The Fritz Reuter Festival 2026
The Fritz Reuter Festival 2026
Fritz Reuter had already found his own special tone with his childhood memoirs "Ut de Franzosentid": the novel was published in Low German in 1859 and Reuter followed it up three years later. "Ut mine Festungstid" describes his time in prison, but not as a grand, bitter reckoning with those who had put him behind bars, but as a thoroughly humorous description of the internal and external events during this time that was so formative for him. After all, Reuter was just 22 years old when he was arrested and imprisoned.
And so "Ut mine Festungstid" is above all a story of comradeship and mutual help, even of love and an everyday life that is almost unimaginable today. Nevertheless, the political circumstances that brought Reuter into this situation are not omitted; nor is the tragedy that the writer recognizes in retrospect in the fate of his own person.
Now there is a rare opportunity to see a long-forgotten television play about the writer Fritz Reuter and his seven-year imprisonment: The NDR production "Ut mine Festungstid - Nach Erzählungen und Briefen von Fritz Reuter" from 1985. The film by Carlheinz Caspari was made with the support of DEFA as well as the Volkstheater Rostock and the Staatstheater Schwerin. In addition to Jürgen Reimer as Fritz Reuter, the cast included Jörg Panknin, Rolf Römer, Werner Dissel, Anke Neumann and Gerry Wolff.
The film will be shown on June 28 at 10:30 a.m. as part of the Fritz Reuter Festival on the market square of the Reuterstadt Stavenhagen.
