Halberstadt

Although Halberstadt has a big cathedral and an important chamber for its Medieval church treasures, Red Baron regards Halberstadt as Gleim City. Gleim who?

Johann Wilhelm Ludwig Gleim
(2 April 1719 – 18 February 1803)

Johann Wilhelm Ludwig Gleim, born in 1719, was a German poet, well-known in his day among his peers; today, his name is nearly forgotten. In 1747, he was appointed secretary of the cathedral chapter at Halberstadt. 

 From then on, Gleim created a network of friendships among his colleagues. In those days, letters, rather than e-mails, were the means of communication. They soon called him Father Gleim for his kind-hearted patronage of young poets and would-be writers. Many of his young colleagues counted on the support of the genius of friendship, paid him a visit, or even came to Halberstadt for extended periods.

Since 1648, Halberstadt and its surroundings have belonged to Prussia. Gleim adored his king, calling Frederick the Great the One and Only, although the latter never became a friend of German literature, preferring the French language, literature, and philosophy. Gleim eventually met the king in December 1785, only a few months before Frederick's death.

In his Halberstadt residence, Gleim created a Temple of Friendship (Freundschaftstempel) and began collecting portraits of his friends. Today, two rooms in the Gleimhaus are still devoted to those paintings that numbered more than 120 by the time of Gleim's death. Here are a few of his friends:

Johann Joachim Winckelmann (9 December 1717 – 8 June 1768)

Johann Jakob Bodmer (19 July 1698 – 2 January 1783)

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (22 January 1729 – 15 February 1781)

Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock (2 July 1724 – 14 March 1803)

Christoph Martin Wieland (5 September 1733 – 20 January 1813)

Johann Georg Jacobi (2 September 1740 – 4 January 1814)

Johann Gottfried von Herder (25 August 1744 – 18 December 1803)

Johann Gottfried Seume (29 January 1763 – 13 June 1810)

Paintings by two contemporaries are missing from the gallery: Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1 July 1742 – 24 February 1799) and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832). There are reasons.

Goethe did not like Gleim's sentimental Anacreontic poetry that, in his eyes, succeeds only with wenches and gentlewomen, or was Goethe just jealous again? These females think only about sentiments, words, and verses when they regard a poem as beautiful. Nobody realizes that poetry's true power and effect depend on situations and motifs. However, thousands of poems are written in which the motif is zero. These pathetic efforts pretend to exist with the help of sentiments and tingling verses.

Entrance to the literature museum

Gleim's workstation for writing letters to his friends

Nowadays, they use modern techniques at the Gleimhaus. So Johann Gottfried Herder posted his status on Facebook as early as 1780: It is a real shame that Gleim and Goethe do not get along; otherwise, Goethe could be with us today, too. A genuinely great spirit.

Gleim, one of Herder's friends, commented in his typical style: "Well-beloved brother Herder, Goethe is a great head, but does he have a heart like ours?" What makes a true poet? What makes a good man?

Herder answered, excusing the genius: He cannot show his heart as he wants. His poetry impresses me again and again. Not only Werther.

Gleim loved young poets. He procured for Jacobi a sinecure as a canon at Halberstadt's cathedral to have him permanently near him. Promptly, Lichtenberg called Jacobi a doctorem jubilatum, who laudably served as a professor and is now retired at Halberstadt. In fact, at the Gleim-Haus, Red Baron learned that although Jacobi had taken the post (and money), he was rarely in Halberstadt. On top of it, Lichtenberg ridiculed Jacobi's Anacreontic poetry:

Sprach allzeit zärtlich tändelnd so wie Der Nachtgedankenfeind* Jacobi ... Schrieb jedem Mägden holde Briefgen Voll Lieb und mit Diminutivgen, Nie alles voll, stets nur ein bißgen, Knosp ward ein Knöspgen, Fuß ein Füßgen, Und wie Trüppgen von Pygmäen Stehn da die Marzipan-Ideen? Oh ruft man aus, das ist gewiß von Gleim oder gar Anakreon?	Spoke always dallying tenderly Like the foe of night thoughts* Jacobi ... Wrote any girly, lovely letters Full of love and diminutives, Never full, always only slightly A bud becomes a gemmule, a foot a tootsie, And like a tiny troupe of pygmy Stand the ideas of marzipan. O, one exclaims, this indeed is [a poem] Of Gleim or Anacreaon?
*Night Thoughts is a collection of poems that Jacobi dedicated to Gleim

Here are some impressions of Jacobi's workplace, the Cathedral of Halberstadt. The churches St. Stephanus and St. Sixtus were built as a somewhat late answer to the cathedral in nearby Magdeburg. In fact, in 968, the Archbishopric of Magdeburg was granted half the eastern territory of the much older Halberstadt Bishopric, founded in 804.

Halberstadt's choir screen is crowned by 
a triumphal cross of 1215, being older than the church.

Statues of Luther and Melanchthon.
They only live a niche existence in Halberstadt's cathedral
 two years before the 500th Anniversary of the Reformation.

In the cathedral: Reading behind bars.
Books always had to be protected against theft (©Heiko Steuer)

Unfortunately, there was not enough time to listen to John Cage's Organ Art Project in Halberstadt's Buchardi Monastery, an as-slow-as-possible concert. It started in 2001 and will end in 625 years:

**