Looking back on Adelaide Writers’ Week

Saturday is an exciting day for us at Wakefield, as it’s the first day of Adelaide Writers’ Week, every local bibliophile’s week of bliss.

It’s even more special because we have two authors in the tents this year, with Mike Ladd kicking off proceedings Saturday morning, and Ken Bolton joining in on the fun on Tuesday. Aside from those on the programs, we also have plenty of authors chairing events: Nicholas Jose, Peter Monteath, Cath Kenneally and Peter Burdon, with Louise Nicholas reading poetry, too. What a good Wakefield crew!

Writers’ Week has been around for a long time, and for many of us it’s hard now to remember our first sessions. From its beginnings as a festival specifically for writers in 1960, it gradually broadened to become a place for readers and writers alike.

A quick poke around the interwebs dredges up a few of the old programs, for anyone feeling nostalgic! —

Adelaide Writers' Week programs

Clockwise from top left: the programs from this year, 1962, 1996, 1970, 1976, 1980, 2015, 2016 and 2014.

Most of these images come straight from the Adelaide Festival website, but I tracked the 1980 program down on the State Library of SA’s amazing Adelaide Festival Pinterest collection (where would we be without SLSA??), and the 1962 program comes courtesy the Wheeler Centre.

And, look, this is completely off topic, but it feels like a Velvet Underground kind of day, so I’ma share. Maybe there’s a comparison with bibliophiles looking for a hit. Maybe that’s a complete stretch …

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hugY9CwhfzE

Torrens Island Internment Camp

In October 1914, after the outbreak of World War I, Torrens Island off Port Adelaide was turned into an internment camp. It is a lesser known impact of war in Australia, but it is an ugly chapter in our history. Thanks to the diary kept by Frank Bungardy and the photos of Paul Dubotzky, historians Peter Monteath, Mandy Paul and Rebecca Martin have been able to recreate the conditions of the camp in Interned: Torrens Island 1914–1915. Here we learn about the beginnings of the camp.

Interned by Monteath, Paul and Martin

Torrens Island is a low-lying island in the Port River estuary, isolated by its geography but within easy reach of Port Adelaide. Long and narrow, the island runs north–south, bordered with narrow beaches and mangroves. It had been the location of a quarantine station since the mid-1850s, and in October 1914 it became the site of Torrens Island internment camp. Initially located adjacent to the quarantine station on the north of the island, the camp was moved in early 1915 to the southern part of the island.

Life inside the camp was documented by two internees, photographer Paul Dubotzki and diarist Frank Bungardy, a boxer who was working in the mines at Broken Hill when he was arrested and interned. It also generated official records – notably, the evidence given in a series of enquiries into events on the island. While these accounts do not always agree, there is enough common ground to be able to draw a general outline of camp life.

Prisoners travelled by train to Port Adelaide, were taken under guard from the station to the wharves, and then by boat to the island. As Bungardy put it: ‘Ones the gate closed behind us, we wher inside of the barbwire fence, our future home’.

Prisoners and guards alike referred to the main compound as ‘the German lines’. This area housed most of those interned. Officers, including August Strycker, former captain of SS Scharzfels, were held in a separate part of the camp. Guards also lived on site, occupying available buildings or living under canvas.

‘The German lines’

In the main compound, seven or eight prisoners were allocated to each tent. Each prisoner was issued a waterproof sheet, two blankets and the makings of a mattress. Bungardy, who recorded that he was not issued with any straw to stuff his ‘sack’ and form a mattress, described how the men in his crowded tent ‘layd hudled together like Pigs in a stye during the nights’.

Days were punctuated by roll call and the distribution of rations at three o’clock each afternoon. Rations were distributed by tent, and consisted of meat, potatoes, coffee, sugar, bread, jam, salt, pepper, and some vegetables. Those who had the funds could order extra stores through the quartermaster, as well as tobacco and clothes. Prisoners were also issued a cooking pot, tin plate, tin mug, fork, spoon and knife. They used kerosene tins purchased from the quartermaster to fashion other items – Bungardy mentions a coffee kettle, frying pan, water bucket ‘and various other cooking utensils’.

