
 tributor to the paper, Martin Drescher, who continued the paper 
 for some time after Reitzel's death, Dr. Tobias Sigel and 
 Mr. Karl Schmidt, of Detroit, the latter Reitzel's kind host at 
 "Villa Weidenlaub," on Lake Orion, in Canada; Mr. John 
 Meyer, of Mt. Clemens, a great disciple of Haeckel; Mr. Carl 
 Weiss, of Milwaukee, who despised socialism, but loved litera- 
 ture and esthetics ; Mr. Ernst Kurzenknabe, secretary of a labor- 
 ers' union; Emma Goldman, the noted anarchist — these are some 
 of the more intimate friends of Reitzel, just a few picked at 
 random. There were Arme Teiifel Klnbs in Toledo, Pittsburgh, 
 Cincinnati, St. Louis and other places, where two or three as- 
 sembled in Reitzel's name to engage in the study of the best in 
 literature and to work for liberty of body and soul. One is
 
 58 Robert Reitsel 
 
 apt to come across men engaged in everyday pursuits, such as 
 Conrad Schweier in St. Louis, a house-painter, but for many 
 years a reader of Der arme Teufel, filled with its spirit of the 
 cult of the beautiful and the genuine in art, as well as with 
 broad human sympathy for all those oppressed. And if one 
 glances at the library of such readers of Reitzel one finds the 
 classics well worn, Claude Tillier's Onkel Benjamin, Weber's 
 Dreiaehnlinden, Gottfried Keller, der Bauern-philosoph Deubler, 
 Alfred Meiszner and other poets of freedom — all the books that 
 Reitzel loved. Just how widely this cultural influence of Reit- 
 zel extended, can, of course, never be estimated, probably not 
 far into the masses at all, but wherever Reitzel carried the mes- 
 sage of the world's best literature he brought the very finest, 
 and his influence might be said to have been deep rather than 
 broad. Much less can we measure the influence of Reitzel as an 
 author, but wherever he was read he fostered a yea-saying 
 philosophy of life, hatred of all shams and conventions, broad 
 human sympathy, and above all tolerance, Christlike tolerance, 
 knocking the props from under any "holier than thou" atti- 
 tude.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 CRITIC AND POPULARIZER OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 Der arme Teufel leads German-American publications in 
 the number of modern German poets which it introduced to its 
 readers. Tho the paper was extremely radical its critical stand- 
 ard was far from being a narrow one. It was fortunate, in- 
 deed, that Reitzel had a liberal judgment in literature, a catho- 
 lic taste, real appreciation of the classics, combined with a keen 
 eye for new works of lasting value. He deserves great credit 
 for his critical ability which was all that could be desired, ex- 
 cept that he had no appreciation for art for art's sake. In this 
 respect, I think it must be said, that much formal beauty, won- 
 derful word music and word painting escaped him in works in 
 which the subject was morbid. He was far too robust and 
 healthy to appreciate fully, for example, Poe, because the thought 
 often attracted him more than the form. But a man's prin- 
 ciples, religion, or political position never interfered in the least 
 with Reitzel's appreciation of his works. Almost, tho not quite, 
 nil humani ei alienum. 
 
 Reitzel gives us his standard of criticism in an essay on 
 Eduard Dorsch.^^^ "Von einem Dichter verlange ich nicht nur, 
 dasz er sein Volk in seinem besten Fiihlen wiedergibt, die 
 Grosztaten derselben durch die Verherrlichung seiner Saiten 
 fijr die Nachwelt fixiert, sondern auch dasz er seinem Volke 
 geistig vorausschreitet, dasz er die Forderungen jener ver- 
 schwindenden Minoritat, die stets an wahrhaft republikanischer 
 Menschenwiirde festhalt, auf sein Banner schreibt." In accord 
 with these ideas he placed Lessing, Goethe, Schiller, very high. 
 Freytag, the servant of existing religion and state he believes 
 will sink into oblivion before long, while Renter and Keller 
 will live. He praises Arno Holz for opening new fields for 
 poetry and calls Liliencron echt, a quality which he must love, 
 tho politically he is the militarist's opponent. To this we must 
 add another chief characteristic of Reitzel's criticisms, he de- 
 
 ' Der arme Teufel, May 23, 1895. 
 
 (59)
 
 6o Robert Reitzel 
 
 manded imagination, seeing the great in little things i^^ "Phan- 
 tasie — es ist aber nur die Liebe, die ein gutes Gedachtnis hat 
 und all die kleinen Freuden zusammentragt, die wie Sonnen- 
 lichter durch's Erdenleben huschen, sich und andern zum Er- 
 gotzen." This Reitzel found in Jean Paul, Claude Tillier, Charles 
 Lamb, Fritz Reuter, and others. 
 
 To illustrate his manner I shall quote some examples of 
 Reitzel's criticisms, more fully of those poets who are closely 
 related to Reitzel. 
 
