Wallenstein by Friedrich Schiller

First produced:Wallensteins Lager, 1798 (The Camp of Wallenstein, 1846); Die Piccolomini, 1799 (The Piccolominis, 1800); Wallensteins Tod, 1799 (The Death of Wallenstein, 1800); first published, 1800

Type of work: Drama

Type of plot: Historical

Time of plot: Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648)

Locale: Germany

Principal characters

• Wallenstein, the duke of Friedland, generalissimo of the imperial forces in the Thirty Years’ War
• Octavio Piccolomini, a lieutenant general
• Max Piccolomini, the general’s son, a colonel
• Count Terzky, Wallenstein’s brother-in-law
• Butler, an Irish soldier of fortune
• Thekla, Wallenstein’s daughter

The Story:

Wallenstein, the duke of Friedland, was once dismissed from the service of Emperor Ferdinand, but during the Thirty Years’ War, in which the countries of central Europe are battling to prevent their annihilation by the forces of Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, the emperor recalls Wallenstein and gives him extraordinary powers to create an army to drive the Swedes out of central Europe. Wallenstein raises such a powerful army, but both its leaders and the rank-and-file soldiers feel that they owe allegiance to their commander rather than to the emperor.

Wallenstein’s army achieves many victories, and the situation in central Europe becomes less tense. The threat to his dominions having decreased, the emperor wishes to curtail Wallenstein’s power, lest the conquering hero attempt to dictate to the crown. Wallenstein in turn becomes suspicious of the emperor and his government, and he wavers on the verge of declaring himself for the Swedes.

The emperor makes arrangements to have Wallenstein removed from his post, and as a first step he sends a war commissioner, Von Questenberg, to Wallenstein’s camp. The commissioner finds the soldiers so sensitive to their leader’s wishes that they are ready to follow him should he turn traitor. The commissioner shares his fears with Lieutenant General Octavio Piccolomini and gives him the emperor’s secret commission to take over the army and to arrest Wallenstein. Wallenstein, who believes that General Piccolomini is his trusted friend and brother officer, does not suspect that Piccolomini is more loyal to his monarch than to Wallenstein.

General Piccolomini wishes to have the help of his son, Colonel Max Piccolomini, in his plans, but the son, who has grown up under Wallenstein’s tutelage, refuses to believe that Wallenstein could ever be anything but virtuous. Moreover, Max is in love with Wallenstein’s daughter, Thekla, and has high hopes that the great general-duke will permit them to marry. Young Piccolomini does not know that Wallenstein, fired with ambition and filled with suspicion of the emperor, is actually plotting to go over to the Swedes with his army in return for being made king of Hungary. Wallenstein regards his daughter as a future queen, not as the wife of a colonel.

Worried by the arrival of Von Questenberg, Wallenstein gives one of his trusted henchmen the task of seeing to it that all his great leaders sign an oath to follow him wherever he might lead, even if he leads them away from the emperor. The henchman plans a great banquet to accomplish the deed. Before the banquet, he shows the officers a document that he refuses to let them sign. After the banquet, when the men are drunk, he substitutes another document containing a pledge of loyalty to Wallenstein. All the leaders sign except Max Piccolomini, who has remained sober and realizes that he cannot take a vow against the emperor without forfeiting his honor.

Wallenstein believes that the leaders will be compelled to follow him after they sign the document, a paper that will compromise them in the emperor’s eyes regardless of how the signatures were obtained. General Piccolomini has signed the document, wishing to let Wallenstein proceed far enough with his plan to expose his traitorous intent. The general knows it will be easier to turn the army away from Wallenstein after it becomes clear that he is a traitor.

A crisis arises when Wallenstein receives orders to send a large part of his army to a distant point under the command of another leader. The same messenger also brings news that an army from Spain, not under Wallenstein’s command, is due to arrive in a matter of days. Seeing that his power is threatened, Wallenstein refuses to break up his army and begins to push forward his negotiations with the Swedes in the hope that he can complete his arrangements within a few hours. While Wallenstein prepares to move his army, General Piccolomini sets his own plan in motion. First he goes to all the officers and convinces them, with the exception of the colonels of two regiments, one of them his own son, that Wallenstein is ambitious and a traitor. The commanders agree to move their troops and, under General Piccolomini, remain loyal to the emperor.

The Swedes, through their envoy, are making inordinate demands on Wallenstein. Among other things, they wish to have control of Prague and the fortress at Egra, to ensure that Wallenstein will not turn traitor against them. At first Wallenstein refuses to turn over the fortifications, but at last he agrees. Shortly afterward, his brother-in-law, Count Terzky, informs him that various regiments have marched away. Wallenstein realizes what has happened when the count tells him about General Piccolomini’s negotiations with Von Questenberg and the emperor’s commission authorizing the general to relieve Wallenstein of his command.