The men in Bungardy’s tent took the role of cook by turns, for a week at a time. They rigged up both a ‘kitchen’ and ‘dining room’:

Owing our tent being small, and very inconvenient to use it as Bedroom, Kitchen and Dinning Room combined, we wher forced to procure bags at 4p a piece, old Potatoe Bags. Went out into the Bushe under guard, procured some sticks, and we soon had a rough and ready Bush Kitchen and dining room. Our Kitchen contained a fireplace, made out of a few stones and mudd, to which a few Iron Bars wher addet, for the Pots to stand on, a rough bench for the Pots to stand on when not in use. The Dining Room contained two rough Benches, around a ditto table, with a Butter-box in one corner as a safe. Our cooler, owing the hot season, being another box wich we procured through the officer in charge for wich we paid, sunk into the ground.

The sandy conditions made cooking difficult. Bungardy complained that ‘the Cook only had to lift the lid of the cooking pot, when a hand full of sand wher laying on top of the stew, instead of the necessary pepper’.

Sanitary provisions at the camp were rudimentary. The prisoners dug pits in the sand into which they emptied waste water. Urinals and latrines were also pits, screened on one side with corrugated iron sheet. Prisoners covered old pits and dug new ones each day. Soap for washing, including clothes, was issued every three weeks. Bungardy noted wryly that those who could not afford extra soap were prey to vermin, ‘in fact the quantity wher almost equall of Germanys fighting force’.

Marking time

Those men who were not occupied doing tasks around the camp such as collecting wood, digging latrines and cooking, had empty days to fill in bleak surroundings.

Prisoners were not allowed books or newspapers. Correspondence was permitted, and prisoners could send two letters each week. Letters in and out of the camp were censored, an exception to the general rule that the Commonwealth censor was not concerned with mail within Australia. Bungardy wrote that ‘anything written, stating of our ill treatment, or us asking for money, never wher passed, but went into the wastepaper basket’. Prisoners were required to pay for postage, which rankled, as they were aware that this contravened the Hague Convention. Prisoners were also permitted short visits from their families. The visits took place on the jetty, under guard, and lasted only as long as it took to unload from the motor launch whatever it was delivering to the camp.

Those interned on Torrens Island found ways to relieve the monotony. As seen here, Bungardy wrote of gambling, cards and two-up being played from ‘morning until late at nights’, until a notice was issued banning gambling of any sort. After this, two-up ceased, but card-playing continued – including poker. Bungardy noted that although raids and arrests of tentfuls of men for gambling were frequent, the prisoners were permitted to purchase as many packs of cards as they could afford.

In June 1915 the prisoners produced three issues of a handwritten and illustrated newspaper. Der Kamerad included advertisements for businesses within the camp, including Electra tattoos and the Kaiser Café. Paul Dubotzki’s photographic studio offered portraits as well as photographs of the camp in cabinet or postcard format.

Interned by Monteath, Paul and Martin

Music provided amusement and consolation. Prisoners organised a choir and more than one band. Bungardy wrote of a sailors’ band, with two accordions, several mouth organs, and improvised triangle, kettle drum and big drum. He also observed:

… later on we had also a Brass Band. Many a long weary hour during the hot evenings we amused ourself, laying in a circle in the soft sand enjoying German Ballats, dittis, Soldiers and National songs. If it hadnt been for this their would have been a few more driven mad.

Celebrating the Kaiser’s birthday

Kaiser Wilhelm II’s birthday, 27 January 1915, provided a distraction and outlet for ingenuity for weeks. Prisoners who were German reservists drilled for the parade march. Bungardy wrote of the uniforms:

The rifles used wher made out of sticks and broom handles. Every Soldiers wher dressed alike. Blue trousers, white shirt, white cap. The caps were made out of white handkerchiefs.

That only left the problem of how to outfit the prisoners who would play the emperor, the high officials, and the ladies.

We made the spiked Helmets out of kerosine tins, soldered together. Swallow tail coats and evening frocks cut off at the bottom part, with yellow painted buttones, suitable brocade and tin medals galore, substituted, the smart Officers jacket. White trousers made into Riding breeches, seaboots and spurs, borrowed from some civil interned boundary Riders, completed the Uniform.

Six prisoners were transformed into ‘nice and handsome’ ladies with dresses cut by an internee who was an ‘expert cutter’ from material purchased through the stores and hats made from fencing wire, cloth and paper flowers. The final touch was long hair, made out of dyed rope.

Interned by Monteath, Paul and Martin

On the evening of 26 January, the German band led a procession ‘according to German custom’, through the camp, carrying torches fashioned out of broken bottles and candles. After breakfast the following morning was the parade. Then followed sporting competitions, with cash prizes, and, that night, singing and dancing.