 "To write w;ith authority about another man, we must have 
 fellow-feeling and some common ground of experience with our 
 subject," thus writes Robert Louis Stevenson in the essay on 
 his fellow countryman, Bobby Burns. No man ever had a 
 greater right to judge of Heinrich Heine than did Robert Reitzel, 
 for not only the outward courses of their lives, from their ex- 
 patriation to the Matratsengruft are very similar, but their ideals 
 and their writings are very much alike — Reitzel was in some 
 phases a follower of Heine. As Stevenson does with Burns, so 
 Reitzel with Heine — gives us a sympathetic picture of the man, 
 not a bust of gold, but a life-size portrait including the feet 
 which were of clay. 
 
 Hours of Devotion with Heinrich Heine "^ is the title 
 which Reitzel gives to his essay, knowing very well the little shock 
 which this must cause the gentle reader. No one would have 
 enjoyed this title more than Heine himself whose name calls 
 up in the imagination of every German, says Reitzel, a smiling 
 bed of roses hedged in by thorny thistles. Even if we must 
 object to very much in Heine on artistic as well as on moral 
 grounds, yet we can be sure that he will always be read, a fate 
 really preferable to that of Klopstock, whom everybody praises, 
 but no one reads. 
 
 Heine has thought very deeply on the stupendous riddles 
 of this life. His religious views form the special field of in- 
 vestigation for Reitzel in this essay, as he suggests in the title. 
 These views we find expressed very frankly — only too frankly. 
 
 " Der arme Teufel, May 23, 1895. 
 
 " Gesammelte Werke, Vol. II. Cf. Essays on different poets mentioned.
 
 Robert Reitzel 6i 
 
 When other poets in some solemn hour cast their finest feelings 
 into eternal form, they know enough to suppress any Mephisto- 
 phelean quips that might momentarily lead their minds from 
 the sublime to the ridiculous, but Heine spoils many of his 
 poems by giving his entire self with all his inconsistencies, all 
 his follies and paradoxes. Reitzel calls this not laudable hon- 
 esty, but rather the vanity of a spoilt child which considers it- 
 self irresistibly charming even in its weaknesses. 
 
 With a deep poetic insight Reitzel analyzes this character — 
 a glowing republican and at the same time doing homage before 
 the mysterious augustness of the legitimate kings; proclaiming 
 communistic brotherhood of man and willing to share the bed 
 of a poor laborer, yet the very next moment indignant to be 
 forced to endure the handshake of some callous fist ; today sing- 
 ing of the glory of the coming of a new age, yet tomorrow 
 ruing the passing of the days of medieval romance. For Heine 
 is a poet, and the poet loves every kind of beauty, while at the 
 same time he is the natural vindicator of all that is suppressed, 
 defeated, and passed away. These things he paints in pious 
 devotion with the richest colors of his imagination. Tho his 
 old orthodoxy be a thing of the past and he stand in the thick 
 of the battle for the new light of freedom, yet the religion of 
 his childhood has certain poetic rights, and his heart will ever 
 be touched by the memory of these years in paradise. We must 
 not be led astray by the fact that now Heine kneels in ardent 
 prayer before the heavenly Madonna, now praises the gratify- 
 ing light of Protestantism, and again as the son of his people 
 wails in stirring notes the fall of Jerusalem, — for his true con- 
 fession of faith is found in the words: "The religion of the 
 future is liberty." 
 
 No zealous prophet of ancient Israel could have made a 
 more forceful plea for liberty for the lowly than is to be found 
 in the scathingly bitter Song of the Weavers who with a triple 
 curse to God, the king, and the fatherland, are weaving the 
 shroud of Germany. This injustice of God — or inconsistency 
 as he called it — Heine was unable to comprehend. Yet in his 
 own life he experienced that a poetic soul with longing for
 
 62 Robert Reitzel 
 
 flowers, sunshine, and the rustling of the woods could be buried 
 in a mattress-grave for ten long, creeping years. Reitzel ad- 
 mires him for not losing his humor in this time of trial, little 
 knowing that there awaited him a similar mattress-grave. 
 
 Heine tells of Kant that after the publication of the Critique 
 of Pure Reason, the philosopher's old servant, Lampe, went 
 about with a very said mien. Questioned by Kant, he confesesd 
 that he felt so badly because the professor had thrust God from 
 his throne. Out of pity for his faithful servant, Kant then 
 wrote the Practical Reason in which he again reinstated God 
 in all his former honor and glory. In this story, intended as a 
 bit of persiflage at the expense of Kant, Reitzel sees a persiflage 
 at the expense of Heine himself. For in spite of his seeming 
 frivolity he had in his heart such an old servant, Lampe who 
 made it necessary for him to return to, or at least often to 
 long for the faith in God of his childhood. The most drastic 
 example is the preface to Romancero. 
 
