II
This brings to a close the first act of the drama of Kinkel's life and nothing worthy of mention then occurs before the outbreak of the February revolution. The publishing house of Cotta accepted his poems but without offering him a royalty and most of the copies remained unsold until that stray bullet in Baden gave a poetic nimbus to the author and created a market for his products.
Incidentally, our biographer omits mention of one significant fact. The self-confessed goal of Kinkel's desires was that he should die as an old theatre director: his ideal was a certain Eisenhut who together with his troupe used to roam up and down the Rhine as a travelling pickle-herring and who afterwards went mad.
Alongside his Bonn lectures with their rhetoric of the pulpit, Gottfried also gave a number of theological and aesthetic performances in Cologne from time to time. When the February revolution broke out, he concluded them with this prophetic utterance:
"The thunder of battle reverberates over to us from Paris and opens a new and glorious era for Germany and the whole continent of Europe. The raging storm will be followed by Zephyr's blissful breeze of freedom. On this day is born the great, fruitful epoch of—constitutional monarchyl"
The constitutional monarchy expressed its thanks to Kinkel for this compliment by appointing him associate professor. Such recognition could however not suffice for our grand homme en herbe. The constitutional monarchy showed no eagerness to cause his "fame to encircle the globe". Moreover, the laurels Freiligrath had collected for his recent political poems prevented the crowned May-Bug poet from sleeping. Heinrich von Ofterdingen, therefore, wheeled to the left and became first a constitutional democrat and then a republican democrat (honnête et modéré). He set out to become a deputy but the May elections took him neither to Berlin nor to Frankfurt. Despite this initial setback he pursued his objective undismayed and it can truthfully be said that he did not spare himself. He wisely limited himself at first to his immediate environment. He founded the Bonner Zeitung, a modest local product distinguished only by the peculiar feebleness of its democratic rhetoric and its naive patriotic ignorance. He elevated the Mây-Bug Club to the rank of a democratic students' club and from this there duly flowed a host of disciples that bore the Master's renown into every village of the district of Bonn and forced Professor Kinkel upon every assembly. He himself poli-ticked with the grocers in their club, he extended a brotherly hand to the worthy manufacturers and even hawked the warm breath of freedom among the peasantry of Kindenich and Seelscheid. Above all he reserved his sympathy for the honourable trade of master craftsmen. He wept together with them over the decay of handicrafts, the terrible effects of free competition, the modern dominance of capital and of machines. Together with them he devised plans to restore the guild system and to prevent the competition of non-guild masters. So as to do everything of which he was capable he set down the results of his club deliberations with the petty master craftsmen in the pamphlet entitled Handwerk, errette Dichl*
Lest there be any doubt as to Herr Kinkel's position and to the significance of his little tract for Frankfurt and the nation, he dedicated it to the "thirty members of the economic committee of the Frankfurt National Assembly".
Heinrich von Ofterdingen's researches into the "beauty" of the handicrafts led him immediately to the discovery that "the handicrafts are at present divided by a yawning chasm" (p. 5). This chasm consists in the fact that some artisans "frequent the clubs of the grocers and officials" (what progress!) and that others do not do this, and also in the fact that some artisans are educated and others are not. Despite this chasm the author regards the artisans' associations and assemblies springing up everywhere in the beloved fatherland and the agitation for enhancing the position of the handicrafts (we recall the programmes à la Winkelblech[160] of 1848) as a gratifying symptom. In order to contribute his mite of good advice to this beneficent movement he devises his own programme of salvation.
He begins by examining how the evil effects of free competition can be remedied by restricting it but without eliminating it altogether. The solutions he proposes are these:
"A youth who lacks the requisite ability and maturity should be debarred by law from becoming a master" (p. 20).
"No master shall be permitted to have more than one apprentice at any given time" (p. 29).
"An examination must also be introduced for teaching a craft" (p. 30). "The master of an apprentice must unfailingly attend the examination" (p. 31).
"On the question of maturity it should become mandatory that henceforth no one may become a master before completion of his twenty-fifth year" (p. 42).
"Handicraft, save yourself!"—Ed.
"As evidence of ability every candidate for the title of master should henceforth be required to pass an examination and moreover in public" (p. 43).
"In this context it is of vital importance that the examination should be free" (p. 44).
