The Book of Minutes of the “Crocodiles”

The book of minutes of the "crocodiles" (1857-1866) presented here comes from the estate of Oskar Horn (1841-1908). Horn long served as secretary, accountant and treasurer for the "crocodiles". From 1862 the "crocodiles" regulated the admission of new members and the introduction of guests in a statute. In addition to the book of minutes, the accounting book (1858-1869) of the Munich poets' society has also been preserved.

On page 28r of the book of minutes 32 members are listed for the year 1863. On average, eight to ten participants were present according to the entries in the minutes. The course of the meetings was first recorded "on loose sheets, so called 'Lotosblättern', […] which occasionally were even graphically encoded as rebuses with hieroglyphs and Greek letters. The two preserved Lotosblätter are by the hand of Julius Grosse [1828-1902] and were recorded in early 1857, his successor Sigmund Lichtenstein [1822-1881] instead turned the minutes into sonetts and ghazals. The Lotosblätter were later pasted into the book of minutes, which also bore the crocodile symbol similar to hieroglyphsdas, but contained otherwise less formal and more sober minutes." (Michail Krausnick, Paul Heyse und der Münchener Dichterkreis, 1974).

To the digitised copy