 The current anthropomorphic notions of God, of heaven, 
 and of hell are frequent targets of Heine's wit. Conscious of 
 the power of the poets he says that the real, everlasting hell 
 is the one in which the poets have the authority to imprison 
 the unworthy. Whom Dante puts into his hell, no God can 
 rescue. But to avoid hell from motives of fear, or to seek 
 heaven as a reward, is a notion that is very repulsive to Heine. 
 He seeks the good, because it is beautiful, and attracts him, 
 he avoids the bad, because it is ugly and repels him. Such 
 pearls of wisdom, says Reitzel, which others would expand into 
 volumes, Heine tosses out in the tone of casual conversation. 
 He does not consider the idea of immortality conducive to a 
 moral life, on the other hand it has always been a means of 
 poisoning this life for the people by lulling them to sleep thru 
 the preaching of otherworldliness. In the words of Homer, 
 Heine would rather be the meanest slave in this life than a 
 famous hero in Pluto's realm. But his love of life did not 
 cause him to fear death. He looked upon death as a pleasant 
 slumber which we do not flee, but which we yearn for. Life is 
 a sultry day, death is a cool night, and the poet is drowsy, the
 
 Robert Reitzel 63 
 
 day has made him tired, Reitzel pictures Heine looking back 
 upon life's fitful fever satisfied with his day's work, his last 
 wish granted : not to be buried with Christian or Jewish cere- 
 monies, but to have a sword placed in his coffin, for he died 
 as a brave soldier in the war of liberation for humanity. 
 
 Far from excusing Heine for his faults, for example, his 
 vanity, to which he sacrificed almost anything merely to shine 
 by his wit for the moment, his uncalled for bitter attacks on 
 the Jews, his baptism at the age of twenty-six merely to gain 
 a little in social position — Reitzel pictures him just as he was 
 with his low motives which he confesses himself with Rous- 
 seauan frankness. But it in no way spoils for Reitzel the true 
 worth of the man, this German Aristophanes, the jubilant icono- 
 clast ruthlessly destroying the old order of things and at the 
 same time creating the new : "Away with the poetry of 
 the old religion, it is stained with blood. Bring me the prose 
 of materialism with its attendant plenty for all mankind. Out 
 of this material happiness there will grow another form of 
 poetry more beautiful than the old and pregnant with life," 
 therein is contained Heine's religion. 
 
 In 1894 there was considerable discussion in Germany 
 whether or not a monument ought to be erected to Heine in 
 the city of Mainz._ Many of the leading authors of Germany 
 spoke against this plan. Reitzel was disgusted. In an article 
 in which he quotes many of these opinions he says, "Of all 
 that ridiculous rabble on which Heine during his lifetime poured 
 out the vials of his satire not one species has died out. O you 
 poor German nation, give your mites to the national orphan's 
 home or the army saving fund, you do not need a Heine monu- 
 ment !" 
 
 I have quoted at length what Reitzel writes of Heine in 
 order to give a good example of his manner. In the following 
 pages is found what Reitzel had to say of other authors in 
 much briefer form, only some of the most characteristic points 
 being mentioned. If we compare this with the criticism of 
 the Gesellschaft which placed Zola and other naturalists very 
 high, was somewhat doubtful as to Schiller, looked askance at
 
 64 Robert Reitzel 
 
 Dahn and Ebcrs, elevated once more to the position in which 
 they deserve to be placed the three great poets of a former 
 generation, Keller, Raabe, and Storm — v^^e see that Reitzel was 
 very much a man of his time. 
 
 We have mentioned above that Karl Henckell and Reitzel 
 are closely related in their ideals and their works. When Henck- 
 ell's Amselriifc appear, Reitzel exclaims that for a second time 
 Lieder eines Lebendigen have gone out into the world. Henckell 
 has pledged his genius to work for the emancipation of hu- 
 manity. Reitzel does not care particularly for his love poems 
 in the style of Heine or Lenau, but he admires those in which 
 new naturalistic turns manifest the poet of the day. Henckell's 
 demand for "das Recht der Sinnlichkeit" finds an echo in Reit- 
 zel, as well as the honesty of the social poets which causes him 
 to make fun of his own sentimental poems by adding as a 
 "note by the printer" that they sell more readily than poems 
 picturing the distress of the victims of society. Of this latter 
 kind Reitzel quotes a few picturing the salvation army or the 
 Christmas of the poor : 
 
 "Der Kaiser rief: Reserve her 
 Ins died, getreue Herden ! 
 Allein Gott in der Hoh sei Ehr! 
 Schlagt an das Repetiergewehr, 
 Und Friede sei auf Erden!" 
 
 He calls Henckell a satirist with new notes whose signifi- 
 cance is to be found chiefly in his social, polemic, and political 
 poetry. "Es braust dahin als ob Herwegh und Heine sicli in 
 einem Kopf e vereinigt hatten und doch wieder ganz anders !" 
 
 This was written before Reitzel had met Henckell. In the 
 course of his European journey Reitzel formed a close and 
 lasting friendship with Henckell. Together they took a boat 
 trip on the Vierzvaldstdtterscc , an occasion which Henckell made 
 memorable in a poem which appeared in the Anne Tcufel. The 
 two found in 1889 a unique agreement as to their ideals, but 
 Henckell changed his position before long, as we have seen, 
 and perhaps it is not accidental that no poems by this frequent
 
 Robert Reitzel 65 
 
 contributor to the Armc Teufel are to be found in the last three 
 volumes. 
 
