Debit and Credit

Debits and credits is a 1855 novel published in six books by Gustav Freytag. He is one of the most widely read novels of the 19th century and is a representative of bourgeois realism.

Content

Anton Wohlfahrt, son of a deceased Kalkulators is taken on the request of his father to go to the office of Mr. TO Schröter in Breslau. On the way to town, he learns by accident Lenore, the daughter of Baron Rothsattel know into which he falls in love. On the same day that he meets Veitel Izzy, a former Jewish school friends who accompanied him to the city.

The young Anton is working very diligently in this office, which he gives a shortened apprenticeship. His new friend, Fritz Fink, soon reached that Anton will be invited to dance lessons of the nobility, where he meets Lenore again. But when he learns his origins on by some rumors, he breaks with the aristocratic society, which he very sorry because of the acquaintance with Lenore. Later he meets Bernard, the son of a Jewish merchant Hirsch honor Thal, which he immediately closes his heart.

For Mr. Ehrenthal now working Veitel Izzy, which is taught by the once very successful lawyer, Mr handed version. Mr. hippus lost its fame due to dishonest business with customers. As a family Rothsattel their lavish lifestyles because gets into money troubles, makes Mr. Rothsattel some business with Mr. Thal honor, which of Veitel Izzy is now strongly influenced. When money problems now press the Baron serious, he decides a sugar factory on his estate to build. Although Mr. Ehrenthal know that the Baron does not pay its debts, thus losing his wealth by building the factory going, he advises him on this because he is intent on his own advantage, the estate to take over then. When Bernhard learns of this plan, he wants to dissuade the father of it. This attempt fails because Veitel Izzy to prevent this white because he hopes himself to the receipt of the goods. Bernhard died a short time later from a disease. As the landowner recognizes his predicament, he tried to shoot himself, but survives this test.

Later, Anton supports the family in maintaining their property by leaving the office and even works on the estate. But he interrupts this because of serious allegations of desperate Mr. Roth saddle off after some time. Fritz Fink takes over the estate and Lenore gets a wife. Veitel Izzy is prosecuted by the police because of dishonest businesses and comes around. When Anton comes as a visit to his old office, he is picked up by Mr. Schröter in the management and falls in love with Sabine, the sister of the owner.

Importance

The characters in the book are divided by Gustav Freytag in three reference groups. These are the bourgeois world, on the other hand, the aristocratic world and the Jews on one side.

• The bourgeois merchant family Schröter represents Freytag's view, the ideal types of the middle class. It is characterized by order, honesty and civic virtues. For this family, it was a real person: Gustav Freytag was a close friend of the Breslau merchant family Molinari, whose wholesale house under Theodore and Leo Molinari one of the most important companies in Breslau the 18th and 19th century.
• The Jewish merchant family honor Thal represents the unadjusted, striving for material wealth and dishonest group
• Den Adel presents the family Rothsattel. She lives isolated from the middle class and demanded for themselves privileges. An example of life beyond their means is the financial ruin that threatens.

The hero of the novel is Anton Wohlfahrt. His life goes through several stages towards a goal. In this, the entire novel continuous process, Anton developed by his dreamy illusions of the bourgeois world, which represents Freytag. This represents the belief " that the free labor alone makes the life of nations large and safe and permanent. "

Criticism

In connection with the processing of the Nazi history Freytag was in the 1970s, often accused of having used in debit and anti-Semitic stereotypes. So they are supposed to represent for him the group that is considered inherently unique to its own advantage. He gives them as "typical" perceived names (eg Veitel Izzy, deer honor Thal ). In addition, Freytag shows a strong anti-Slav attitude. He accuse the Poles of the lack of culture and therefore speak them their efficiency at work from. As a solution, he sees an adaptation to the German bourgeoisie, which he generally ascribes a higher efficiency at work.

In addition, however, Freytag can also Jewish and Polish characters occur, contrary to his clichéd image behave, such as Bernard, the intellectual son Hirsch honor valley and friend Anton, condemning the greed for money and his father's unscrupulous sharply, and some Polish officer, Anton and his office protects several times before the Polish mob. On the one hand there are those figures in the minority, on the other hand, affirm the " exceptions " the respective stereotype.

Films

Debit and Credit (D, 1924), directed by Carl Wilhelm, Hans Brausewetter, Mady Christians, Ernst German, Hugo Doblin, Charles Etlinger, Heinrich George, Olga Chekhova.

In 1977, debits and credits by Rainer Werner Fassbinder was supposed to be filmed, but this project of anti-Semitism of the substance was after a long debate regarding abandoned.

Expenditure

• Debits and credits. Novel in six volumes, Leipzig: Fikent.
• Debits and credits. Novel in six volumes, Leipzig: Hesse & Becker.
• Debits and credits. 3 Aufl, Leipzig, 1855.
• Debits and credits. Novel in six books, Leipzig: S. Hirzel, 1887.
• Debits and credits. Novel in six books. With an introduction by Emil Ermatinger, Braunschweig / Hamburg: Georg Westermann, 1926 [ reprint 2009].
• Debits and credits. Novel in six books, München [ ua]: Hanser, 1977.
• Debits and credits. Novel in six books. Durchges. Meinhard Hasenbein. With an afterword by Hans Mayer, Comments from Anne Num. Completeness. Text after the first edition Leipzig 1855, Munich: Dt. Paperback -Verl., 1978 ( dtv - Dünndr. outp. 2044 ).
• Debits and credits. Novel in six books, Waltrop [ ua]: Manuscriptum, 2002.