Kathy of Heilbronn

The superb historic knight play combines a wealth of fairytale-like and romantic elements with a fairly colourful and impassioned plot. The play’s fifteen-year old main character, Kathy, is one of Heinrich von Kleist’s most endearing dramatic characters, who has been both a symbolical and real personification of female beauty, virtue and unconditional devotion for a long time.

The question as to why
Heinrich von Kleist chose
the city of Heilbronn of all
places to set his play in
has not been convincingly
answered to this very day.
Karl August Böttiger, an
acquaintance of Kleist’s,
wrote in 1819 that Kleist
had found “the entire story
of Kathy as a folk legend”
and had kept “the printed
pamphlet”, “which he had
bought at a funfair”.

However, said pamphlet
has not been found so far.
Instead, researchers have
compiled a wealth of alleged
sources.

It is widely believed in Heilbronn that Kleist found the material for his play in the medical records of a Heilbronn girl. This, however, is nothing but one of the many unsubstantiated assertions. There is no single historical character that the central figure of the play might be modelled on, even though Julie Kunze from Dresden was named as one as early as 1848, followed by Lisette Kornacher and Charlotte Elisabethe Zobel, both of Heilbronn, at later stages.

A flyer "Kathy of Heilbronn" (in English, French and German) is available for free from the Heilbronn Tourist Information Centre. Or you can use the broschures order form to order the flyer online.