Bungardy recalled:

We fancied ourself holding a curtlady in our arms and walzing around the emperors palace untill the haevy sandy ground remindet us, that we wher on Australian soil, the handsome lady, a fellow sufferer like ourself.

To read more about the Torrens Island internment camp, click here

 

 

 

Baudin’s names in Australia

One of the most familiar impacts of the voyages of Flindes and Baudin around Australia is the names that they gave to places. While many of Flinders names are still in use today, Baudin left very few place names in his wake. Jean Fornasiero, Peter Monteath and John West-Sooby explain why in Encountering Terra Australis.

Encountering Terra Australis

Detail of Laurie & Whittle’s New map of the World showing Terra Australis as known in November 1800, State
Library of New South Wales

One of the most distinctive and recognisable symbols of any nation is the outline of the country its citizens inhabit. Determining the shape of Terra Australis was a process in which mariners over many centuries played a role. Even after Flinders and Baudin, who in the end were unable to fulfil their respective goals, the map was not entirely complete – parts of the coastline had still been filled in with only a tremulous hand. But it was thanks to the joint efforts of Flinders and Baudin in 1802 that the one large piece then missing from the Australian puzzle was finally added – namely, the stretch of coastline that corresponds roughly to the coast of present-day South Australia. It was not merely a matter of filling in the details of an unknown stretch of coast; it was also a matter of confirming once and for all that they were dealing with a single, massive continent. Baudin and Flinders were among those who had speculated that there might be a strait running from the unknown coast in the south to the Gulf of Carpentaria in the north, separating New Holland from New South Wales. Together, on 8 April 1802, they established from each other’s experience that no such strait was to be found.

Encountering Terra Australis

General chart of Terra Australis or Australia, Matthew Flinders, A Voyage to Terra Australis (1814)

Baudin seemed well placed to emerge the winner of the race to finish the map, having been the first to set out on his mission. But we now know only too well that his advantage was soon lost and that his lasting contribution to the definitive map was relatively small. Moreover, the tragic end to his life and the eventual settlement of Australia by the English ensured that he would not have the opportunity to compete with Flinders when it came to naming the continent whose shape he had helped to define. There have been so few opportunities in history to name a new land that Baudin and the French might be considered to have lost heavily on that score. Baudin’s death also cost him naming rights for the geographical features that he identified in the rough charts made during the voyage.

Many French names still survive in parts of Australia that the Baudin expedition charted. However, in most cases these are the names used by Péron and Louis Freycinet on the maps published in the official account of the voyage, and not those originally given by the commander himself. To make matters worse, Péron and Freycinet themselves featured prominently in the resulting nomenclature, while Baudin’s own name was as pointedly omitted from the map as it was from the written record of the voyage. Admittedly, Baudin might well have adopted a similar approach, had he been given the chance. There was little in the way of flattery or homage to his officers in his  original nomenclature; one can therefore imagine that Baudin’s faithful companions, such as Riédlé or Maugé, would have received more recognition from him than the likes of Péron and Freycinet.

Be that as it may, circumstances would probably have forced Baudin, like Péron, to revise his nomenclature to account for other considerations than personal point-scoring. The same bureaucratic and political factors that influenced Péron’s choices would certainly have weighed heavily on the commander in his review of the names in his drafts. After all, the official cartographers at the Ministry of Marine would have had some say in the matter. It is also a constant fact of life that Ministers change and that the new incumbents require some form of flattery to ensure that funds continue to flow. Baudin did not have to face that particular dilemma; it was Péron, and later Freycinet after Péron’s death in 1810, who had to deal with the political obstacles that impeded publication of the voyage’s map and official account.

One of Péron’s strategies was to name a relatively large number of features after prominent political figures of Napoleon’s regime. Some of these were the cause of a certain amount of embarrassment even before the Freycinet map of Terra Australis appeared – particularly the twin gulfs of what is now South Australia, which were named after Napoleon and his by then repudiated spouse, Josephine. However, since it was Flinders who had first charted and named the two gulfs, he had every reason to object, as he later did, to the ill-inspired nomenclature of Péron and Freycinet.

