Michael Kohlhaas. Aus einer alten Chronik

Michael Kohlhaas. Aus einer alten Chronik, a Novelle by H. von Kleist, published in incomplete form in 1808 in his periodical Phöbus and in full in the complete Erzählungen (1810). The broad outline of the story closely follows Kleist's source, an account of the feud between Kohlhase, a Cölln (Berlin) merchant, and a certain Junker von Zaschwitz: having failed to obtain satisfaction through a lawsuit, Kohlhase took to robbery and murder for which he was executed in 1540. Kleist was fascinated by the paradoxes of a personality in which a fine sense of justice coexists with a streak of criminal violence. When obliged to procure a permit to cross the estates of Junker Wenzel von Tronka, Kohlhaas leaves his groom Herse and two horses as security, only to discover in Dresden that no permit was needed. On his return he finds that Herse has been dismissed and that the horses are grossly neglected. He resolves to gain legal compensation, but in vain: when an attempt to petition his sovereign prince, the Elector of Brandenburg, results in the death of his wife Lisbeth, he decides to take matters into his own hands. His personal vendetta against the Junker turns into a crusade: as his support grows, so too do his sense of divine mission and his threat to law and order. He storms the Tronkenburg, takes Wittenberg, defeats an army, and threatens Leipzig and Dresden, actions which incur the public wrath of Martin Luther himself: the nocturnal encounter between the two men and the clash between their incompatible standpoints mark the intellectual and moral climax, as well as the turning point, of the narrative.

An amnesty is secured, and Kohlhaas seems ready to make peace, but the sight of his horses in the knacker's hands revives his indignation and sense of injustice. He is apprehended before violence reerupts, extradited to Brandenburg, and condemned to death after a short trial. The Elector of Saxony does his utmost to gain a stay of execution because he knows that Kohlhaas possesses a capsule containing a note by a mysterious gypsy foretelling the future of his dynasty: but Kohlhaas swallows it as he mounts the scaffold. The Elector of Brandenburg magnanimously confers knighthoods on the dead man's two sons. (Film version by V. Schlöndorff, 1969)