Das unverwesliche Erbe

unverwesliche Erbe, Das, a novel by Ina Seidel, published in 1954. It has a motto taken from I Corinthians, 15 : 50, ‘Das Verwesliche wird nicht erben das Unverwesliche’. The story is spread over three generations.

The forester Dornblüh and his wife Charlotte, who are Roman Catholics, have as their youngest child a daughter named Elisabeth. She marries a Protestant, Dr Alves, and adopts his Lutheran allegiance, an act which her father refuses to forgive, even on his death-bed. Her mother, who comes to live with Elisabeth and Alves, breathes a serenity and spirituality which deeply influence her daughter and grandchildren. After Alves's death Elisabeth reverts to the Catholic faith; her youngest daughter, Maria, marries a Lutheran pastor, Hans Joachim Lennacker, who dies at 28. Their only child Hans Jakob Lennacker is the returning soldier of the earlier novel Lennacker, and with him the two works intersect. Some of the characters of this novel are descendants of persons in Ina Seidel's much earlier novel Das Wunschkind.