Mayor Kluckhuhn was all in all a personality touched with a good sense of humor. He was a favorite of old Dubslav’s and whenever the old veterans of sixty-six and seventy began getting on their high horse, he stepped in for the fellows of sixty-four. “Let me tell you, boys, sixty-four, that’s where it all began.
[ . . . ]
In the same way that Gundermann was always wanting to “turn off the water” on the Social Democrats, so too Kluckhuhn compared everything having to do with the Social Democrats with that black monster in the Flensburg Bay. “I tell you, what they call the social revolution these days is lying right up next to us just like Rolf Krake did back then. Bebel’s just waiting and just like that he’ll sweep right in.”
Mayor Kluckhuhn was highly regarded in the entire Stechlin region and as he sat there now close to Koseleger, his medal resplendent on his chest, he was also well aware of it. But compared to Krippenstapel, whom as a classroom pedant and beekeeper he did not really consider fully acceptable, on this particular occasion he really did not measure up. Today was Krippenstapel’s great day, so much so that even Kluckhuhn had to lower his tone.
Katzler, who was definitely no orator, rising with a note paper which contained various sentence beginnings, started by assuring all in attendance, among whom, perhaps, there were even a few dissenters, of his gratitude for their coming. They all knew why they were there. Old Kortschädel was dead, “passed on after a long and honorable life,” and the matter at hand today was to give old Herr von Kortschädel a successor in the Reichstag. The county had always gone Conservative and it was a matter of honor to go Conservative again, as Luther had said, “Even if the world were full of a thousand devils.” It was incumbent upon the county to show this decadent world that there were still “sanctuaries” and here was such a sanctuary. “We have, I believe,” he concluded, “no one at this table who is completely at home in parliamentary matters, for which reason I have endeavored to set down in written form that which brings us here tonight. It is but a feeble attempt. Each of us does what he can and the bramble bush can offer nothing but its own berries. But even they can refresh the thirsty wanderer. And therefore I ask our political colleague, to whom by the way, we owe so much for the study and research of this area, I ask Schoolmaster Krippenstapel to be so kind as to read what I have set down. A pro memoria. One can perhaps call it that.”
With a bow Katzler again took his seat while Krippenstapel arose. Like a lawyer, he paged through a number of papers and then said, “I defer to the request of the Chairman, and am pleased to be called upon to present the reading of a document that aids in bringing – of this point I am quite sure, we can, I believe, disregard those limitations expressed by the Chairman – the most powerful expression of the feelings of every one of us.”
And now Krippenstapel put on his horn-rimmed glasses and read. It was a very brief piece and actually contained the same thing Katzler had just been saying. Krippenstapel’s way of emphasizing things, however, made sure that there was considerably more applause and that the final peroration, “and thus we unite in the declaration, ‘whoever lives in and around Stechlin, is for Stechlin,’” unleashed a tremendous uproar of approbation. Pyterke raised his helmet and pushed down on his sword, while Uncke looked around to see if there might perhaps be a single ill-disposed personage worthy of being noted down. Not to directly report him, but to take note of him, just in case. Brose, who – no doubt as a consequence of his profession – had been suffering because of the extended period of standing still, quickly started up with a sort of speed stride in the front hall, as if to control the nervousness in his legs, while Kluckhuhn rose up from his chair to greet Katzler, first with a military salute and then with the usual bow, whereby his Düppel medal dangled towards the Katzlerean Iron Cross. Only Koseleger and Lorenzen remained calm. Around the Superintendent’s mouth played a faintly ironical smile.
print version
return to list
previous document