rheinsberg | Ulrich Bräker: The Swiss Perspective

selenak write-up:

Ulrich Bräker (wiki entry in English just linked) was a Swiss goatherd, farmer's son and held a lot of other jobs in his life time. The reason why I came upon him is that he provided one of the very very few written testimonies we have of the 7 Years War from a simple soldier's pov - and one who used his first battle to desert. Ulrich (nicknamed Ulli) had been "recruited" by one of those shady Prussian recruiters roaming through not just the Prussian countries. This guy had hired him under false pretenses - he said he wanted a servant, and talked a sweet talk of getting around, seeing the world. He also thew money around, paid for new clothing, invited Ulli to share his meals, so our young bedazzled goatherd said yes and ignored everyone telling him THIS IS A PRUSSIAN RECRUITER YOU IDIOT. Even when the man did recruit three more men for the army (but told Ulli that no, you are a different case, you are my dear new servant whom I shall never let go and we'll be always together). (Older Ulrich: Yes, I was that stupid.)

Once they arrive in Berlin (cue short description of Frederician Berlin from a Swiss peasant's pov), of course it's army time for poor Ulli, who when he protests is told, nope, you took the money, ate the food, you're ours by law. (Young Ulli for a hot minute wonders whether he could throw himself at the King's mercy, because surely the great hero of the Protestant faith would never, ever, sanction such practices.) After a brutal fast track military education (which also demonstrates why running away right then would get you captured, especially if you're Swiss, with that very distinct accent in the midst of Brandenburg), it's off to invade Saxony, and we get to the big set piece of the book, the battle description. (It was among the Jessen collection of Fritz and MT in eye witness accounts, which is how I found out about Bräker.) After the battle, there was so much smoke and dead bodies that Ulli realised this was his one chance and he ran. He wasn't the only one. (Despite the Prussians having won the battle.) He made it to the Austrian army, and from there back to Switzerland.

Now, his memoirs aren't the only thing he wrote, as you'll see in his wiki entry. He also, since he later became an autodidact hungry for books, read all 36 of Shakespeare's plays as they became available in German (must have been the Wieland translation, as it's too early for Schlegel/Tieck), and wrote and published a commentary on all 36. Which is charming and fascinating from a scholary pov since people from Ulli's background really did not write Shakespeare commentary in the 18th century. His reactions are unfiltered by any other scholarship, and he hasn't seen the plays on stage, either. He's just read them, and responds to that. Sometimes like current day high school kids (loves Mercutio and the nurse, finds Romeo and Juliet annoying), sometimes in a stark reminder he is of his time (Merchant of Venice: he shudders at Shylock's cruelty, has zilch empathy for him and thinks only a Jew can come up with something like a pound of flesh)... and then there's his take on the Histories, which is why I bring this Shakespeare stuff up. He reads them not in the order they were written but in the order they take place, meaning Richard II - Henry IV, Part 1 and II - Henry V - Henry VI, Parts 1,2,3 - Richard III. Not surprisingly, he loves Falstaff and his gang, and also Hotspur and his wife, while taking against Prince Hal, not just for banishing Falstaff but for having deceived his friends before that. Who even does that? And he doesn't like the entire play "Henry V"; this is the first time he's a bit distrustful against Will S. for how he presents history. Were the French really this boastful and incompetent? The English so glorious? Hmmm. And he just doesn't believe Hal has really turned over a new leaf and is this glorious praised militarily successful king now, and what even is this wooing scene with the French Princess at the end, that's more fake posing from the fake poser that Hal is. Then Ulli reads on with the Wars of the Roses and is increasingly horrified by the country's rulers getting worse and worse and worse (until Richard III outevils everyone else), which makes him posthumously revise his opinion on Hal/Henry V, who looks ever so much better in retrospect. And that's when it hits our Swiss Shakespeare commenter writing in 1780: Hal is Fritz! Fritz is Hal! While yours truly goes.... zomg. He's actually not completely wrong there...