JF Ptak Science Books  Quick Post

This is a minor but very compelling addition to the “History of Lines” series on this blog–an advertisement for Daimler-Benz, reminding people that they not only made automobiles, but also were making contributions to the war effort in the design and production of aircraft engines. The work is labeled “Der Berggeist”, which is “Mountain Spirit”, which in German (and Swiss) folklore is depicted as an old man with a white beard, and then sometimes too (evidently) as a giant, and Mountain Monk, who lived in the mountains and in the mines of mountains. There’s a reference to the Berggeist in the 1980 edition of The German Legends of the Brothers Grimm, vol I, page 317.  We see that the Benz cars and aircraft are making their ways easily around the Mountain Spirit, who at times is depicted as a difficult and contentious entity. 

[The ad appeared in Die Kunst, Monatshefte fuer Freie und Angewandte Kunst, Munchen, October, 1917.]