Baudin was, of course, long gone before controversy erupted over the political ramifications of the French nomenclature. Péron had not just chosen to name the French expedition’s discoveries after political figures, but he had also assigned politically inspired names to Flinders’ section of the unknown coast. As if this were not bad enough, of these names Napoleon’s was the one that was guaranteed to cause the deepest offence to the English. When the first volume of Péron’s account appeared in 1807, the English reacted most angrily to the naming (and implied claiming) of the entire unknown south coast as Terre Napoléon.

It is hard to imagine that Baudin would have been party to this, even under pressure. From the conversations and exchanges of information between Flinders and Baudin, we know that both captains were scrupulous about noting what the other had done – and that this was to serve as the basis for their final maps. Flinders found it hard to believe that this etiquette had been breached and that his own discoveries on the south coast had deliberately been ignored by Péron, whom he would have known well from the stay in Port Jackson. The case against Péron was, in fact, so damning that Freycinet felt the need to remedy the situation in the second edition of the Voyage de découvertes aux Terres Australes, published in 1824 – although he took care to distance himself from the controversy, attributing the original nomenclature to Péron alone. In defence of his deceased colleague, however, Freycinet stated that Péron had not intended to claim as discoveries the features he wrongfully named; he had simply not known the names Flinders had given, since the English map was published much later, in 1814. Once Flinders’ names were known, the French accepted them without question.

… It is thus unlikely that the two captains [Flinders and Baudin] would have fallen into disagreement over the delicate issue of prior rights. In fact, in naming generally, they adopted similar practices. Their charts bore homage to celebrities, often maritime figures, as in the case of Cape Borda on Kangaroo Island, named by Baudin after the eighteenth-century French naval officer and mathematician. The French expedition’s major discoveries were also commemorated in other ways. The captain’s ship, for instance, provided the inspiration for the naming of Geographe Bay in Western Australia. To prominent landmarks Baudin often gave names that corresponded to their physical appearance. This was also a conventional category, in that it signalled recognisable features to future explorers – a practice illustrated by Baudin’s ‘Ile du dragon’ (Dragon Island) off the Victorian coast, now known more prosaically as Lawrence Rock.

Baudin’s names sometimes went a little further than mere appearance. The steep columns he saw at Cape Hauy in Tasmania led him to adopt the name ‘Cap des Organistes’ (Organists’ Cape) in an attempt to describe the grandiose nature of the spectacle, with its tall columns reminiscent of organ pipes, rather than just evoke the sheerness of the cliffs. In another category, Baudin also conformed to conventional usage by conferring names that reflected incidents on board ship. Of course, he could not refrain from adding the occasional dash of his characteristic humour and sarcasm – though, not surprisingly, the humorous names disappeared entirely from the list of Péron’s names, which overwhelmingly favoured the use of clusters of philosophers and scientists. While the commemoration of such celebrated figures is an interesting heritage that reminds us of the scientific nature of the Baudin expedition, it does not entirely compensate for the loss of such colourful names as those that Baudin gave to parts of Geographe Bay: ‘Anse des Maladroits’ (Cove of the Clumsy – today Wonnerup Inlet – where Baudin’s longboat was grounded) or ‘Cap des Mécontents’ (Cape of Discontent – now Cape Naturaliste – where Baudin reprimanded Sub-Lieutenant Picquet for his failure to land).

While there is no definitive record of place-names comparing the names conferred by Baudin with those that finally appeared on Freycinet’s charts, it is clear that both lists draw to a similar extent on the conventional categories. The differences are to be found in the relative frequencies of certain categories, but these can be telling. Péron and Freycinet used more proper names, whereas Baudin’s nomenclature reflects a more evenly balanced use of the various naming principles. On the other hand, his use of descriptive names was no more conventional than the man himself. This fact alone may have caused him later problems with the official cartographers, had he lived to supervise his map.

Click here to read more about the fascinating voyages of Flinders and Baudin, and the legacy they left behind.

Encountering Terra Australis cover

The Ultimate Wakefield Press Christmas Gift Guide

Alright, let’s keep this snappy. You guys need gift ideas, and we’ve got a book for every possible need.* So welcome to the patented Ultimate Wakefield Press Christmas Gift Guide.**

For adventure-packed holiday reading, try the Steve West thrillers, centring around an ex-AFL star geologist with a heart of gold. Start with Prohibited Zone, set around the Woomera Detention Centre, then move on Ecstasy Lake, which is about a literal goldmine in the middle of the desert.

