How does history become literature? Perhaps it begins with a picture, a letter, a historical figure – and with curiosity about what people might have thought, hoped, and feared beyond the recorded data. In Die Judenfürstin (The Jewish Princess), Ulrich Henze guides his readers into the Münster of 1792 – approaching this world with the unique perspective of an art historian.
Born in Münster in 1954, Henze studied art history, classical archaeology, and journalism in Münster and Cologne. After receiving his doctorate, he initially worked at the University of Münster, later working as a freelance PR consultant and press spokesperson for a major cultural institution in Potsdam. His biography includes academic publications on medieval art history as well as cultural-historical texts and historical novels.
When people become visible behind the dates
Those who view history scientifically work with sources, findings, and historical contexts. Those who want to create a novel from this must also ask another question: What might it have felt like to live in that time?
This is exactly where Henze’s literary approach begins. In an interview with the publisher, he formulates a sentence that sounds almost like a leitmotif of his writing: "History is, after all, always the history of people, and not just a collection of data and dates."
For Die Judenfürstin, this means: the French Revolution remains more than just a world-historical event. Its effects reach as far as Münster, where refugees arrive and old social certainties begin to waver. Enlightenment, religion, antisemitism, and emancipation are not merely described, but rendered tangible through characters and their conflicts.
What an art historian discovers in a portrait
Henze’s working method becomes particularly interesting where his art-historical experience flows directly into his literature. In the author interview, he speaks about the Münster portraitist Johann Christoph Rincklake, whose portraits show him more than just clothing, faces, and social rank. Henze recognizes within them the tensions and transformations of an entire era.
This gaze also shapes his novel. Artworks are not merely decorative settings for a historical scene; they can reveal how a society views itself. For instance, Henze developed the model for the fictional court painter Josef Brinklage from Rincklake. Thus, the path leads directly from the contemplation of historical art into the fictional world of the novel.
Those interested in learning more about the era in which these characters live will find the historical background to the plot in our article on Münster 1792 and the consequences of the French Revolution.
Between historical person and literary freedom
The novel’s main character also leads directly into this unique connection between research and narrative. Amalie von Gallitzin is no invention. The educated princess lived in Münster, maintained an extensive intellectual exchange, and actually received Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in 1792. Henze develops his fictional story around these historical facts.
This includes Jakob Löw, a young Jew who wants to reach France. Above all, it includes the rumor that Gallitzin is hiding him from the authorities – the very slander that triggers the novel's central conflict. The historical framework does not act as a shackle for the narrative; rather, it provides it with a resonance chamber.
History needs atmosphere
A carefully researched historical novel does not succeed solely because the dates and settings are correct. A past world must emerge before the mind's eye. People must talk to each other, make decisions, commit errors, and sometimes be amusing. In the interview, Henze explicitly emphasizes that for him, depicting an era also requires "a pinch of humor."
This is a refreshing attitude toward historical storytelling. It prevents history from being either trivialized or reduced to mere costume. It gains everyday life, contradiction, and human intimacy. This is precisely the potential of historical literature: it can not only explain an era but also make it inhabitable for a few hundred pages.
With Dr. Ulrich Henze, two ways of seeing meet: the precise observation of the art historian and the imagination of the novelist. In Die Judenfürstin, he combines both into a journey to the Münster of 1792 – to the people, images, and conflicts of an era that only becomes truly interesting when the stories behind the history become visible.
The book is available in German language as a printed paperback edition (ISBN 978-3-910347-93-9) and as an EPUB (ISBN 978-3-910347-94-6) at bookstores or here in the publisher’s shop.