"All provincial masters of the same guild must likewise submit themselves" to these examinations (p. 55).
Friend Gottfried, who is himself engaged in political peddling, desires to abolish "itinerant trading or peddling" in other, profane wares on the grounds of its dishonesty (p. 60).
"A manufacturer of craft goods desires to withdraw his assets from the business to his own advantage and, dishonestly, to the disadvantage of his creditors. Like all ambivalent things, this phenomenon too is described by a foreign word: it is called bankruptcy. He therefore quickly takes his finished products to some neighbouring towns and sells them there to the highest bidder" (p. 64). These auctions—"in actual fact a sort of garbage that our dear neighbour, commerce, disposes of in the garden of handicraft"—must be abolished.
(Would it not be much simpler, Friend Gottfried, to go to the root of the matter and abolish bankruptcy itself?)
"It is true that fairs are in a special position" (p. 65). "In these circumstances the law will have to let the various towns and villages call an assembly of all the citizens to decide by majority vote (!) whether existing fairs should be retained or abolished" (p. 68).
Gottfried now comes to the "vexed question" of the relationship between handicraft and machine industry and brings to light the following:
"Let everyone sell only those goods that he himself can produce with his own hands" (p. 80). "Because machines and handicraft have gone their own ways they have strayed from their true paths and now both are in a sorry plight" (p. 84).
He wishes to unite them by getting the artisans, such as the bookbinders of a town, to combine and maintain a machine.
"As they use the machine only for themselves and only when they have an order they will be able to produce more cheaply than the merchant who owns a factory" (p. 85). "Capital will be broken by combination" (p. 84). (And combination will be broken by capital.)
He then generalises his ideas about "the purchase of a machine to rule lines, and to cut paper and cardboard" (p. 85) by the united certificated bookbinders of Bonn and conceives the notion of a "machine chamber".
"Confederations of the various guild masters must set up businesses everywhere, similar to the factories of individual businessmen though on a smaller scale. These will work to order, exclusively for the benefit of local masters. They will not accept commissions from other employers" (p. 86). A specific feature CJÏ these machine chambers is the fact that "a commercial management" will only "be needed initially" (ibid). "Every idea as novel as this one," Gottfried exclaims "ecstatically", "can only be put into practice when all the details have been thought out in a very calm matter of fact way." He urges "each handicraft to perform this analysis for itself"! (pp. 87, 88).
There follows a polemic against competition from the state in the shape of the labour performed by the inmates of prisons, reminiscences about a colony of criminals ("the creation of a human Siberia", p. 102), and finally an attack on the "so-called handicraft companies and handicraft commissions" in the armed forces. The aim here is to relieve the army burden for the artisan by inducing the state to commission goods from the guild masters that it could itself produce more cheaply.
"The problems of competition are thus disposed of" (p. 109). Gottfried's second important point touches on the material aid which the craftsmen are to receive from the state. Gottfried regards the state solely from the point of view of an official and hence arrives at the opinion that the easiest and surest way to help the artisan is by the Treasury advancing money to erect trade halls, set up loan offices, etc. How the Treasury is to get the funds is the "ugly" side of the problem and, naturally enough, cannot be investigated here.
Lastly, our theologian inevitably lapses into the role of moral preacher. He reads the artisans a moral lecture on self-help. He firstly mentions the "complaints about long-term borrowing and about discounts" (p. 136), and invites the artisan to consider the following moral question: "Do you always fix the same, unchang-ing price, my friend, for every job of work that you undertake?" (p. 132). On this occasion he also warns the artisan against making extortionate demands on "wealthy Englishmen". "The root of the whole evil," Gottfried imagines, "is the system of annual accounts" (p. 139). This is followed by Jeremiads about the way in which the artisans carry on in the taverns and their wives indulge their love of finery (pp. 140 ff.).
The means by which the handicrafts can improve their position are "the corporation, the sickness fund and the artisans' court of arbitration" (p. 146); and lastly, the workers' educational associations (p. 153). The following is his final statement about these educational associations:
"And finally song combined with oratory will create a bridge to dramatic performances and the artisan theatre which must constantly be kept in view as the ultimate objective of these aesthetic strivings. Only when the labouring classes learn o\nce more how to move on the stage will their artistic education be complete" (pp. 174-75).