For fiction fans, Cassie Flanagan Willanski’s Here Where We Live has been making waves online and is a big awards contender. Every single reader has loved this short story collection. Or go for our Miles Franklin longlisted bestseller The Hands, by Stephen Orr. This story of a family surviving on a drought-stricken cattle farm is beautiful, heart-breaking, but not without hope.

Prohibited Zone Christmas Gift GuideEcstasy Lake Christmas Gift GuideHere Where We Live Christmas Gift GuideThe Hands Christmas Gift Guide

For art loversThe Art of Science is proving to be a winner over the holiday season. Showcasing the art (and history) of Nicolas Baudin’s expedition to Australia at beginning of the 19th century, these illustrations will make you see familiar animals with entirely new eyes. Or there’s always Dogs in Australian Art. Got a relative who loves dogs or Aussie art? Present: sorted.

For the foodie in your life, and especially the locavores, you have to have a look at Helen Bennetts’s newly released Willunga Almonds, which recounts the history of this humble nut in Australia alongside mouthwatering but easy recipes. Or there’s the CWA’s Calendar of Cakes, which will see you covered for cake recipes throughout 2017.

Art of Science Christmas Gift GuideDogs in Australian Art Christmas GuideWillunga Almonds Christmas Gift GuideCalendar of Cakes Christmas Gift Guide

 

For the biography buff, you can’t go past Red Professor, the biography of Fred Rose. Shortlisted for the Prime Minister’s Awards, and the catalyst of a lot of ‘were they/weren’t they’ conversations about possible Communist Party members in Australia, the press are saying that this one’s set to be a classic. Or pick up a copy of An Unsentimental Bloke, the National Biography Award-winning account of the life of the great writer C.J. Dennis.

For gardeners, Trevor Nottle’s Endless Pleasure is the ultimate compendium of garden collectables, showcasing weird and wonderful types of secateurs, hoes, spades – even tyre swans and man traps. Or get back to basics with Lolo Houbein’s One Magic Square. No one else has managed to make it so easy for so many people to grow their own food.

Red Professor Christmas Gift GuideUnsentimental Bloke Christmas Gift GuideEndless Pleasure Christmas Gift GuideOne Magic Square Christmas Gift GuideThere are so so many more possibilities, and for the actual Ultimate Wakefield Press Gift Guide you should go to our website. Still, if you can’t find what you’re looking for here, send us a line with your beloved’s Christmas gift requirements, and we’ll send you some suggestions.

Just another Christmas service from the Wakefield team!

 

* Not actually every possible need. Just some needs. Or maybe needs that you didn’t realise you had. Look, I’m trying to get at the fact that we don’t have highly specialised books about, say, how to fly helicopters. You should probably get training for that though, really.

** Not actually patented. Ain’t no one got the money for that.

Friedrich Gerstäcker’s take on Tanunda

Friedrich Gerstäcker's Australia

Friedrich Gerstäcker, the German explorer who travelled up the Murray in a makeshift canoe in the 1850s, is a fascinating character. Celebrated as a travel writer in his home country in the 1800s, he fell out of favour and his work is little known in Australia. Historian Peter Monteath has released a translation that is of significant historical importance – but is also a wonderful read to boot. You can find out more and purchase the book here.

Here we have Gerstäcker’s thoughts on arriving in Tanunda, where a religious war of sorts had split the town …

Tanunda – named after the Indian locality – is a little town of several hundred inhabitants, its buildings perhaps slightly English in taste, but its population entirely German aside from a couple of possible exceptions. It as a very strange feeling for me to find myself suddenly – in a foreign land and continent and even in an English colony – surrounded by nothing but Germans, and in fact a purely German way of life and doings. On occasion, especially when I saw little groups of people standing here and there in the street and heard everyone speaking German, I had to stop and think whether I really was in Australia. But that is exactly how it was, and in the end I even got used to it – I think I would even have got used to it if they had spoken Chinese, since being thrown so quickly from one language into another as I have been incessantly over the last few years makes one rather indifferent to such things.

