lethargic_man: (Berlin)
Lethargic Man (anag.) ([personal profile] lethargic_man) wrote2021-04-25 11:48 am

(no subject)

In today's post, I continue my little tour of the lesser-known sites of Berlin with the grave of Heinrich von Kleist (1777–1811), playwright, novelist and journalist. It's not often that you'll find me visiting a grave, but this one is in a cohen-friendly location.

[gravestone photo]
Photo by Dennis Kornek, on Google Maps

There's a park named after Kleist in Berlin, which is how I know his name; but I think he's reasonably well-known to Germans. He had the bad luck to fall in (platonic) love with a terminally ill woman, Henriette Vogel, at a time of financial despair. The two travelled to the Kleiner Wannsee (a subsidiary channel of the River Havel), near (now in) Berlin...

[banks of the Kleiner Wannsee]
Photo by Jasch Zacharias, on Google Maps

...then on the banks of the river he shot first her then himself. His grave was erected at the site:

[gravestone photo]<
Photo by Wikipedia user OFTW, Creative Commons licence

The inscription on the one side reads:

Er lebte sang und litt
in trüber schwerer Zeit,
er suchte hier den Tod
und fand Unsterblichkeit.
Which means (only with rhyme and metre, which I can't (easily) translate):
He lived, sung and suffered
In a cheerless hard time.
He sought here death
And found immortality.

On the other side it reads „Nun, o Unsterblichkeit, bist du ganz mein“ ("Now, o immortality, you are completely mine").

If anyone wants to know more, here's the infoboard at the site (click through for higher resolution):

[infoboard]

...complete with a reflection of myself to prove I was actually there.