Snowed In: A Student Story — Emil Frommel
You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org . If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook. Title : Eingeschneit: Eine Studentengeschichte Author : Emil Frommel Editor : Wilhelm Bernhardt Release date : June 24, 2007 [eBook #21917] Language : German, English Other information and formats : www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/21917 Credits : Produced by Mark C. Orton, La Monte H.P. Yarroll, Markus Brenner and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.ne *** START OF If the apostrophes and quotation marks in this paragraph appear as garbage, you may have an incompatible browser or unavailable fonts. First, make sure that the browser’s “character set” or “file encoding” is set to Unicode (UTF-8). You may also need to change your browser’s default font. In the original book, German was printed in fraktur (“gothic”) type while English and other languages were in Roman type. For this e-text, the primary typestyle for each section—fraktur for the central story, Roman elsewhere—is shown in your browser’s regular font. The secondary style—either Roman or fraktur—is shown in sans-serif type . Notes are identified by their original page number: 8-2, 8-3... Errors, marked E-2, E-3..., are listed at the end of the text. Emil Frommel Heath’s Modern Language Series Eingeschneit Eine Studentengeschichte von Emil Frommel WITH INTRODUCTION, NOTES AND VOCABULARY BY Dr. WILHELM BERNHARDT BOSTON, U.S.A. D.C. HEATH & CO., PUBLISHERS 1908 Copyright, 1899 By Wilhelm Bernhardt INTRODUCTION The ranks of those illustrious men who a few decades ago, in war and peace, stood by the side of Emperor Wilhelm I.—of glorious memory—have gradually thinned. On the 9th of November, 1896, another of the few then surviving—Dr. Emil Frommel, Supreme Councillor of the Prussian Consistory, formerly chaplain to the Imperial Court and pastor of the “Garnisonkirche” in Berlin—closed his eyes forever. He was a man whose eminent gifts, both of mind and heart, had been thoroughly tested and fully appreciated not only by his personal friend, the old Emperor, but also by the latter’s son, the noble-hearted and much lamented Friedrich, and his grandson, Wilhelm II., the present shaper of the destiny of the Fatherland. Frommel was a minister of the gospel “by divine grace,” possessed of a deep and unaffected piety and love for mankind, an enrapturing pulpit-orator, a scholar of clear and keen intellect, a man endowed with the purest nobility of soul and intrepid courage, a writer for the masses, in whom the acme of moral gravity appeared felicitously blended with an always present and all refreshing humor, a fervent patriot and accomplished courtier, though far from every courtly flattery and obsequiousness. Emil Frommel was a native of Southern Germany. Born at Karlsruhe, in the grand-duchy of Baden, on January 5th, 1828, as the son of the director of the ducal art gallery of that place, he devoted himself to the study of theology at the universities of Halle, Erlangen, and Heidelberg. In 1850, he was called as vicar to the village of Alt-Lussheim, near Schwetzingen (Baden), whence four years later he went as vicar to Karlsruhe, his native town. In 1864, he followed a call to Barmen, that great industrial center of Westphalia, and again five years later, he accepted the place as pastor of the “Garnisonkirche” in Berlin. Hardly had he become familiar with his new surroundings, when, in the summer of 1870, the Franco-German war broke out. As a field chaplain he followed the army into France, camping amidst his beloved “blue soldier-boys” during the siege of Strassburg, and preaching to them, after the surrender of that old stronghold, the first German sermon in St. Thomas’ church.—In June, 1871, on the triumphal return of the Berlin garrison, Frommel occupied again the pulpit of the “Garnisonkirche” and delivered in the presence of the Emperor and the allied German sovereigns that memorable sermon in commemoration of the heroic dead. On the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the consecration of the “Garnisonkirche,” he was created chaplain to the Imperial Court. In an almost daily intercourse with his Imperial master, Frommel soon had completely taken the heart of the affable old hero, whom from 1872 to 1887, year after year, he accompanied to “Wildbad Gastein,” the famous watering place in the Austrian Alps, where in the little Protestant church of that Catholic district the old warrior joined the few Lutheran mountaineers in their devotional exercises, listening to the words of his chaplain, whose sermon he could not afford to miss—as he said—for a single Sunday in the year. “I am particularly indebted to you,” once remarked the Emperor, “that in your sermons you never refer to me.”—“Well, your majesty,” replied Frommel, “I think that it must be quite a hard task for you to bear the crown six days of each week, and that on the Sabbath you should have a right to be relieved from your burden and feel like a plain Christian in the house of the Lord.” It was by no means in the Imperial household alone that Frommel was so exceptionally honored; the highest circles of Berlin society, artists, diplomats, literary and military men, religious and infidels, all strove in rivalry to pay homage to the popular pastor of the “Garnisonkirche.” His wedding-, christening-, and burial-sermons were masterpieces of oratory; though plainly conceived and plainly delivered and free from all and every unctious pathos, they abounded with thought, true feeling, and poetical beauty. Frommel was destined to speak at the graves of most of the great leaders of the war of 1870-71, including Prince August of Württemberg, Moltke, Roon, Alvensleben, Kirchbach, and Kameke; the danger to become, on such occasions, a panegyrist, he has always judiciously avoided, thanks to