Although his grand design is collapsing, Wallenstein resolves to go ahead with his plan to join the Swedes. He is still busy with his preparations when his daughter comes to him with Colonel Max Piccolomini, who is still loyal to his commander. The couple ask to be allowed to marry, but Wallenstein refuses. During the interview, Max Piccolomini realizes the extent of Wallenstein’s ambitions for himself and his daughter and the fact that the duke intends to turn traitor. The young officer thereupon decides to join his father in the plan to arrest Wallenstein. When Wallenstein tries to keep Max Piccolomini prisoner, the colonel’s regiment rescues him from Wallenstein’s soldiers.

Wallenstein flees with his few remaining troops and his family to Egra, where he had planned to meet the Swedish forces. With him is Colonel Butler, an Irish soldier of fortune. Because Wallenstein had dissuaded the emperor from making Butler a count, the Irish adventurer takes revenge by contriving Wallenstein’s murder at Egra. Word comes to Egra, shortly before Wallenstein’s assassination, that Max Piccolomini has met his death in a wild attack on the Swedish forces. Shocked by these events, Thekla flees from Egra.

When General Piccolomini arrives at Egra, he is horrified to learn that Wallenstein had been murdered just moments previously. Butler, confused by this turn of events, flees to the emperor to explain his actions. After his departure, a messenger arrives at Egra to inform General Piccolomini that the emperor has elevated him to the rank of prince.

Bibliography

Garland, H. B. Schiller. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1976. Contains biographical information and interpretation of Schiller’s major plays. Explains the construction of Wallenstein and mentions Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s suggestions. Provides interpretation and criticism of the characters and plot, with many quotations in German.

Graham, Ilse. Schiller’s Drama: Talent and Integrity. New York: Barnes & Noble, 1974. Provides readings of many of Schiller’s plays. Discusses special issues of Wallenstein and includes a chapter about the connections between Wallenstein and Goethe’s Über Laokoon.

Hammer, Stephanie Barbé. Schiller’s Wound: The Theater of Trauma from Crisis to Commodity. Detroit, Mich.: Wayne State University Press, 2001. Argues that Schiller was one of the first playwrights to explore the topic of psychological trauma. Analyzes how his plays depict the relationships among pain, spectacle, and money. Wallenstein is discussed in chapter 3.

Kerry, Paul E., ed. Friedrich Schiller: Playwright, Poet, Philosopher, Historian. New York: Peter Lang, 2007. Collection of essays examines Schiller’s various vocations—such as a poet, dramatist, historian, prose writer, and philosopher—and discusses the status of his work two hundred years after his death. Includes an essay analyzing Wallenstein.

Martinson, Steven D., ed. A Companion to the Works of Friedrich Schiller. Rochester, N.Y.: Camden House, 2005. Collection of essays includes discussions of Schiller’s philosophical aesthetics, his lyric poetry, the reception of his works in the twentieth century, and the works’ relevance to the twenty-first century, as well as analyses of specific works. An essay by Dieter Borchmeyer examines Wallenstein.

Saranpa, Kathy. Schiller’s “Wallenstein,” “Maria Stuart,” and “Die Jungfrau von Orleans”: The Critical Legacy. Rochester, N.Y.: Camden House, 2002. Traces the critical reaction to Schiller’s late historical dramas, from his own time until postreunification Germany, including examinations of the responses to these plays in Nazi Germany and in the former German Democratic Republic.

Sharpe, Lesley. Friedrich Schiller: Drama, Thought, and Politics. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991. Devotes a full chapter to Wallenstein, examining Schiller’s sense of tragedy, melancholia, charisma, characterization, and style. Includes extensive chronology, bibliography, notes, and index to Schiller’s works

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. A National Repertoire: Schiller, Iffland, and the German Stage. New York: Peter Lang, 2007. Examines Schiller’s influence on the German theater of his time by analyzing his plays’ impact on the Mannheim National and Weimar Court theaters, with which he was closely associated. Places his theatrical career in parallel with that of August Wilhelm Iffland, an actor and playwright who eventually produced Schiller’s plays at the Berlin National Theatre. Describes the relationship between Schiller and Goethe as playwrights.

Simons, John D. Friedrich Schiller. Boston: Twayne, 1981. Discusses Schiller’s aesthetics and examines his poetry and dramatic works. Analyzes Wallenstein, with emphasis on historical background and the political, social, economic, and military situation of the time. Includes chronology and bibliography.

Thomas, Calvin. The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller. 1901. Reprint. New York: AMS Press, 1970. Examines the works of Schiller in remarkable detail. Gives commentary on Wallenstein and compares it to Schiller’s earlier works. Includes biographical information and an examination of the characters in the works as well as Schiller’s method.