Karl Brunner (ethnologist)

Karl Brunner (born August 28, 1863 in Pless ; † September 22, 1938 in Berlin ) was a German folklorist and director of the Museum for German Folk Costumes and Household Crafts, which was integrated as a collection for German folklore at the prehistoric department of the Ethnological Museum in the Royal Museums in Berlin .

Life

Karl Brunner was born on August 28, 1863 in Pless, Upper Silesia, as the son of the district architect FW Brunner. He attended the cathedral school in the Pomeranian village of Kammin and the grammar school in Neuruppin before studying philology , archeology , history and geography in Berlin between 1885 and 1889 . While Brunner worked as a scientific assistant at the prehistoric department of the Museum of Ethnology , he received his doctorate in 1898 from the anthropologist Johannes Ranke in Munich with the thesis The Stone Age Ceramics in the Mark Brandenburg . Brunner later evaluated the questionnaires of the Berlin Society for Anthropology, Ethnology and Prehistory about old ship types.

Exhibition view of the Royal Collection for German Folklore in the Palais Creutz , ca.1910.

When the Museum of German Folk Costumes and Home Crafts was taken over as a collection for German folklore in 1904 by the prehistoric department of the Ethnographic Museum headed by Albert Voss , Brunner took over the management of the folklore department as his assistant. In this function he planned a new arrangement of the collection, which until then had been presented in a rather unsystematic manner in the Palais Creutz . Brunner set up a new tour, which was structured according to landscape aspects, and improved the presentation of the rooms typical of the museum. In the last room, Brunner showed comparative collections, which had been increasingly included in the museum holdings, particularly at the suggestion of the Austrian Museum of Folklore in Vienna. As part of the reorganization of the holdings, Brunner worked his way into the collection: he discovered gaps that he wanted to close through future acquisitions. In addition, Brunner endeavored to subsequently determine the origin of objects from the collection put together for the German ethnographic exhibition at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893.

In the early years of Brunner's directorate, however, the safeguarding of the museum's position was of particular importance, as Wilhelm von Bode had spoken out against the establishment of an open-air museum in Berlin and thus undermined the status of the collection despite its acceptance into the Association of Royal Museums . The status of the collection improved under the new director of the prehistoric department of the Völkerkundemuseum, Carl Schuchhardt , from 1908. In addition, Brunner took part in exhibitions in Berlin with his museum and strengthened the relationship with the Association for Folklore . In order to further increase the reputation of the museum, Brunner turned away from the focus on work tools established by Virchow and made acquisitions in this area rather casually. Instead, after consulting Otto Lehmann , the director of the Altona Museum , he decided to set up a model collection of popular buildings. In the following years, Brunner endeavored to emphasize the scientific nature of the museum by merging further object groups into comparative series. On the occasion of the presentation of the collection for the 25th anniversary of the museum in 1914, he set up two more rooms with comparative rows of objects, and also integrated them into the rooms that were dedicated to the various landscapes. The anniversary also gave Brunner an opportunity to contradict Bode's position and emphasize the importance of the museum for Berlin. The General Management of the Royal Museums took the position that the museum needed better space. However, the course of the war prevented an improvement in the spatial situation.

In the course of his directorate, Brunner worked scientifically on various parts of the collection such as the peasant wooden tools with wax decorations, peasant pottery, rune calendar and the Telgte starvation cloth. For his publication Ostdeutsche Volkskunde he evaluated objects from Brandenburg, Lusatia, Silesia and Pomerania. When Brunner retired from office on October 1, 1928 due to old age, the collection had grown to 30,000 objects, but in spite of funds approved by the Prussian state parliament in 1925 and 1928 it was insufficiently housed. There were no government funds and, apart from the custodian, no scientific staff. Brunner was succeeded by Konrad Hahm , who was to lead the museum into independence in 1935.

literature

Ulrich Steinmann : The development of the Museum for Folklore from 1889 to 1964 , in: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (Hrsg.): 75 years Museum für Volkskunde zu Berlin. 1889-1964. Festschrift. Berlin 1964, pp. 7-48.

