Question for my German speaking experts

[erastes]

or military buffs.

My protagonist is called (Major/Oberst) Rudolph von Ratzlaff – he’s on sick leave after being injured and is travelling with a young lieutenant from his regiment. What would people call him?  Von Ratzlaff?  Would his wife be called Frau von Ratzlaff?

Comments

[liebesdammerung.livejournal.com]

You are correct! :)

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Thank you! This is the sort of thing i live in fear of getting wrong. Make a silly mistake with one word (such as when I put the wrong book in Standish) then that's almost hidden, but if i get an appellation wrong all through the book its going to get people very cross.

thanks again!

[antychan.livejournal.com]

Do he and his wife belong to the aristocracy? In that case, they'd probably call her "Gräfin von Ratzlaff".

I have to say though that last name sounds very funny to my native ears. x-D

[erastes.livejournal.com]

I like Grafin - that's good. Thanks!

I found Ratzlaff on a list of Prussian officers, so it fits the time and place.

[antychan.livejournal.com]

Just to let you know, you can also write the "ä" Umlaut as "ae" - Graefin.

LOL, that explains it. xD

[yakalskovich]

It really depends on the context, and who is talking to him, or about him/them. Von Ratzlaff, Herr von Ratzlaff, Herr Major/Herr Oberst (he gets promoted in the course of the story?), Herr Graf (if you go with him being a count?). The wife would, at that time, automatically have been called by her husband's title or rank, so Frau von Ratzlaff, Frau Gräfin, Frau Majorin (even! but I don't think I've ever seen what they'd have called the wife of an Oberst, but if it's really important, I can ask my mother). Really subaltern people (servants) would have said 'gnädige Frau' and 'gnädiger Herr'.

I like how you're doing this, by the way. Usually, even German language romance writers tend to set their stories in the 'good old times' in England. You're doing the opposite.

Have you ever read any Theodor Fontane? He's the one contemporary novelist best know for writing about that world you're venturing into there.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

oh - thank you - that's very helpful. Although - ARGH! SO many minefields....

erk! I thought Oberst WAS Major - I'll have to double check my source....

Thank you!!

[erastes.livejournal.com]

And thank you, yes - I was fed up with doing english stories for a while - wanted to do something Hussars. I could have, obviously, done English Hussars, but the Austro-Prussian war has always interested me (my mother did her Thesis on it) and the uniforms are nummy (oh so shallow)... and so they are travelling from Jicin to Prague and thence to Berlin... should be fun, and educational (for me, at least!)

:)

[vashtan.livejournal.com]

I saw, you're covered there :)

[yakalskovich]

Oberst = colonel
Major = major

Read the work by Fontane that's online in the English translation; that'll give you a feel for the time that research can't achieve.-

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Will do! and thank you! you stopped me making a huge gaffe!

[yakalskovich]

I don't know if you still work with betas; if you do, I'd volunteer to beta that novel before publication for possible Prussian gaffes. I grew up with the stories of people born before WW I. that still remembered that world, or had their parents and aunts tell them about it; and I did read a lot from back then.

It's where my family is from, after all.

[subaru53.livejournal.com]

The surname Ratzlaff origins from Polish Racławice (city). Might be useful to google: Battle of Racławice

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Well that's a bit too early for my needs - this is set in 1866, but thanks!

[erastes.livejournal.com]

I'm always in need of a beta - I have one person who reads my stuff as I write it, so I'd really appreciate it - thank you!! Would you like what I have now, or wait for all of it?

[yakalskovich]

Hm? Actually, do send me what you have now? So if there's a show-stopper in there as concerns the German, or Prussian military context etc., I'd find it now and you won't have to change it everywhere later?

yakalskovich at gmal dot com.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Do you know of any Fontane's work in English?

[yakalskovich]

Oh yes, there are. First, you find one book online on bartleby.com:

Trials and tribulations, the only price being that bartleby.com totally bombards you with advertising and popups and suchlike unpleasant diversions.

Amazon.co.uk lists a number of his books, too, with the most important work ('Effi Briest') easily available from Penguin Classics and a number of other sources (having long run out of copyright).-

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Thank you!