Fritz Reuter

Fritz Reuter was born at Stavenhagen in the Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, a small country town where his father was mayor and sheriff (Stadtrichter) and, in addition to his official duties, carried on the work of a farmer.

Here he was a member of the political students' club Burschenschaft "Germania," and in 1833 was arrested in Berlin by the Prussian government and interned at Fort Silberberg in Silesia.

This sentence was commuted by King Frederick William III of Prussia to imprisonment for thirty years in a Prussian fortress, Feste Coburg.

[8] In 1838, through the personal intervention of the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg, he was delivered over to the authorities of his native state, and he spent the next two years in the fortress of Dömitz, but was set free in 1840, when an amnesty was proclaimed after the accession of Frederick William IV to the Prussian throne.

In 1850 he settled as a private tutor in the little town of Treptow an der Tollense in Pomerania (today Altentreptow, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern), and was now able to marry Luise Kuntze, the daughter of a Mecklenburg pastor.

The book, which was received with encouraging favour, was followed by Polterabendgedichte (1855), and De Reis' nach Belligen (1855), the latter a humorous epic poem describing the adventures of some Mecklenburg peasants who resolve to go to Belgium (which they never reach) to learn the secrets of modern farming.

His next book (published in 1858) was Kein Hüsung, a verse epic in which he presents with great force and vividness some of the least attractive aspects of village life in Mecklenburg.

[1] In Ut de Franzosentid the scene is laid in and near Stavenhagen in the year 1813, and the characters of the story are associated with the great events of the Napoleonic wars which then stirred the heart of Germany to its depths.

Reuter's stories are lacking in plot, but are marked by clever episodes, skillful character drawing and a humor, which, despite the difficulty of his medium, was universally appreciated in Germany.

The association later erected a retirement home on the grounds where the manuscript was rediscovered in the 1970s by the American scholar Heinz C. Christiansen, following hints by Stavenhagen museum director Arnold Hückstädt, and was bound into a book.