 One and the same event was the inspiration for many of 
 Reitzel's best essays as well as of a book by John Henry Mackay 
 — the occurrences in Chicago in 1886. Die Anarchisten is not 
 the only work by this Scotch-German poet dealing with the 
 Haymarket events, but he also wrote a number of poems for the 
 Arme Teufel which deal with those labor leaders. Mackay's 
 Sturm was also reviewed by Reitzel. He does not find in it 
 the manysidedness of Henckell, but the ensuing monotony is like 
 the monotony of the sea or the eternal mountains, when he 
 reads these powerful outbursts of a lone, proud heart, it recalls 
 to him the glowing eyes of his friend in Ziirich, a man who is 
 honest to the core, who can rightly say of himself that he has 
 never uttered a single lie, but always spoke the truth as he saw 
 it. Reitzel says that two lines prove how close this poet who 
 always loses himself in melancholy, resigned reflections on 
 death, stands to the questions of the day : 
 "Ich bin ein Anarchist! Warum? Ich will 
 Nicht herrschen, aber auch beherrscht nicht werden." 
 Maurice Reinhold von Stern was for some time a con- 
 tributor to Reitzel's paper, but when this social poet turned her- 
 mit and prohibitionist he was ridiculed in an article headed Den 
 tapfere Maurice und der sanftc Reinhold. Reitzel never quar- 
 reled with a poet for his "Weltanschauung," but a revolutionist 
 turning into a reactionary was to him an abomination. The 
 same reason caused the break between Reitzel and his erstwhile 
 friend, Konrad Nies. Reitzel took his position as an enemy 
 of society seriously, not as a role to be adopted or dropped at 
 will by the poet as the occasion suited. Konrad Nies, as we 
 have mentioned, edited a paper Deutschamerikanische Dich- 
 tung for a year or so. Reitzel says he is certainly no modern 
 poet, his verses could have been written a hundred years ago. 
 "Ein Dichter unsrer Zeit" is what he calls Herwegh whom 
 Reitzel revered for clinging firmly to his old republican ideals. 
 This pride made Herwegh a man after Reitzel's heart, just like 
 Uhland, who refused any decoration from the king against 
 whom he had written.
 
 66 Robert Reitzel 
 
 If he were to spend the rest of his life in solitude and be 
 allowed but two books, says Reitzel, he would select Shake- 
 speare and the Bible. This selection was made also by Heine, I 
 believe, and others possibly have said the same. With Reitzel 
 it seems to have been no echoing of the words of others, but 
 these two books were indeed his very best friends. About 
 Shakespeare he has written the Herbsttraum, which we men- 
 tioned above, as well as two other essays, VVenn man Shake- 
 speare liest and Percy Heiszsporn. The deep knowledge of life 
 this Elizabethan possesses, his robustness, his truthfulness all 
 attract Reitzel. He thinks it is a sign of how much Shakespeare 
 loved his Percy that he has put into his mouth the words : 
 
 "O while you live, tell truth and shame the devil !" 
 
 Even more vivid and fascinating than Reitzel's sketches 
 about the characters of Shakespeare are his Bible stories retold, 
 retold rather freely. It is quite characteristic that he finds little to 
 praise in Ruth and much to excuse in Judas. 
 
 Goethe's poetry, he says, is not one special faculty, not lim- 
 ited to this or that field, no, it is the voice of harmonious man- 
 hood, just as allcompromising as vast nature herself. Goethe 
 is one of those eternal stars, in quiet, not flickering splendor, 
 revolving about its own axis, and which will shine until the 
 great world revolution will cast our entire world revelation 
 into other forms. In an essay on Goethe's ballads he says that 
 they differ from Schiller's inasmuch as Goethe gives us no 
 ideas, but simply a bit of the world, without reflections or 
 morals added by the poet. In speaking of the question of 
 Tendenz or art for art's sake, Reitzel holds it futile to quarrel, 
 for we have many fine examples of both kinds of poetry, and 
 both justify their existence by their beauty. Perhaps it was too 
 much quarrel with the church that prevented Reitzel's seeing 
 the Grimm-fairy-tale-like drollery in the VVandelnde Glockc, 
 in which the bell sets out to call the truant child to church, "die 
 Glocke kommt gewackelt." That this child morality is life just 
 as much as the ballads that speak a word for humanity, must 
 have escaped Reitzel, for he calls this Goethe's weakest ballad.
 
 Robert Reitzel 67 
 
 He loved Der Fischer best of all the poems of Goethe. Like- 
 wise he praised highly those ballads which assert the right of 
 real love against the conventions of society or of sensuality 
 against Christian asceticism. "Gedankenlyrik" if not "Pole- 
 mik" was Reitzel's forte, and for it too, he had the keenest 
 appreciation. 
 
 I should like to insert here a paragraph in which Reitzel 
 speaks characteristically of the three German classic drama- 
 tists:^^ "Drei reinste, gelauterte Dramen der Menschenliebe, 
 der Humanitat, haben wir zu denen nach jeder Revolution und 
 jeder Reaktion der Deutsche immer wieder zuriickkehren wird 
 wie zum Rauschen des Waldes und zum Anblick der ewigen 
 Gestirne: Lessing's Nathan, Goethe's Iphigenie, Schiller's Don 
 Carlos. Alle drei symbolisch, Gedankenprodukte, das Geschicht- 
 liche nur Maske, die Handlung unwahrscheinlich ; in den beiden 
 ersten fehlt das dramatische Leben, das dritte ist rhetorisch 
 iibertrieben. Aber die hochste Errungenschaft des Menschlichen, 
 die Resignation um der echten Liebe Willen, das Verzichten auf 
 den rohen Erfolg, der Sieg des auch durch die Offenbarungen 
 der Kunst veredelten Menschen ist in alien dreien. Die Men- 
 schenliebe im Nathan ist religiose Toleranz zwischen Nation 
 und der Ausblick auf das iiber den Religionen stehende 
 Verstandnis des Ewigen ; in Iphigenie die sittigende, siihnende, 
 fluchlosende Kraft der Liebe; in Don Carlos politisch, volker- 
 befreiend, Staat auf Menschenwiirde griindend, machtig ins All- 
 gemeine wirkend. Trager im Natlian ein Greis, im Don Carlos 
 ein Jiingling-Mann, in Iphigenie echt Goethisch, eine Jung- 
 frau."3« 
 
