Asa polite, but also honest person, I prefer to address my little relationship with Wilhelm Raabe, whose name I only know – if I am not mistaken – thanks to this renowned literary prize. Since I didn’t want to spoil half-baked, quickly gathered knowledge in this speech, I asked my ninety-four-year-old father-in-law about Wilhelm Raabe, who – as I now know – wrote an afterword to “Pfisters Mühle” for Union Verlag almost exactly fifty years ago had written. And Gerhard Wolf said (I’m paraphrasing): “His – that is, Raabe’s – bad luck was that Fontane was a tad better.” But be careful, ladies and gentlemen present! If anyone in the room should have flinched, I have to whisper: Gerhard Wolf is bad, even very bad, at giving praise. Seen in this way, even a small positive hint is almost a triumphant song of praise for him.
Now to the first core topic of my speech: In the left column on page one of the “Berliner Zeitung” on June 27th of this year there was something about the discovery of an incredibly large bacterium: This is not only visible to the naked eye, it can even be up to become two centimeters long. When I read about this single-cell monster, I was immediately electrified, but at the same time I was skeptical as to whether this information would help me in life or in my work. This being related to me – there is only ONE life on earth, isn’t there? – roams in completely different areas, and it is also a consistent sulfide eater, not a food competitor. After I slipped the column into the appropriate hanging file, it was unclear when I would bring out this wonderful news again – and for what purpose. One of my rules when writing: If you know what you want to say, you can easily digress at first.
