Apprentice in Demzin @museum.de

F: How do you find your way back into civilian life after spending seven gruelling years locked up?

M: Fritz Reuter struggled. Another attempt to do a degree failed, and his father finally relented: Reuter, now 31, was allowed to give up his hated law studies. Instead, he took up a position as a trainee in estate management at Demzin. He became a "Strom", as it's called in Low German.

F: Reuter moved in the circles of liberal tenant farmers and made friends with Fritz Peters, nine years his junior, with whom he would remain close for the rest of his life. And he met the author Hoffmann von Fallersleben, who wrote the words for Germany's later national anthem. Having been ostracised by the Prussian government, he was living in exile in Mecklenburg. Enchanted by Reuter's vivid storytelling, Hoffmann encouraged the younger man to put his experiences on paper. So Reuter began to write, starting with brief satirical articles.

M: In the spring of 1845, Reuter's father died. But son Fritz suffered a major disappointment. He'd been hoping for an inheritance, but Georg Johann had appointed a guardian for his 35-year-old son and tied acceptance of the inheritance to conditions the fickle younger man couldn't possibly meet. For all intents and purposes, he'd been disinherited.

F: And that at a time when he was planning to start a family! In the autumn of 1845 he fell in love with Luise Kuntze, who worked as a governess at the vicarage of a neighbouring manorial village. Should she marry a penniless alcoholic with a criminal record? A wedding and financial independence were a long way off.