 Quite in contrast with this is his view of some Roman- 
 ticists (De la Motte Fouque in particular): "Ach die stolzen 
 Rittergeschichten, die Heldenfahrten unserer germanischen Vor- 
 fahrer von der Ostsee bis zum goldenen Horn, die lichtbraunen 
 Rosslein und die mondscheinaugigen minniglichen Frauen! Dass 
 uns die historische Aufifassung des Mittelalters durch diese Ro- 
 mane vollstandig verfalscht wurde, konnten wir in unserer Ju- 
 gend nicht ahnen." 
 
 °* This is an expansion of a passage from Vischer's Auch Einer.
 
 68 Robert Reitsel 
 
 A strong unbending character like Seume, the advocate of 
 healthy revolution, as an atheist at a time when such were more 
 rare than they are today, an anti-militarist from bitter personal 
 experience, was admired by Reitzel, and not least for his 
 words: "I will say the truth, if it will cost me my life." But 
 if Reitzel admired a man for his character, he was far from 
 thereby agreeing with all his views, as, for example, when the 
 revolutionary Borne turns his vicious criticism on Goethe and 
 Schiller, he refuses to follow the critic, although he enjoys his 
 satires very much. Reitzel confesses that this is not easy for 
 him, because his heart is so much stronger than his head, still, 
 if at times he is silent about the failings of his friends, yet he 
 never overlooks the greatness of his enemies. A clever, strik- 
 ing expression always took Reitzel's fancy, such as Borne's, 
 "VVer die Bettdecke von der schlummernden Wahrheit abzieht, 
 den nennt man einen Ruhestorer." 
 
 Reitzel was anything but a Lebenskiinstler, and this *'bo- 
 hemianism" in his own life enabled him to appreciate fully a 
 Zigeuner like Lenau. He tells the life-story of this unhappy 
 poet with a warmth that makes the reader re-create the inter- 
 spersed verse of the Hungarian count so that he feels them in 
 their full force and melancholy beauty. He rates Lenau very 
 high and makes the claim that he has said many things better 
 than Goethe. As an example he quotes the well-known words 
 from Faust: 
 
 "Die wenigen, die was davon erkannt, 
 Die toricht g'nug ihr voiles Herz nicht wahrten, 
 Dem Pobel ihr Gefiihl, ihr Schauen offenbarten, 
 Hat man von je gekreuzigt und verbrannt." 
 
 comparing them to Lenau's expression of the same thought in 
 which he says a most rare agreement in the poetical picture and 
 the idea are to be found : 
 
 "Haltst du die Arme Liebend ausgebreitet 
 Um die Welt zu driicken an dein Herz 
 So bist du schon zur Kreuzigung bereitet."
 
 Robert Reitzel 69 
 
 Lenau's stay in America was very short, like Liliencron and 
 many other Germans with more love for art than for dollars, 
 he was driven back to Germany, amerikamiide. The same con- 
 flict that runs thru most of the Heimweh poetry of German- 
 Americans is also dividing Reitzel's soul ; America is great and 
 full of opportunities but Germany has Stimmung, a message for 
 the soul which he fails to find here.^^ 
 
 Lenau before the huge hearth fire of the log hut in the 
 backwoods exclaims, "Uhland, wie steht's mit der Freiheit 
 daheim!" voicing a sentiment of thousands who came to these 
 shores during the time of Metternich. In Reitzel's opinion this 
 applied fully as much in Bismarck's time. Uhland was to his 
 mind the best Jugenderzieher for the German youth, for he 
 taught courage and manly pride. He was not a radical revolu- 
 tionist but a virile healthy character in all that he wrote. Nor 
 would Reitzel place him among the greatest artists, his poetry 
 was like "gut ausgebackenes, echt deutsches Brot." He loves 
 Uhland's ballads, thinks highly of his work in reviving the true 
 middle ages, is charmed by his Minnelieder and collections of 
 folk songs (Reitzel wrote two long essays on the folk songs 
 collected by Uhland), but he wants to tell his readers about one 
 side of the man that others neglect — his love of liberty and his 
 courage in telling the truth, even to princes. 
 
