106 Fontane Blätter 104 Literaturgeschichtliches, Interpretationen, Kontexte out both the cause and the government involved. Highly suggestive is the fact that the distance given in the novel between these two Mennonite vil­lages in Dakota and Indian territories was 900 miles. Looking at a map, as presumably Fontane did, reveals that the distance between Bismarck, North Dakota, which Lindau described at length, and the actual Darlington was also about 900 miles. Historically the Bismarck connection would not work, since Mennonites settled in South Dakota, not North, although at the time it was all one common Dakota Territory. 56 If Fontane received the full range of Mennonite newspaper articles about recent immigrants from Mannhardt he would have read that some of the newcomers settled tem­porarily in Dakota before moving to Kansas, a move, however, that was prompted only by cold winter temperatures. 57 One open question about Fontane´s use of Mennonites in Quitt is his use of Dirschau in the Vistula Delta as a geographic marker for them. The first Mennonite village in Dakota territory is called Dirschau and the children from Obadja´s first marriage returned to the Prussian Dirschau. 58 The town of Dirschau, however, was on the edge of the Vistula Mennonite settle­ments. No congregation ever existed there and only a few scattered indi­vidual members lived there. It was an outlaying area of the Heubuden con­gregation near Marienburg. So why did Fontane suggest his son ask in a Dirschau bookstore for Mennonite literature and not in Danzig, Elbing, Marienburg, Elbing, or Königsberg, all provincial Prussian cities with Mennonite church buildings? Perhaps Fontane knew that Friedrich would be visiting Dirschau or had contacts there through his employer, the Schul­zeschen Hofbuchhandlung in Oldenburg. His letter with the request was sent on July 21, 1885, and his thanks for the address of Pastor Mannhardt in Danzig was dated August 2, 1885. 59 Perhaps since he had Dirschau stuck in his head for whatever reason, he left the reference in the novel. The ma­nuscript originally said that the children of the first marriage simply re­turn to Dirschau. Later»und Danzig« was inserted, maybe as a nod to Mannhardt in recognition for his help. 60 If the political conflict involving Mennonites and their resistance to military service and the resulting emigration was actually widely known is hard to say, but there is no doubt that Ernst von Wildenbruch´s Der Menon­it was. Wildenbruch is largely forgotten today but was quite famous as a playwright in Imperial Germany. He was born in Beirut in 1845 where his father Ludwig was Consul. Ludwig was an illegitimate son of Prince Louis Ferdinand, a nephew of Frederick II. Like his father, Ernst mostly worked in the foreign service. His real calling, however, his»heiliger Pflicht« was to serve Germany as a patriotic poet. 61 Although Wildenbruch wrote poems and novels, he was best known for his historical dramas. Der Menonit, written in Berlin in 1877, was his first attempt in this genre. It was published in June 1878 in Deutsche Monats-