Towards a Legal History of Heinrich Heine's Baptism

On 28 June 1825, in the Prussian town of Heiligenstadt, a young law student – a Jew – opened his mouth and took an oath. He recited the relevant creed, was brought to some water, and was pronounced baptised. Harry became Heinrich – Heinrich Heine. Little has been made of the legal dimensions of Heine’s conversion.  To acquire this, through a ritual Heine would create a new self, one which exited Jewish law and entered into German Recht ("Right" or "Law"). In this paper, I contend that what brought Heine into this act of conversion was his way of thinking about law: specifically, its liturgical and philosophical dimensions. I wish to propose that Heine saw the Bürgerrecht (bourgeois-Right or "law") that he gained access to in converting as comprised of both a spiritual Recht and a literary Recht.