 Like all of Ji'mgstdeutschland, Reitzel was an ardent ad- 
 mirer of Keller. Die drei gerechten Kammacher was his favor- 
 ite short story in all literature. In an essay on Keller's lyric 
 poetry, he says: "So gefallt uns die Kellersche Lyrik am besten 
 wenn sie der Formschonheit und dem Naturverstandnis noch 
 die Schalkhaftigkeit eines gesunden Humors hinzufiigt." Tho 
 Gottfried Keller was anything but a social poet, yet he was too 
 honest a man to overlook in his nature-poetry that man was a 
 part of nature. The time of the full harvest brought a feeling 
 of happy satisfaction to the poet, yet he could not overlook in 
 this picture of great plenty the hollow cheeks of the homeless 
 poor. His love poetry is not rated so high by Reitz'=*^ it does 
 
 " Gesammelte Werke, Vol. II, p. 335-
 
 70 Robert Reitzel 
 
 not compare at all with Goethe's or Heine's, there is too much 
 of reflection to allow one to think that Keller had ever "recht 
 narrisch gekiiszt." The gentle irony of the Legendcn which is 
 so delicate that these legends could well be enjoyed by a simple 
 and devout Catholic does by no means escape Reitzel. He says, 
 he should like to see the "Schmunzeln und Wetterleuchten" that 
 would flit over the face of a well-educated priest absorbed in 
 these tales which are more pagan than Christian and yet con- 
 tain no offensive mockery. Reitzel reprints some sketches from 
 Keller's Nachlass, as usual browsing about in remote parts of 
 literature to present his readers with hidden gems. Keller's 
 forceful, gripping way of telling a story with deep human in- 
 terest and his keen appreciation and description of nature ought 
 to be a model for young Germany of the day. 
 
 In the discussion of Keller's great contemporary, Theodor 
 Storm, Reitzel again finds occasion for an unfavorable compari- 
 son to the literature of the day : "These young Germans have 
 lost the quiet leisure in their work, they are not content with 
 simple things. H they are vain they will turn up their noses 
 at such poetry as some gems in Storm, if they are honest then 
 it must seem to them like a glimpse of a lost paradise."**^ It 
 is the simplicity and lack of morbidity combined with the highest 
 art in Storm which appeals strongly to Reitzel. 
 
 Reitzel counts it one of the big events in his life when he 
 discovered Fritz Renter while serving as an apprentice in a wine 
 cellar in Baltimore. He calls him a real poet with a deep in- 
 sight into life and a truthful portrayal of human nature. As to 
 Reuter's efforts in behalf of liberty Reitzel does not think that 
 they amounted to very much. He thinks Reuter's prison term 
 was due to his impudent boldness. In telling the biography of 
 Renter one event stands out particularly, a thing that Reitzel 
 spoke of often and which seems to have been a sort of an ideal 
 with him, that is, a calm, collected death, true to the life that 
 the man had led. 
 
 Another novel of the older school that was a favorite with 
 
 " Gesammelte Werke, Vol. II, p. 260.
 
 Robert Reitzel 71 
 
 the literary revolutionists in Germany was also highly praised 
 by Reitzel, Vischer's Auch Eincr. Reitzel appreciates his origi- 
 nality, his humor, and above all his big heart and simple whole- 
 hearted enjoyment of life. The fact that the old philosophic 
 traveler could kiss the beautiful Italian girl and then explain 
 in childish glee, "Und sie hat's erst nicht abgewischt!" In a 
 longer essay Trutsworte suni Aerger holier er Hausknechte von 
 Auch Einer und mir Reitzel quotes many fine sentiments from 
 this most original novel. 
 
 Tho Reitzel showed much greater fondness for the wine 
 songs of Mirsa S chaffy than present critics think good taste, he 
 agrees with the now quite prevalent opinion that Scheflfel's 
 poetry was hugely overestimated. He sees much to admire in 
 the poet of the Trompeter, but he finds a touch of philistinism 
 in this dual personality, the poet of the carefree life of wine, 
 women, and song, and the bureaucrat eager to win distinction 
 in the field of law. Since Reitzel's home was in Baden, he was 
 quite familiar with the country described by Scheifel and he had 
 even met the poet at' the house of his uncle in his youth. As 
 usual Reitzel also discusses the less known works of the poet. He 
 found many good things to say for Schefifel's Episteln, "alles 
 so herzig und schon." 
 
 Another epic poet received great praise from Reitzel, the 
 Catholic, F. W. Weber. The genuine qualities of Dreizehnlindcn 
 were quite impartially praised in the Arme Teufel. Reitzel 
 could not suppress a bit of pride that his radical paper found 
 so much to praise in a Catholic, and he doubted whether any 
 other "Uhu oder Spotter" would do as much. 
 
 In spite of the radical lenses thru which Reitzel naturally 
 looked out upon the world, one might guess from the above- 
 mentioned examples that there was enough of the Romanticist 
 in him to make of him a lover of fairy tales. Andersen's book 
 was to him a new kind of fairy story, a wonderfully fantastic 
 land of the imagination for children which at the same time con- 
 tains a soul for the thinking person. It is a book from which 
 one can regain the best that life offers us, eternal youth. We
 
 72 Robert Reitsel 
 
 become poets in reading Andersen and if we pause to think we 
 find in Tom Thumb, the Httle tin soldier, and others, a morahty 
 in the highest sense of the word, noble thoughts and a philosophy 
 of life. 
 
