Post photo: Blitz | © Image by PIRO on Pixabay
I had my saddest literary experience in K3. For a long time I had been trying to look at the ominous Kleist Archive Sembdner myself, even though I didn't really know what to do with Kleist. In contrast to the city library, access to the archive was mostly closed.
One day, however, I managed to gain access through a back staircase and, in addition to many locked rooms, I also found a few dusty shelves with Käthchen memorabilia. The exciting thing about it is that my parents bought a few of these dolls themselves, so I found something I already knew there.
Incidentally, the Kleist archive Sembdner comes from a collector named Helmut Sembdener, who at some point no longer knew what to do with all the Kruscht, quickly sold the valuables from his collection to interested parties and sold all the rest in a cloak-and-dagger campaign by the city of Heilbronn — why no one can say today, definitely had Sembnder found a fool.
As early as 1991, we in Heilbronn were informed of this coup and, as luck would have it, a city employee was released for years to take care of this collection. And it was probably this gentleman Gunther Emig, which I then found there in a room of the archive.
At that time he was so busy with his research and other activities that he was not able to free me from my still ongoing acid test frustration and also not to give me at least something Heinrich von Kleist to reconcile.
On the contrary, this visit was more like a visit to a funeral home and even then gave me the idea of recovering at least the actual treasures of the archive and transferring them to the German Literature Archive in Marbach; an idea that, by the way, later also Gunther Emig would have.
The sad and probably largest remainder can still be safely dumped on the Vogelsang and the premises can be used for a new purpose, e.g. B. for the city library.
Unfortunately, however, the municipal council recently decided to continue honoring this "German cultural asset" - for whatever reason - in Heilbronn, similar to the city models in the Hall of Honor, of which the most expensive one recently bought for the BUGA is probably lost.
I suspect that the Heilbronn municipal councils never had to read "Käthchen von Heilbronn" or that their parents deliberately withheld these dolls from them, which could explain this Heilbronn Käthchenmania. In any case, I'm assuming that none of our local councilors have strayed into the Kleist archive so far.
Addendum 11.5.2023
The Heilbronner Voice published a letter to the editor today Gunther Emig (11.5.2023: 21)
Shabby
From 1992 to 2000 as director of the city library, from 2000 to 2018 as director of the Kleist Archive Sembdner, it was my job to buy from the meager remains of a private collection that had previously been sold elsewhere, despite my warning, at an insanely inflated price from the city had been made to do something. I was very fortunate to be able to do this thanks to my personal knowledge and skills. As an Internet pioneer in the humanities, I was allowed to put the Kleist Archive Sembdner on the Internet with a special permit in 1996. The internet presence not only ensured an award in the computer world of the time, but also recognition among German colleagues. All work, both technically and in terms of content, has been done by me over the years. With the Sembdner purchase in 1990, one could not have foreseen that the cards would be reshuffled after reunification in the Kleist affair, but one could certainly see that the federal government, the state and the city of Frankfurt (Oder) paid seven-figure sums for the made the Kleist Museum in Frankfurt strong. The focus has gradually shifted from Heilbronn to Frankfurt. Consequences could have been drawn from this. What remains? A bit of glamor from the past, which you still feel unjustified to be able to put on your hat. How shabby.
Gunther Emig, Niederstetten
