110 Fontane Blätter 104 Literaturgeschichtliches, Interpretationen, Kontexte Prussia, what Grawe called an Anti-Prussia, in America. 76 There the happi­ness could be found that could not exist in Prussia. Nogat-Ehre is Fontane´s caricature of Wildenbruch and Bismarck´s wanted poster of imperial ene­mies. Lehnert discovered the reason for the happiness of this happy family. »Er sah kein Regieren und einfach ein Geist der Ordnung und Liebe sorgte dafür, daß alles nach Art eines Uhrwerks ging.» 77 In the original manu­script Fontane wrote after Regieren»und Befehle wurden kaum gegeben.« He later deleted that phrase. 78 The governing of Nogat-Ehre was certainly different than in Prussia, but he did not want to blow his cover by overem­phasizing that fact. After depicting this strange and peaceful Hornbostel household, he compared it to the display cage he had seen in San Francisco with a dog and rabbit, stork and snake, and the label»Happy Family«.»Sann er dann aber weiter nach, wodurch dies Wunder bewirkt werde, so fand er keine andere Erklärung als den ›Hausgeist‹, als Obadja, der das Friedensevan­gelium nicht bloß predigte, sondern in seiner Erscheinung und in seinem Thun auch verkörperte.« 79 Would it have been possible to sing such a hymn of praise to the gospel of peace that did not include military service in Prus­sia at that time? Only after regaining an understanding of the history of Prussian Men­nonites can we fully understand Fontane´s choice for a Mennonite village in America. In Kulturkampf Germany a story of tension between religion and nation could have been of great interest. Because this particular group raised this fundamental question of German social order in the new em­pire without the negative baggage of being labeled an imperial enemy, ­Fontane could use Mennonites to carry his own criticism of a mindless, boundless xenophobia and narrow-minded nationalism. In Quitt Fontane created a literary space in which readers could consid­er how key elements of Prussian and German society fit together or clashed. Tolerance and diversity on one hand, militarism and order on the other, freedom or submission, Verstand or Kadavergehorsam. 80 Since he could not or would not talk about these issues directly, he developed a mirror­image Germany in America, a tactic that was common and well-under­stood by readers at that time because the cultural sphere of Germany was so clearly larger than the borders of Imperial Germany. In this endeavor the point, of course, was not utopian but to compare, to stimulate thinking and wonder. There were tensions and problems in both settings, pros and cons. Weighing the options was important, not success, victory, or service and duty no matter what. If we keep this goal in mind as we reconsider the place of Quitt in Fontane´s body of work, knowing with how much care Fontane researched virtually every element in his America and how deeply grounded Lehnert´s flight to the Mennonites was, we might find that