 We have seen before that Reitzel was not afraid to change 
 his mind, nor to admit this. In his first review of the Versun- 
 kene Glocke he says that the play could never be produced on 
 the stage. A little later he writes : 'T have read the first act 
 aloud twice and I can't imagine why I thought that it could 
 not be played. Really, my impression was the same as when 
 I read Faust for the first time. But I can't call it a modern 
 Faust, like a certain Harvard professor." The first act was 
 reprinted in the Arme Teufel. 
 
 Reitzel addressed himself to Germans in the German lan- 
 guage and dealt therefore mostly with German literature. How- 
 ever, his knowledge of literature was by no means confined to 
 the writings of one nation, he was most cosmopolitan in his 
 tastes. It is, of course, not within the scope of this work to 
 give Reitzel's opinion on every author, but I have attempted 
 to mention only a few typical examples to show his close rela- 
 tion to the young generation of German poets of the 'eighties, 
 and to show at the same time how much broader was his point 
 of view than that of the Gesellschaft, which was ultra-modern, 
 putting naturalism above all else. Another instance of the sim- 
 ilarity of thought of Reitzel and the German group is to be 
 found in the great admiration both feel for Walt Whitman. To 
 both he was America's greatest poet. America, unlike France 
 or Germany, has no group of young poets writing social poetry. 
 This field is quite undeveloped in America, said Reitzel. The 
 only poet of whom it might be said that he realizes the duty of 
 America to act as mediator in bringing on world peace and the 
 growth of a free humanity is Walt Whitman. Quite aside from 
 his powerful iconoclastic free rhythms Reitzel admired the man's 
 personality, his humane service in the Civil W^ar, his disregard 
 for public opinion in living his life as he pleased, and his 
 boldness, which made him unpopular.
 
 Robert Reitzel 73 
 
 Reitzel was a great admirer of Thoreau who had taught 
 him a love for traveling alone. He compared him to Nietzsche 
 in his love of solitude. 
 
 Reitzel reviewed and reprinted a vast amount of modern 
 literature in his Arme Teufel. Die Gcsellschaft, Moderne 
 Dichtercharaktere , Der Nebelspalter and other German maga- 
 zines furnished poems and short stories for his paper. Entire 
 books like Claude Tillier's Onkel Benjamin, Vischer's Faust, 
 drifter Teil, and others of a somewhat unusual character were 
 reprinted serially. Poems by one hundred and eighty-one 
 modern German poets appeared in the Arme Teufel, about one- 
 tenth of them written "fiir den Armen Teufel," many translations 
 from English and French, and about sixty poems by Reitzel 
 himself. A list of poets with the number of their poems which 
 appeared in the Arme Teufel follows: Henckell (45), Edna 
 Fern (43), Eduard Dorsch (41), Mackay (31), Emil Seytter 
 (26), Keller (21), Robert Seidel (21), von Stern (15), Vischer 
 (14), Bruno Wille (13), Straubenmiiller (11), Dehmel (10), 
 Baumbach (10), Konrad Nies (10), Schlick (8), Eugenie delle 
 Grazie (8), Pfau (8), Biedenkapp (7), Falke (6), Drescher 
 (5), Dranmor (6), Scheffel (5), Tarnuzzer (5), Liliencron 
 (8), Jacoby (10)', Curti (6), von Bodman (5), Busse 
 (4), Beck (4), Heinzen (3). Of these thirty leading contribu- 
 tors eleven were German Americans, a fact which shows that 
 the paper was truly representative of German- American art and 
 appreciated by the poets of this country who wrote in the Ger- 
 man language. Never before nor since has there been such a 
 representative German-American belletristic and esthetic journal. 
 
 But Reitzel's own work did much more for the spread of 
 interest in the best of German and other literatures than the 
 printing of these poems and stories. Week after week Reitzel 
 took up some German author or some particular book and dis- 
 cussed it in his vivid and generous fashion. He took a great 
 deal of pride in this work and it must be said that it is a unique 
 cultural act in America. He had a way of weaving illustrations 
 of the poet's verse into his essay so that the reader is often 
 pleasantly surprised by the rhythmic cadences in the page printed
 
 74 Robert Reitzel 
 
 as prose. Reitzel speaks of this on one occasion in the first 
 paragraph of his essay, Aus cincni Dichterhcrncn. He recalls 
 the old fairv tale of the good child who found that when it 
 tried to throw stones they were immediately turned into roses, 
 and that in this way a man had tried to throw a stone at him 
 by saying that Reitzel presented to his readers in prose what 
 the best German poets had said in verse. This stone is turned 
 into a rose, for if he does this he has attained his ideal, which 
 is that his articles should read like poetry turned into prose, 
 the poetic language of the greatest artists in a newspaper. 'Teh 
 meine es gibt keine schonere Aufgabe als das ewig Schone und 
 das ewig Wahre, das was die Dichter in ihren Liedern verkor- 
 pert, so viel als moglich in unserm alltiiglichen Leben heimisch, 
 so viel als moglich dem arbeitenden Manne, der arbeitenden Frau 
 zu eigen zu machen."
 
 AMERICANA GERMANICA 
 
 Monograph Series. 
 
 1. Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810. 
 
