In the summer of 1878, two church bells were the subject of discussion between Gültz, Demmin and Utzedel. A small exchange of letters survives in copy. It shows the man who built Schloss Gültz, Helmuth Freiherr von Maltzahn, from a side that scarcely appears in the major accounts of his life: calculating, precise, and with clear ideas about how a bell ought to be inscribed.
The cracked bell
In the church at Utzedel near Demmin, the larger of the two old bells had cracked. On 6 June 1878 the pastor in charge had written to Gültz that it weighed 290 kilograms. At that time Helmuth von Maltzahn was conducting, as he himself puts it, a “guardianship administration” – evidently of an estate that carried the duties of church patron in Utzedel. He obtained an offer: on 14 June 1878 Fr. Schünemann replied from Demmin that he was inclined “to buy the two Utzedel church bells” and, on prompt delivery, would pay “one mark thirty pfennigs per kilogram”.
The builder’s calculation
Maltzahn then set out the figures for the pastor: 290 kilograms at 1.30 marks came to 377 marks. A corresponding new bell of cast steel would cost around 450 marks, leaving roughly 73 marks uncovered; for the smaller bell, whose weight he did not know, at most the same again. His proposal:
“… to sell the two old bells and procure a good cast-steel peal for the Utzedel church” – and he himself would contribute the uncovered part of the costs of purchase and hanging “from my own means”, “up to a maximum of 200 – two hundred – marks”. “It would please me to leave in this way a small memento of the time of my guardianship administration.”
Cast-steel bells were new at the time and considerably cheaper than bronze. They were made above all by the Bochumer Verein – the letter mentions an enquiry “to Bochum”. Maltzahn set one condition: each bell was to bear a Bible verse, the year and the Maltzahn coat of arms, “naturally in such a way that the Bible verse receives the principal place, and the coat of arms and the year a subordinate one”. For the coat of arms he offered a drawing of his own, “so that it is heraldically correct”.
The inscriptions
On 23 October 1878 he sent the drawing of the coat of arms – on letter paper headed “Gültz, on the Nordbahn, post & railway station”; the Neubrandenburg–Demmin railway had opened only the previous December. Because the foundry in Bochum wanted short inscriptions, he proposed:
- for one bell: “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Exod. 20:8”
- for the other: “Christ saith: Behold, I come quickly. Rev. 22:12”
The inscription was to occupy “the principal place in the middle of the bell”, with the coat of arms and the year 1878 below it, nearer the rim; it mattered to him “that the arrangement is the same on both bells” and that the Bible reference be given as well. A small sketch in the letter shows how he imagined it.
Bells as a family tradition
Bells run through the history of the family. After the First World War, during which the church had been forced to surrender its old peal, Axel von Maltzahn, the builder’s son, donated new bells for Gültz as church patron; one of them bore the words “O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the Lord” (more in the article about Axel). In 1943 two bronze bells were taken from the Gültz tower and melted down – presumably these very ones. And some sixty years later his grandson, Axel von Maltzahn, born in Gültz in 1932, once again gave the parish a bronze bell (see History).
Open questions
- The letters do not state explicitly on whose behalf Helmuth von Maltzahn held the guardianship in 1878; they mention a “Frau von Maltzahn” and “Albrecht”, whose consent to the exchange of the bells was to be obtained.
- We do not know whether the bells were actually cast in Bochum, or whether they still hang in the tower at Utzedel today. Steel bells usually did not have to be surrendered during the world wars – so they may have survived. We would be glad to hear from anyone with information: schlossgueltz@gmx.de
Sources: letters from H. v. Maltzahn-Gültz to the pastor in charge, summer 1878 (undated) and 23 October 1878; letter from Fr. Schünemann, Demmin, 14 June 1878 – copies in the Schloss Gültz archive, transcription by Schloss Gültz (reading of individual words of the Kurrent script uncertain). Background on cast-steel bells: Bochumer Verein für Bergbau und Gußstahlfabrikation, maker of cast-steel bells since 1851.