Die Heinzelmännchen (1956)

The cobbler’s children, Anton and Käthe, find a rare flower in the forest that looks like a water lily and floats in a small lake. They fish it out and take it home to show their father. He explains that it is the flower of the Heinzelmännchen, and that it blooms only once every hundred years. As soon as it blooms, the Heinzelmännchen come to people’s homes at night and do all the work there. They keep doing so as long as no one sees them, which is why nobody knows what they actually look like. Meanwhile, the townspeople gather outside the tailor’s house because there is a fire there. Apparently, his wife let the food burn because she had once again been talking for too long. The town captain helps put out the fire and tears his coat in the process. The tailor is to repair it, and the captain leaves it with him overnight. After the night watchman calls out that night has fallen, the town grows quiet. Only the thief Stibitzky is secretly on the move, out to steal. He had managed to sneak into town unnoticed after the town captain had recognized him at the town gate and driven him away. At the bakery, the baker is also heading home and quickly asks Bruno, his baker’s boy, to prepare a few things for the next day. But Bruno would rather climb into the flour bin so he can sleep undisturbed. At the cobbler’s, the children lie in their beds, full of anticipation, already looking forward to the Heinzelmännchen coming to do their homework for them. When the clock tower strikes twelve, the Heinzelmännchen emerge from their hiding places and spread throughout the town. They bake bread and cakes for the baker. For the tailor, they sew aprons and uniforms. At the cobbler’s, they resole every shoe in the workshop and even do Anton’s arithmetic problems. For the carpenter, they plane boards and make wagon wheels and hobbyhorses for the children. The only interruption comes from Stibitzky, who rattles a shutter late at night and then breaks into the carpenter’s workshop. The Heinzelmännchen hide and drive the thief out of the workshop, making him think it is haunted. They do the washerwomen’s laundry, washing, dyeing, mangling, and ironing it. Stibitzky continues his thieving and helps himself to a new pair of shoes from the cobbler’s workshop. He also stuffs a whole sackful of shoes into a sack and climbs out through the window with them. But the clever Heinzelmännchen quickly place a barrel beneath the window, so he climbs into it. They swiftly put the lid on, give it a shove, and the thief rolls in it through half the town. The barrel smashes against the corner of a house, and Stibitzky staggers off in a daze, fleeing when the gendarmes notice him. With secret help from the Heinzelmännchen, the gendarmes catch the thief and put him in jail. When the clock tower strikes five, the Heinzelmännchen withdraw, and the town wakes up. The people are amazed to see what has been done during the night and are delighted. The curious tailor’s wife, however, has just one wish: she wants to watch the Heinzelmännchen at work. Her husband warns her that if she does, the diligent helpers will disappear forever. When the two of them leave the tailor’s workshop, the youngest Heinzelmann crawls out of a cupboard. He had slept through the retreat and now has to figure out how to reach the others without being seen. So he hides in a laundry basket and lets the tailor and his wife carry him up to the attic, where he waits through the night for his friends to appear. As soon as the clock strikes twelve, the little helpers wearing red headscarves set to work industriously, just as they had the night before. But the tailor’s wife cannot overcome her curiosity. She scatters peas on the floor at night and hides behind a curtain. When the Heinzelmännchen enter the tailor’s workshop, they slip on the peas. The noise wakes the tailor. He had warned his wife, and now, as punishment, one of the Heinzelmännchen gives her a long nose and even drives her out of the tailor’s workshop. The townspeople are sad, because the tailor’s wife’s curiosity has caused the Heinzelmännchen to stop doing work for people from then on. But they have learned from this that one should not rely too much on others. One must work hard oneself. “And so, too, it murmurs from the clear waters of the Heinzelmännchen fountain.” In memory of this story, the Heinzelmännchen fountain still stands in the little town today.