 By Edward Ziegler Davis, Ph. D. 234 pp. Price $1.65 
 
 2. The Harmony Society. A Chapter in German American Culture 
 
 History. By John Archibald Bole, Ph. D. 179 pp. 30 Illustra- 
 tions. Price $1-50 
 
 3. Friedrich Schiller in America. A Contribution to the Literature of 
 
 the Poet's Centenary, 1905. By EUwood Comly Parry, Ph. D. 
 
 117 pp. Price $1.25 
 
 4. The Influence of Salomon Gessner upon English Literature. By 
 
 Bertha Reed. 119 pp. Price $1.25 
 
 5. The German Settlement Society of Philadelphia and Its Colony, 
 
 Hermann, Missouri. By William G. Bek. 193 pp. Price $1.50 
 
 6. Philipp Waldeck's Diary of the American Revolution. With Intro- 
 
 duction and Photographic Reproductions. By M. D. Learned. 
 
 168 pp. Price ■ $r.50 
 
 7. Schwenkf elder Hymnology and the Sources of the First Schwenk- 
 
 f elder Hymn-Book Printed in America. With Photographic 
 Reproductions. By Allen Anders Seipt, Ph. D. 112 pp. Price. $2.00 
 
 8. The Settlement of the German Coast of Louisiana and the Creoles 
 
 of German Descent. By J. Hanno Deiler. With Illustrations. 
 
 136 pp. Price $1-25 
 
 9. Early German Music in Philadelphia. By R. R. Drummond, Ph. D. 
 
 112 pp. Price $1.25 
 
 10. "Uncle Tom's Cabin" in Germany. By Grace Edith MacLean, Ph. D. 
 
 102 pp. Price $1-50 
 
 11. The Germans in Texas. A Study in Immigration. By Gilbert 
 
 Giddings Benjamin, Ph. D. 161 pp. 3 Illustrations. Price $1.50 
 
 12. The American Ethnographical Survey. Conestoga Expedition. M. 
 
 D. Learned, Director $2.00 
 
 13. Swedish Settlements on the Delaware 1638-1664. With 6 Maps and 
 
 150 Illustrations and Photographic Reproductions. By Amandus 
 Johnson, Ph. D. Two volumes. 908 pp. Price $10.00 
 
 14. National Unity in the German Novel Before 1870. By Roy H. 
 
 Perring, Ph. D. 75 pp. Price $1.25 
 
 15. Journal of Du Roi the Elder, Lieutenant and Adjutant in the Service 
 
 of the Duke of Brunswick, 1776-1778. Translated by Charlotte 
 
 S. J. Epping. 189 pp. Price $1 50 
 
 16. The Life and Works of Friedrich Armand Strubberg. By Preston 
 
 A. Barba, Ph. D. 151 pp. 4 Illustrations. Price $2.00 
 
 17. Baldwin Mollhausen, the German Cooper. By Preston A. Barba, 
 
 Ph. D. 188 pp. 4 Illustrations. Price $2.00 
 
 18. Beliefs and Superstitions of the Pennsylvania Germans. By Edwin 
 
 M. Fogel, Ph. D. 386 pp. Price $350 
 
 19. Dickens' Einfluss auf Ungern-Sternberg, Hesslein, Stolle, Raabe 
 
 und Ebner-Eschenbach. By J. Theodor Geissendoerfer, Ph. D. 
 
 SI pp. Price $1.00 
 
 20. Whittier's Relation to German Life and Thought. By Ida Kay East- 
 
 burn, Ph. D. 161 pp. Price $2.00 
 
 21. Benjamin Franklin and Germany. By Beatrice Marguerite Victory. 
 
 Ph. D. 180 pp. Price $2.0*1 
 
 22. Die Deutschamerikanische Patriotische Lyrik der Achtundviersiger 
 
 und Ihre Histori.<!che Grundlage. By Gottlieb Betz, Ph.D. 131 
 
 pp. Price $1.50 
 
 23. Heine in America. By H. B. Sachs, Ph. D. 193 pp. Price $2.00 
 
 24. Socialism in German American Literature. By William Frederic 
 
 Kamman, Ph. D. i — pp. Price $1-50 
 
 25. Robert Reitsel. By Adolf E. Zucker, Ph. D. 74 PP- Price $1.25
 
 AMERICANA GERMANICA 
 
 MONOGRAPHS DEVOTED TO THE COMPARATIVE STUDY OF THE 
 
 Literary, Linguistic and Otlier Cultural Relations of 
 Germany and America 
 
 EDITOR 
 
 MARION DEXTER LEARNED 
 
 University of Pennsylvania 
 
 H. C. G. Brandt 
 W. H. Carruth 
 Hermann Collitz 
 Starr W. Cutting 
 Daniel K. Dodge 
 A. B. Faust 
 KuNO Francke 
 Adolph Gerber 
 Julius Goebel 
 
 CONTRIBUTING EDITORS 
 
 J. T. Hatfield 
 
 W. T. Hewett 
 
 A. R. Hohlfeld 
 
 Hugo K. Schilling 
 
 H. Schmidt-Wartenberg 
 
 Hermann Schoenfeld 
 
 Calvin Thomas 
 
 H. S. White 
 
 Henry Wood 
 
 PUBLICATIONS OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA 
 
 NEW YORK 
 D. APPLETON & COMPANY 
 
 publishing AGENTS