• Berlin
  • Konrad Werner: The dark duality of Albrecht Ritschl

Berlin

Konrad Werner: The dark duality of Albrecht Ritschl

No one ever comments underneath Konrad's blog. That's okay. He just wishes he could annoy people more. Like Albrecht Ritschl. Konrad wishes he was Albrecht Ritschl.

Image for Konrad Werner: The dark duality of Albrecht Ritschl
Photo by foodwatch (Flickr CC)

Albrecht Ritschl has got an even more German name than me. And he’s got fluffier, whiter hair. In fact, he’s better than me in every way. I bet he never sits up till 2:12 on Thursday night trying to think of something funny to write about German politics. No. Of course not. He’s too cool. He doesn’t have a blog. There is not a single online archive of Albrecht Ritschl’s thoughts. Imagine. He doesn’t even have a Facebook page.

In fact, the Facebook page of Albrecht Ritschl is of a different Albrecht Ritschl – it’s devoted to the 19th century theologian, who had fluffy white hair stuck to the side of his face. Only three people “Like” the creator of Systematic Theology, whose most important work “reveals an entire emancipation from Baur’s method,” and who “came under Hegelian influences” in Halle. (Haven’t we all?). But that’s three more than this Albrecht Ritschl.

This haughty spod just sits at home, all cosy, stroking his professorship at the London School of Economics, trying to think of something that could really piss off as many German people as possible. Why he does this, nobody knows. Possibly it’s just a jealous desire to become, as John Lennon would say, “bigger than Albrecht Ritschl, the 19th century theologian who I keep getting mixed up with.”

“What opinion is most guaranteed to annoy meine Kompatrioten back home?” Albrecht asks himself. “That Milch-Schnitte is bad for you? No. Everyone knew that anyway. Maybe I should say that puns are more effective without brackets? No, no, no, they will just think I am mad, and that it is wissenschaftlich erwiesen. I know! I will say that Germans owe Greece all that money, and they should be grateful to pay them. Because of the war. Ha!”

Then he writes a column about it in the Guardian and gets interviewed in Der Spiegel. What a knob.