What is Fritz Reuter?
[[File:Fritz Reuter.jpg|thumb|right|200px|Fritz Reuter]] '''Fritz Reuter''' (7 November 1810 – 12 July 1874) was a [[Germany|German]] [[novelist]]. He was born at [[Stavenhagen]] in [[Mecklenburg-Schwerin]]. In 1831, Reuter started to study at the [[University of Rostock]], and in 1832 went to the [[University of Jena]]. At Jena he joined a ''Burschenschaft'' (nationalist students' club). In 1833 he was arrested in Berlin by the [[Prussia]]n government. They could only prove he had worn the club's colours, but he was condemned to death for [[high treason]]. King [[Frederick William III of Prussia]] changed this to imprisonment for thirty years. In 1838 he was sent to a prison in Mecklenburg-Schwerin, and he spent two years in the fortress of [[Dömitz]]. Reuter was set free in 1840, when [[Frederick William IV of Prussia|Frederick William IV]] became king of Prussia. After his release from prison, Reuter started studying law again at the University of Heidelberg but had to leave and go back to Stavenhagen and help to run his father's farm. When his father died, he gave up farming, and in 1850 became a private teacher in a little town then called [[Altentreptow|Treptow-an-der-Tollense]] in [[Pomerania]]. Here he married Luise Kunze, the daughter of a Mecklenburg pastor. Reuter's first book was written in [[Low German]]. It was published in 1853. Three years later Reuter decided to give up teaching to become a writer, so he left Treptow and moved to [[Neubrandenburg]]. [[File:Stavenhagen Fritz-Reuter-Denkmal.jpg|right|thumb|200px|Fritz-Reuter-Literaturmuseum, Stavenhagen]] ''Ut de Franzosentid'' and ''Ut mine Stromtid'' are Reuter's best books. In them he describes the men and women he knew in the villages and farmhouses of Mecklenburg. ''Ut de Franzosentid'' is set at the time of the fight against Napoleon. ''Ut mine Stromtid'' describes the [[revolution]]ary movement of 1848. In 1863 Reuter moved from Neubrandenburg to [[Eisenach]] and here he died on 12 July 1874. In the books he wrote at Eisenach were not