Il


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 monarchy!”


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 (honnéte 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 May-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 politicked 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 Dich!*

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 a la
Winkelblech' 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 ct
these machine chambers is the fact that “a commercial management” will only “be


P he


needed initially” (ibid). “Every idea as novel as this one,” Gottfried exclaims


” “se


“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, unchanging 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
ence 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'
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* 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


2 A line from Schiller’s “Lied von der Glocke”.—Ed.


affairs’). 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,? 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 1s
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.