The Hidden King
In this episode, in Letschin, we come across two well-known names again, Fontane and Frederick the Great, as well as a murder that took place long ago. But first we visit another cultural heritage site, the Letschiner Heimatstuben. The director, Edgar Petrick, and the chairwoman of the local history association, Gabriele Axmann, are already waiting at the entrance to the old half-timbered house to guide us through the collection and tell us exciting stories about the development of Letschin.
The Birkenweg, a small alley that used to be called Leichengang, leads to the Heimatstuben. It was once the path from the church to the cemetery. Around 1838, the former teacher's house was built there, where the Heimatstuben is now located. The lower floors housed four apartments, each with a living room and a bedroom. In the hallway, around a chimney, was the so-called black kitchen.
"It is assumed that from 1892 onwards, old and needy residents without any means of their own found accommodation and care in the former teacher's house. Older Letschin residents still know the building as the poorhouse. Later it was used as a normal residential building," says Edgar Petrick. After the house was added to the district monument list in 1990, the municipality decided to undertake extensive renovations. In February 1994, the small village museum was officially inaugurated.
"Before this date, the foundation of the collection on the history of Letschin already existed, which essentially goes back to the collection of the Quappendorf teacher Ernst Tietze and the work of Alfred Böhme in the GDR Cultural Association. The collection items had been housed in the former school until then," says Edgar Petrick. Three months earlier, in December 1993, the Letschin Local History Association was founded, which was to look after the museum from then on.
In the early hours of November 12, 1999, flames burst from the roof of the local history rooms. Furniture and part of the historical clothing collection fell victim to the fire. Almost all of the exhibits on the ground floor, such as the Biedermeier furniture in the Fontane Room, were saved. The village museum was reopened at the beginning of 2001. The local history rooms are not just a museum, they are also actively used by the community. Senior citizens meet there, the district music school rehearses there and local council meetings are held there. Edgar Petrick also points out the small museum's extensive annual program with readings, exhibitions and lectures.
Why is there a Fontane room on the ground floor? Gabriele Axmann explains.
"From 1838 to 1850, Theodor's father Louis Henri ran the pharmacy in Letschin. At the northern roundabout, there is a bust of the ointment mixer on the spot where his workplace once stood. In that house, the pharmacist and later writer Theodor Fontane did an internship with his father in the 1840s." Gabriele Axmann has another surprise in store for the curious visitor. It seems that Fontane set his well-known crime novel "Under the Pear Tree" in Letschin. The novel's character Szulski was violently killed in the "Zum alten Fritz" inn and was buried in the cellar by the innkeeper Abel Hradscheck. On the night of the murder, the old neighbor Jeschke observes a suspicious scene: Despite a strong storm, Hradscheck digs a hole in the garden under the pear tree. The police search there in vain, however, and only find the 20-year-old skeleton of a French soldier. The innkeeper cannot be blamed for Szulski's sudden disappearance. Ultimately, Hradscheck also dies in the cellar under mysterious circumstances. That is Gabriele Axmann's brief summary of the content of the Fontane crime novel.
The Letschin inn "Zum alten Fritz" has been closed for years. The old Prussian king himself is guarding his Sleeping Beauty sleep. He too has an eventful story to tell. After the end of the Second World War, all statues from the Prussian era in the territory of the former GDR were rejected as militaristic and removed. This included the bronze statue of the Prussian king Frederick II, who was revered in the Oderbruch region. The residents of Letschin saved the work, created by the sculptor Hans Weddo von Glümer in 1905, from being melted down and hid it in a barn. The Old Fritz stood there undisturbed for many years. For those in the know, his hiding place was an open secret. The barn doors were even opened in 1984 for the popular GDR television show "Außenseiter-Spitzenreiter". For Letschin's 650th anniversary in June 1986, members of the cultural association and the landlord of the "Zum alten Fritz" inn took the king out of the barn and put him up on the market square on the night of Saturday to Sunday. The Stasi got wind of this and removed the monument. In the meantime, the statue was no longer in danger, as the GDR had begun to rethink Frederick the Great. The figure was taken to Potsdam for restoration and it was only thanks to the constant, energetic inquiries of the Letschin members of the cultural association that it did not disappear somewhere. In June 1996, the Old Fritz was put up again in Letschin.
Heimatstuben Letschin, Birkenweg 1, 15324 Letschin, telephone: 033475 50797
www.letschin.de/tourismus/letschiner-heimatstuben
For more information about the Oderbruch Museum and the cultural heritage in the Oderbruch, please see here.