church square that didn’t really deserve to be called a “square,” and next to it, a house with a sign. The sign read:
BIRTHPLACE OF DR. JOHANNES FAUST, 1480 TO 1540.
Intrigued, I climbed off my bike and looked more closely. Until then I’d always thought Faust was nothing but a myth. Had he really existed?
A small museum stood next door to the house where Faust was born, and thankfully it was open. I went inside and met a quack, astrologer, clairvoyant, alchemist, charlatan, wise doctor, and cunning conjurer who had lived around the year 1500 and made an astonishing international career following his death. Almost forty years after my first encounter with Faust, the doctor entered my life as a real person, a historical figure!
From that moment I knew that I would write a novel about him.
At this point I’d like to extend my sincere gratitude to the German Train Drivers’ Union. Maybe sometimes the world needs to stand still for inspiration to sprout.
There are only a handful of sources about the historical Faust, but plenty of speculation. As a novelist I have the privilege of picking and choosing what I like from the existing literature on the subject without getting a rap on the knuckles from historians.
Knittlingen is considered the most likely birthplace for Faust. I decided on his date of birth because of a source that quotes Faust as having said to the prior of the Rebdorf Augustinian collegiate church that “when the sun and Jupiter stand in the same degree of a zodiac . . . prophets are born.” I put that together with Faust’s middle name, Georg—Saint George’s feast day is April 23, so I got April 23, 1478. The name Jörg Gerlach (Faust’s stepfather in my book) came from a farmer who lived in that very house in Knittlingen. A piece of paper with a magic spell was found in one of the thresholds, and a star-shaped alchemist’s cupboard also allegedly belonged to this property.
There isn’t much known about where Faust went from Knittlingen. It is possible that he studied at Heidelberg, because there is a corresponding name in the records. Then he probably roamed the empire, and the legends frequently mention a black dog and a companion by the name of Wagner. Faust cast a horoscope for the Bamberg prince-bishop Georg III; he spent time in Erfurt, at the Rebdorf monastery, in Nuremberg, and in Ingolstadt. The famous Sponheim abbot Johannes Trithemius (a type of magician himself) wrote nasty things about a charlatan and sodomite by the name of Faust in a letter. Sodomy was a term for homosexuality back then—a theme I pick up in my novel. A meeting between the historical Faust and polymath Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim, as described in my novel, is possible but not proven.
Faust’s demise is a well-known legend. Allegedly, during an alchemy experiment in the town of Staufen in the Breisgau, he blew himself up in a rather gruesome manner: “Brains stuck to the wall . . . and his eyes and teeth were strewn about.” Unsurprising that people deduced the devil must have been at play, with such a theatrical exit. And thus the tale of Faust’s pact with Satan was born—a topic as old as mankind.
The large number of stories and legends that started to circulate following his death show just how well known the figure of Doctor Johann Georg Faustus was in the German empire. In the year 1587, the book printer Johann Spies published the Historia von D. Johann Fausten, which became the first German bestseller and even sold abroad.
And now the story really gets interesting.
Toward the end of the sixteenth century, a certain Christopher Marlowe in London happened across that book. His competitor, William Shakespeare, had published one hit play after the other, and Marlowe needed a good story. Faust’s suited him perfectly. The plot had everything a good play needed: action, blood, special effects, the dramatic downfall of the protagonist, and, of course, the devil. For theater owners back then, the devil was as valuable as comic-book superheroes are to the film industry today. You couldn’t go wrong with the devil.
The play, The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus, was a great success in England. But there were too many directors and actors on the island, and so some of them immigrated to other countries, including the German empire. They brought with them Marlowe’s play and performed it at fairs. But since barely any of the English actors spoke German, they introduced a comic figure who summarized the plot between acts. That was the birth of the Harlequin, also called Hanswurst or Kasper.
The play became very popular in the German empire, especially as a puppet show, and so about a hundred and fifty years later, a young boy named Johann Wolfgang—who would become famous under his last name, Goethe—was fascinated by the story. Just like me with Murnau’s disturbing film, Goethe couldn’t stop thinking about the material. From August 1771 until May 1772 he worked as a young lawyer in Frankfurt, where he witnessed the trial of a child murderess. In her desperation, a certain Susanna Margaretha Brandt had killed her newborn child. Goethe was deeply moved by the case, and by adding this sad story to the Faust theme, he created the Faust tragedy that is now considered the most German of all German tragedies—loved, venerated, canonized, and told and retold again and again.
An ancient story about the eternal battle between man and evil, about love and temptation, about a rise and a fall, and about a pact with the devil—the archetypal parable that was probably already known to the cavemen by their campfires.
Oh, yes, and finally my favorite joke on the matter:
The devil comes to the writer and says, “I promise you a bestseller in the millions! You will publish countless editions, enjoy fame, interviews, television appearances, and bathtubs full of money! All you have to do in return is this.” The devil raises one finger and grins nastily. “You must sell me your soul.”
The writer eyes the devil with suspicion for a long while. Then he says, “OK. And what’s the catch?”
There is a little Faust in every one of us—and in writers, a rather large one.
This novel cost me more sweat and effort than other books, and it exists only because a whole bunch of people helped me.
First up, I’d like to thank Gerd Schweizer and Berit Bräuer, who supplied me with great amounts of literature on the topic of Faust and contributed many important details. Berit Bräuer has written an excellent nonfiction book on Faust (Im Bann der Zeit), which I recommend highly.
Eva-Maria Springer led me through the Faust museum in Knittlingen and Faust’s birthplace; Brit Veith showed me through Knittlingen, and Barbara Gittinger was my expert for Maulbronn Monastery. Thank you also to Richard Dietz from the International Society for Faust (Internationale Faust-Gesellschaft e.V.), which manages Faust’s heritage and regularly invites the public to interesting talks.
Alexander Kipphahn from the Bretten city archive supplied me with the names of wealthy Bretten merchants; Horst Kaufmann from the Schembart Society (Schembart-Gesellschaft Nürnberg e.V.) told me everything I needed to know about the Nuremberg Schembartlauf, which served as my showdown. The Nuremberg city archive was a helpful partner on the topics of Loch waterways, Loch Prison, and the Hospital of the Holy Ghost. As they have so often, the Latin translations came from Dr. Manfred Heim; my rather poor Italian was corrected by Barbara Lambiase and Christian Platzer, and my French was checked by Alexandra Baisch. Helmut Hornung answered my questions on the subjects of comets, laterna magica, and telescopes. He pointed out to me that a telescope of the kind Tonio and later Faust own in my novel wasn’t in fact invented until 1608 in Holland. Well, I think the devil was ahead of his time—in my book, at least. As always, any mistakes are on my own muddleheadedness, not on my expert helpers.
Thank you also to my father, who—being a doctor—knows how fingers and eyes are amputated. Thank you to Gerd, Martina, and Sophia from the Gerd F. Rumler Agency; they support me in every which way, from coffee to emotional support. Thank you to the entire team at Ullstein Publishing—you do a great job—and to my favorite editor, Uta Rupprecht. My son, Niklas, helped me to remove anything childish and corny from the beginning of the novel. My daughter, Lily, a keen artist, gave her blessing for the beautiful cover of the book’s first edition.
A second and important editor in this project was my wife, Katrin, who was the first to notice that the final act wasn’t quite working yet. I’m sorry if I was being a drama queen at first. You were right, as always!