Gottfried has thus succeeded in changing the artisan into a comedian and has arrived back at his own situation.
But this whole flirtation with the guild aspirations of the master craftsmen in Bonn achieved also a practical result. In return for the solemn promise to table a motion to set up guilds, Gottfried's election as Member for Bonn in the imposed Lower Chamber[161]
was contrived. "From this moment on Gottfried felt" happy.
He set off at once for Berlin and as he believed that it was the intention of the government to establish a permanent "corporation" of licensed master legislators in the Lower Chamber, he acted as if he were to stay there for ever and decided to send for his wife and child. But then the Chamber was dissolved and friend Gottfried, bitterly disappointed, had to leave his parliamentary bliss and go back to Mockel.
Soon afterwards the conflict between the Frankfurt Assembly and the [German] governments broke out and this led to the movements in South Germany and on the Rhine. The Fatherland called and Gottfried obeyed. Siegburg was the site of an arsenal for the army reserve, and next to Bonn Siegburg was the place where Gottfried had sown the seed of freedom most frequently. He joined forces with his friend Anneke, a former lieutenant, and summoned all his loyal followers to a march on Siegburg. They were to assemble at the rope ferry. More than a hundred were supposed to come, but when after waiting a long time Gottfried counted the heads of the faithful[3] there were barely thirty—and of these only three were students, to the undying shame of the May-Bug Club! Undaunted, Gottfried and his band crossed the Rhine and marched towards Siegburg. The night was dark and it was drizzling. Suddenly the sound of horses' hooves could be heard behind our valiant heroes. They took cover at the side of the road, a patrol of lancers galloped by: miserable knaves had talked too freely and the authorities had got wind of it. The march was now futile and had to be abandoned. The pain that Gottfried felt in his breast that night can only be compared with the torments he experienced when both Knapp and Chamisso declined to print his first poetic efforts in their magazines.
After this he could remain no longer in Bonn, but did not the Palatinate provide great scope for his activities? He went to Kaiserslautern and as he had to have a job he obtained a sinecure in the War Office (it is said that he was put in charge of naval
A line from Schiller's "Lied von der Glocke".—Ed.
affairs[a]). But he continued to earn his living by hawking around his ideas about freedom and the people's paradise among the peasants of the region and it is said that his reception in a number of reactionary districts was anything but cordial. Despite these minor misfortunes Kinkel could be seen on every highroad, striding along purposefully, his travelling bag slung over his shoulder, and from this point on he appears in all the newspapers invariably accompanied by his travelling bag.
But the uprising in the Palatinate was quickly terminated and we discover Kinkel again in Karlsruhe, where instead of the travelling bag he carries a musket, which now becomes his permanent emblem. This musket is said to have had a very beautiful aspect, i.e. a butt and stock made of mahogany and it was certainly an artistic, aesthetic musket; there was also an ugly aspect to it and this was the fact that friend Gottfried could neither load, nor see, nor shoot, nor march. So much so that a friend asked him why he was going into battle at all. Whereupon Gottfried replied: Well, the fact is that I can't return to Bonn, I have to live!
Thus Gottfried joined the ranks of the warriors in the corps of the chivalrous Willich. As a number of his comrades-in-arms have reliably reported, Gottfried served as a common partisan, sharing all the vicissitudes of this company with humility. He was as merry and friendly in bad times as in good, but he was mostly on the cart for the exhausted and the sick. At Rastatt,[162] however, this unsullied witness to truth and justice was to undergo the test from which he would emerge unblemished and as a martyr to the plaudits of the whole German nation. The exact details of this exploit have not yet been established with any accuracy. All that is known is that a troop of partisans got lost in a skirmish and a few shots were fired on their flank; that a bullet grazed our Gottfried's head and he fell to the ground with the cry "I am dead"; that although he was not dead he could not accompany the others on the retreat and was taken to a farm house where he turned to the worthy Black Forest peasants with the words "Save me—I am Kinkel!"; finally, that he was discovered there by the Prussians, who dragged him off into Babylonian captivity.
Endnotes
[160] [Editorial note 160: text not recovered from the source scan.]
[3] Serfdom was abolished in the territories along the left bank of the Rhine annexed to France during the French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars, as were the privileges of the nobility and the clergy, and the church estates.
[162] [Editorial note 162: text not recovered from the source scan.]