On October 16, 1906, the shoemaker Wilhelm Voigt put on a captain’s uniform and took command of a group of soldiers in Berlin. He occupied the town hall of Köpenick, arrested the mayor and took the town treasury. The Berliner Volks-Zeitung commented: Umkleide dich in Preußen-Deutschland mit einer Uniform, und du bist allmächtig. Put on a uniform in Prussian Germany, and you are all-powerful. The story made German Untertanengeist, the spirit of the obedient subject, a joke around the world. Carl Zuckmayer turned it into a play, which premiered at the Deutsches Theater Berlin on March 5, 1931. Heinrich Mann gave the same type a name in his novel Der Untertan, finished in 1914. Kurt Tucholsky described its hero in two phrases. He beugt sich nach oben, bows to those above, and he tritt nach unten, kicks those below.
Judges in Berlin
In a famous legend, Frederick the Great threatens to take the windmill next to his palace at Sanssouci. The miller answers: Ja, Ew. Majestät […] wenn das Kammergericht in Berlin nicht wäre! Yes, Your Majesty, if it were not for the court in Berlin. The saying Es gibt noch Richter in Berlin, there are still judges in Berlin, goes back to a French verse anecdote by François Andrieux from 1797.
The real case of the miller Arnold came to a head in 1779, and it ended the other way. Frederick overruled the judges. He wrote that a court that commits injustice is more dangerous and worse than a band of thieves. The judges involved lost their offices. The other judges of the Berlin court refused to convict their arrested colleagues. Frederick then sentenced those judges himself to a year in the citadel of Spandau.