Tanunda is remarkable not only for its Germanness but also for its religious factions, and I was particularly intent on finding out more about them. The most important congregation among them is that of the Kavelites or Old Lutherans, who have however recently suffered a quite significant dent in their unity because of a few simple arithmetical errors. Previously the congregations of Tanunda, Hahndorf, Langmeil and Lightspass – all German localities – belonged together to one church. Then – and I do not know even myself whether it was in spring this year (1851) or autumn last year – Pastor Kavel had the fateful idea of prophesying in advance the end of the world, precisely to the day and hour, and he was thoughtless enough not to postpone the date for something like a thousand years, but to cut very close to the bone. The result  was the same as befell the famous Preacher Miller in the Yankee states: the good Lord did not deign to do him the favour of lifting the world off its hinges at the prescribed hour; everything continued in its pre-ordained path, except for the Kavelite church.

It is said that at the prophesied hour the whole congregation headed out to a small creek about two miles from Tanunda and half a mile from Langmeil to await the Messiah. But what happened instead was a violent storm that drenched them thoroughly, and that night they slept in their beds again instead of in Paradise.

That made a bad impression on the congregation. The people had absolutely counted on their own destruction, and now they found themselves all hale and hearty – apart from an occasional cold perhaps – and as remote as ever from eternal bliss. The unfulfilled prophecy shattered their faith in the prophet himself, and a portion of the Kavelite congregation seceded from Kavel. So Langmeil chose Pastor Meier, a former missionary to the Australian Indians, as their pastor, and only Hahndorf and Tanunda, and perhaps Lightspass too, maintained the true faith, since the Meierite congregation was strongly sceptical of the imminent end of the world. Pastor Kavel, however, undeterred, postponed it to the transition from 1899–1900.

 

Pastor Kavel, described in Friedrich Gerstäcker's Australia

Pastor Kavel, image from Wikipedia

What people in Tanunda – that is in the unbelieving part of Tanunda’s population, since Tanunda is divided into the Saints and the Children of the World – have to say about the congregation and its beliefs borders on the fabulous, and one must indeed exercise caution in believing their reports, for I almost fear that the Children of the World have exaggerated a thing or two. But of course nothing is impossible in religious mania. In any case, I wished to gather as much information as possible in that short time, and so I visited Pastor Kavel, and was very amiably received by him. I had arrived in Tanunda at a very interesting time, since Pastor Kavel had just been married to his housekeeper several days previously, and the rather unique situation had arisen that although Pastor Meier in Langmeil and another pastor, Mr Mücke, who had established a liberal congregation in Tanunda (to which I shall return later), were both ordained by the government, Pastor Kavel did not consider either of these gentlemen worthy of performing his marriage ceremony and therefore travelled to Adelaide with his bride in order to be married by the civil registrar. The congregation in its turn was not satisfied with this, neither with the civil marriage – although he subsequently on his return to Tanunda had the marriage blessed by one of the elders – nor with the marriage itself, whereby the people felt that he should have avoided ‘appearances’ in such a matter. But in the case of marriage, if one wished first of all to ask permission of the entire congregation, nothing much at all would come about in the end – at least, not in such a way that both parties would be comfortable, and this is something that each man can best judge for himself.

The next day was a Sunday, and of course it was taken for granted that I would attend the Kavelite congregation, after which I was invited to dine with the Pastor. The service was of course the Old Lutheran one, but with an enormous number of hymnbook verses and Bible texts. The singing was never-ending, and although I do not wish to present my opinion as infallible, I really do not believe that our Lord God can be so intent on having half the hymnbook sung to Him every Sunday. That day I had to sing 32 hymnbook verses. And the texts? I am firmly convinced that the people who wrote those hymns – for they can hardly be called poetry – surely had the best of intentions and expressed their most intimate feelings therein, but it nevertheless remains difficult to sing or say, for example, ‘all-beneficent‘ in two syllables.

Pastor Kavel preached well and fluently. By ‘well’ I of course do not mean to say that I was in agreement with the intention of the sermon, but he spoke as though with innermost conviction, and I would like to believe that to his credit. Moreover he spoke in such a way that I can well understand that he could thereby win over the class of people with whom he was dealing. Otherwise his sermon was an extract of the greatest intolerance that any faith is capable of producing. It was only for his chosen few that the kingdom of heaven will be open, and one sentence in his sermon I will never forget: ‘Those who really act according to God’s word but do not have the true faith will, regardless of their good and otherwise God-pleasing deeds, be irredeemably damned and go to the Devil. In fact, God will hate such people all the more, precisely because of their  good deeds, as He sees such deeds as a kind of hypocrisy, since they do not hold the true faith.’ And that is supposed to be a God of love.

Read more on Friedrich Gerstäcker’s adventures here.