Fritz Reuter

Fritz Reuter (7 November 1810 – 12 July 1874; born as Heinrich Ludwig Christian Friedrich Reuter) was a novelist from Northern Germany who was a prominent contributor to Low German literature.

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. He was educated at home by private tutors and subsequently at Gymnasien in Mecklenburg-Strelitz and in Parchim.

On 19 October 1831, Reuter began studying jurisprudence according to his father's wishes in Rostock. There he joined the Corps Vandalia Rostock, who expelled him again a short time later because of "rough behaviour" and "burschenschaft activities". In the winter term of 1831/32 he joined the Rostock Burschenschaft, a student fraternity. Throughout his life, Reuter was friends with Moritz Wiggers and had a heartfelt dislike for John Brinckman, both of whom had also been active at Vandalia as students. From May 1832 he continued his studies in Jena. There he became a member of the Allgemeine Burschenschaft on 13 July 1832 and joined its radical movement "Germania", which is why he was arrested for the first time that same year. On 19 February, Reuter left Jena and went initially to Camburg. He tried to get a study permit for Halle or Leipzig, but was unsuccessful.

In 1831, Reuter began to attend lectures on jurisprudence at the University of Rostock, and in the following year went to the University of Jena. 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. Although the only charge which could be proved against him was that he had been seen wearing the club's colours, he was condemned to death for high treason. This sentence was commuted by King Frederick William III of Prussia to imprisonment (Festungshaft) for thirty years in a Prussian fortress, Feste Coburg. 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.

Although Reuter was now thirty years of age, he went to Heidelberg to resume his legal studies, but was forced by his father to give them up when it was found that he paid little attention to his studies. After returning to Mecklenburg, he spent some time with his uncle, a minister at Jabel, and then began working on an estate, in 1842, as Strom (trainee). Finding out, upon his father's death in 1845, that he had been disinherited, he realized that acquiring an estate of his own was out of the question, and he began to write, first in High German, later, with more success, in Low German. 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.

For a bibliography of Reuter's works see de:Fritz Reuter#Werke.

Reuter's first publication was a collection of miscellaneous poems, written in Low German, entitled Läuschen un Riemels ("anecdotes and rhymes," 1853; a second collection followed in 1858). 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.

In 1856 Reuter left Treptow and established himself at Neubrandenburg, resolving to devote his whole time to literary work. 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. This was followed, in 1860, by Hanne Nüte un de lütte Pudel, the last of the works written by Reuter in verse.