Hoffmann von Fallersleben (1798–1874), Robert Reinick (1805– 1852) and Friedrich
Güll (1812–1879) show a blossoming of the Romantic spirit in children’s poetry between
the 1830s and 1850s. In fairy tales, on the other hand, a sense of reality which is
inhibited in its dealings with the numinous becomes predominant. Yet there are still
examples of lasting children’s stories: first and foremost the fairy tale yearbooks of
Wilhelm Hauff (1826–1828), then the tales of Eduard Mörike (Das Stuttgarter
Hutzelmännchen [The Wrinkled Manikin of Stuttgart] (1853)), Gottfried Keller (Spiegel,
das Kätzchen [Kitten Mirror] (1856)), Theodor Storm (Der kleine Häwelmann [Little
Häwelmann] (1849); Die Regentrude [Wet Weather Trude] (1864)), and Victor Blüthgen
(Hesperiden [Hesperides] (1878)). There is no continuation in German children’s writing
of the nineteenth and early twentieth century of the extremely modern narrative pattern
used by E.T.A.Hoffmann in Nußknacker und Mäusekönig, and no major German
contribution to children’s literature of the fantastic. Here of course other nations filled
the gap. The decisive mediating role fell here to the Dane Hans Christian Andersen, who
learnt from the Grimms as well as from Tieck and E.T.A. Hoffmann. The heritage of
German Romanticism in the field of children’s literature reached Europe and the world
only indirectly, in the form of Andersen’s tales. This inheritance then bore fruit in
English children’s literature with Kingsley, Carroll and George MacDonald.
The following of the brothers Grimm was much greater in Germany. The number of
collections of popular fairy tales and legends for children published during the
nineteenth century is immense; let us mention only the highly successful compilations
by Ludwig Bechstein (1801–1860), Deutsches Märchenbuch [German Fairy Tale Book]
(1845) and Deutsches Sagenbuch [German Legend Book] (1859). In Germany, since the
Grimms, this editing of traditional lore went hand in hand with uncompromising enmity
toward the writing of up-to-date children’s books. The attitude was that the present
lacked any capacity to produce a really child-like poetry, so that only traditional folklore
could be considered suitable reading for children. Modern children’s literature was to
the Grimms and their followers a contradiction in terms; anything that declared itself as
such must be mercilessly opposed. In the history of German children’s literature not the
modern, but the highly anti-modern side of the Romantic movement sets the tone; this
has had lasting consequences. From this point, the educated elite refused to engage
critically and productively .with newly written children’s literature, which thus, deprived
of any official esteem or critical challenge, degenerated more than ever into a purely
commercial enterprise—sinking to the level of the trivial or colportage. Virtually none of
the innumerable moral or historical tales and travel and adventure stories for children
from German pens, with a few exceptions such as Theodor Storm’s Pole Poppenspäler
[Paul the Puppeteer] (1874), have survived. That the Biedermeier (from the 1840s to the
1860s), despite this, is thought of as a golden age of children’s literature is essentially
due to brilliant illustrators: Ludwig Richter (1803–1884), Franz Pocci (1807–1876),
Theodor Hosemann (1807–1875), Otto Speckter (1807–1871) and many others. Not by
chance are the German children’s classics of the nineteenth century picture books:
Heinrich Hoffmann’s Struwwelpeter [Shock-Headed Peter] (1845), C.Reinhardt’s
Sprechende Tiere [Talking Animals] (1854) and Wilhelm Busch’s Max und Moritz [Max
and Moritz] (1865).
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