Matthes & Seitz

Heike Behrend | Gespräche mit einem Toten | Matthes & Seitz | 312 pages | 28 EUR

 “Anthropology at Home” is how Heike Behrend describes the method she uses in her book Gespräche mit einem Toten (Conversations with a Dead Man), avoiding the term “Heimat and folklore studies,” which is tainted by the Nazi era. In the region she is studying, she is surprised to discover that “Heimat” is not perceived as a loaded term in the GDR-influenced Altmark, a cultural landscape situated in the heart of the 'border zone', the triangle between the cities of Salzgitter, Wittenberge, and Stendal. For this West German ethnologist, trained in the wake of the 1968 movement, this initially presents an unexpected challenge.

Behrend, born in Stralsund in 1947, has only vague memories of early childhood summer visits to her grandfather’s house on Lake Arendsee. In 1953, the family moved from East to West Germany. It was only several years after German reunification that she returned to the place of her childhood for the first time. In between lay decades of fieldwork in East Africa—primarily Kenya and Uganda—which established her reputation as a leading German-speaking ethnologist.

In Africa, Behrend has long studied “charismatic prophets.” In specific contexts, she has examined how societies respond to crises, how new religious movements spread, and what role photography and other media play in these processes. Equipped with the tools of a successful academic career, she is now embarking on her journey home. She describes her approach as “thinking about the Altmark from an African perspective,” and in this vein, seeks to explore a historical figure who stood out even within the colourful context of the Lebensreform movement of the late 19th century.

Gustaf Nagel, the Prophet of Arendsee, was unquestionably a German nationalist, misogynist, and anti-Semite. Ideal prerequisites, then, for carving out a decent career in the Wilhelmine-era German Empire. But after his mother’s early death, the young Gustav abruptly abandoned his commercial apprenticeship. He invented his own spelling system, replaced the “v” in his first name with an “f,” adopted a strictly vegetarian diet, and declared himself a healer—without any training or certification. Soon he began to present himself as the Chosen One, as a prophet through whom God spoke.

Drawing on a large number of postcards in which the business-savvy prophet regularly staged professional self-portrayals, Behrend describes the messianic transformation of the young man who had once been considered sickly. Like other health reformers of that era, he was a proponent of naturism, though in his case this was not an expression of a new, liberated sexual morality. Nudity stands for “healing through open pores” - one element of a novel cult of purity and asceticism. In the many reproduced images, one sees a man who is obviously well-versed in catering to the desires of a predominantly female clientele without straying too far beyond the bounds of what was then considered decent. The barefoot “do-it-yourself” prophet played on the imagination of his clientele. No depiction shows him completely naked, but he is rarely clad in more than a loincloth or a toga.

These images should probably not be understood merely as a contemporary medium for spreading Nagel’s prophethood. They also served as promotional material for his “Paradise Garden.” In 1910, on the shores of Lake Arend, he had opened a private, commercial theme park where, for an admission fee, visitors could explore a temple, grottoes, sculptures, and an open-air pool. The price often included a surprise appearance by the host himself. He would then recite his revivalist poems in front of the temple or a grotto. Occasionally, he is said to have pronounced up to 30 of these often messianic texts in a single day, as though in a trance.

Behrend is constantly struck by the ambivalence of her protagonist’s actions: many of Nagel’s texts are openly misogynistic and homophobic. In his photographic self-portrayals, however, he often wears women’s clothing. From today’s perspective, Behrend notes, he could also be described as a “pioneer of queerness.” Even the anti-Semitism, clearly articulated in his writings, did not prevent him from helping Jews persecuted during the Nazi era.

In her book, Behrend explores the figure of the Prophet of Arendsee from various angles without overstepping his boundaries. She describes what she sees and draws on sources, but also occasionally offers conjectures and incorporates her own experiences into the text. In this way, she herself becomes visible as a person throughout the text. And readers learn about her fragile friendship with the local teacher and local historian Christine Meyer—and about lingering East-West misunderstandings that threaten this friendship.

Even after reading some 300 pages, Gustaf Nagel's character remains relatively one-dimensional. Today, it’s hard to fathom that this bearded man, enamoured of his own theatrical displays, was quite popular in his day. Unlike most other lifestyle reformers, he was no advocate of the economy for the common good, the abolition of private property, or cooperative models. He wasn’t particularly interested in nature, and he also considered women’s emancipation efforts superfluous. From Behrend’s perspective, Gustaf Nagel represents a new kind of prophethood—one “based on a following of primarily buyers and customers.”

This is consistent with the fact that, according to his own account, Nagel was at times the highest taxpayer in Arendsee. But despite his great business acumen, he remained a social outcast. Those around him punished him for being different. As early as August 1900, he was declared legally incompetent at his father’s instigation. Three years later, the Arendsee District Court overturned the ruling, but this was only the beginning of a lifelong struggle with the institutions of the German Empire, the Weimar Republic, the Nazi regime, and the early GDR. Regardless of the political climate, he was regarded as a troublemaker, regularly arrested, and briefly imprisoned. In 1943, he was sent as a prisoner to the Dachau concentration camp and later transferred to a mental institution. After the war ended, he was recognised as a “victim of fascism” in the Soviet occupation zone, only to be committed again to the Uchtspringe psychiatric hospital in 1950—one year after the founding of the GDR—at the instigation of the State Security (Stasi). He died there in 1952 at the age of 77.

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