Mit Theodor Fontane (und den preußischen Truppen) durch die Rhön

The so-called war books, describing the history of German unification wars, form an extremely important chapter in the middle period of Theodor Fontane’s epic work. These works contain not only detailed reports on military actions, but also fascinating descriptions of the country engulfed by war, places of interest, life of common people and history of the area, which is precisely what makes them so appealing both for a literary scholar and for a historian. Of particular interest are the author’s views on national and political issues, which affect the character of the actual military-historical account. This paper illustrates this on the example of the passage of the Prussian troops through the Central-German Rhön Mountains, described in the second volume of Der deutsche Krieg von 1866.