In box 142 – there were 289 in total – he discovered five previously unknown letters from the German writer Heinrich von Kleist. “Those were the most exciting weeks of my research life,” said 87-year-old literary scholar Hermann F. Weiss on Thursday.
This extensive partial estate of the Austrian diplomat Joseph von Buol-Berenberg has been in the library of the Tyrolean State Museum since 2007. “I started my research on this in the summer of 2022,” explained Weiss from the University of Michigan, who was connected from the USA, at a hybrid press conference of the Tyrolean State Museums, which was also attended by scientists from the Heinrich von Kleist Society in Berlin. First, “a letter emerged”, which “would have been a sensation in itself”, and four more letters finally sealed the “discovery of the century” from the life of the famous writer who died in 1811. It is the largest find of Kleist autographs in over 100 years.
“Great to find something like this”
It was simply “great to find something buried like that,” said Weiss about his discovery in the partial estate, which had originally found its way from South Tyrol to the State Museum Library in Innsbruck by means of a donation contract. “I felt like a literary detective,” said the literary scholar, who had approached the State Museums around two years ago, describing his feelings during his journey of discovery, which ultimately led to the “crowning achievement of my academic work.”
Roland Sila, head of the State Museum Library, described the “bizarre circumstances in 2007” under which the partial estate came to the state capital and into his hands. “I was originally called to South Tyrol because of another estate,” he reported. In the end, however, “289 fruit crates in a cellar” contained “several thousand documents” which it was clear ad hoc were “of great interest.”
Letters dated between 1809 and 1810
Sila’s assessment was finally confirmed when Weiss began his research. The letters are dated between May 22, 1809 and January 28, 1810 and can therefore be attributed to Kleist’s late life, who committed suicide in 1811. The letters are addressed directly to the Austrian diplomat Joseph von Buol-Berenberg. Buol was the center of a circle of patriotic-minded people who pushed for Prussia to enter the war against Napoleon. In one letter, Kleist complains that there is “no salvation for Germany” and no “hope for the publication of his political writings.” The fifth and final letter remains mysterious: in it, Kleist reports on the consequences of an unspecified failed project that led him to Frankfurt am Main.
When asked by journalists, Sila did not want to disclose the monetary value of this “sensational find”. “As a memorial institution, we are primarily concerned with the documentary and scientific value,” he stressed. It is now a matter of making the find available for “scientific access” and for “further research,” said Sila. The wider public also has access to it: the find will be published in the “Kleist Yearbook 2024.”