Individual evidence

↑ Horst Junker, Horst Wieder, on the staffing of the Museum for Pre- and Early History since 1829. Personnel directory - short biographies - job overview , in: Wilfried Menghin (ed.), The Berlin Museum for Pre- and Early History. Festschrift for the 175th anniversary (Acta Praehistorica et Archaeologica 36/37 (2004/2005)) , Staatliche Museen zu Berlin - Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-88609-907-X , pp. 513-591, 537.
↑ ^a ^b Ulrich Steinmann, The Development of the Museum of Folklore from 1889 to 1964 , in: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (Ed.), 75 Years Museum of Folklore in Berlin. 1889-1964. Festschrift , Berlin 1964, pp. 7–48, 29.
↑ Ulrich Steinmann, The Development of the Museum for Folklore from 1889 to 1964 , in: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (Ed.), 75 Years Museum für Volkskunde zu Berlin. 1889-1964. Festschrift , Berlin 1964, pp. 7–48, 30.
↑ ^a ^b Ulrich Steinmann, The Development of the Museum of Folklore from 1889 to 1964 , in: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (Ed.), 75 Years Museum of Folklore in Berlin. 1889-1964. Festschrift , Berlin 1964, pp. 7–48, 33.
↑ Ulrich Steinmann, The Development of the Museum for Folklore from 1889 to 1964 , in: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (Ed.), 75 Years Museum für Volkskunde zu Berlin. 1889-1964. Festschrift , Berlin 1964, pp. 7-48, 33f.
↑ Ulrich Steinmann, The Development of the Museum for Folklore from 1889 to 1964 , in: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (Ed.), 75 Years Museum für Volkskunde zu Berlin. 1889-1964. Festschrift , Berlin 1964, pp. 7–48, 35.

personal data
SURNAME	Brunner, Karl
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German folklorist, director of the collection for German folklore
DATE OF BIRTH	August 28, 1863
PLACE OF BIRTH	Pleas
DATE OF DEATH	September 22, 1938
Place of death	Berlin

[junker/wieder-1] Horst Junker, Horst Wieder, on the staffing of the Museum for Pre- and Early History since 1829. Personnel directory - short biographies - job overview , in: Wilfried Menghin (ed.), The Berlin Museum for Pre- and Early History. Festschrift for the 175th anniversary (Acta Praehistorica et Archaeologica 36/37 (2004/2005)) , Staatliche Museen zu Berlin - Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-88609-907-X , pp. 513-591, 537.

[steinmann-29-2] Ulrich Steinmann, The Development of the Museum of Folklore from 1889 to 1964 , in: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (Ed.), 75 Years Museum of Folklore in Berlin. 1889-1964. Festschrift , Berlin 1964, pp. 7–48, 29.

[steinmann-30-3] Ulrich Steinmann, The Development of the Museum for Folklore from 1889 to 1964 , in: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (Ed.), 75 Years Museum für Volkskunde zu Berlin. 1889-1964. Festschrift , Berlin 1964, pp. 7–48, 30.

[steinmann-33-4] Ulrich Steinmann, The Development of the Museum of Folklore from 1889 to 1964 , in: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (Ed.), 75 Years Museum of Folklore in Berlin. 1889-1964. Festschrift , Berlin 1964, pp. 7–48, 33.

[steinmann-33f-5] Ulrich Steinmann, The Development of the Museum for Folklore from 1889 to 1964 , in: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (Ed.), 75 Years Museum für Volkskunde zu Berlin. 1889-1964. Festschrift , Berlin 1964, pp. 7-48, 33f.

[steinmann-35-6] Ulrich Steinmann, The Development of the Museum for Folklore from 1889 to 1964 , in: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (Ed.), 75 Years Museum für Volkskunde zu Berlin. 1889-1964. Festschrift , Berlin 1964, pp. 7–48, 35.