Karl May Museum

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The Karl May Museum in Radebeul is a museum about the life and work of the writer Karl May . It is located at his last residence, in the Villa Shatterhand ( Karl-May-Straße 5).

Villa "Shatterhand"
"Villa Bärenfett"
Karl-May-Hain and Villa “Shatterhand”, from the tower of the Luther Church.
The Herzsee in the Karl-May-Hain

description

In terms of monument preservation, the museum property is a work of gardening and landscaping . This is where his house, Villa Shatterhand , is located on the original Mays residential property , and Villa Bärenfett , Patty Frank's log cabin, is located in the back of the garden . On the property opposite on the street, the former Mays orchard, there is now the Karl-May-Hain, which is also a listed building .

history

The writer Karl May (1842–1912), who was already living in Lößnitz , bought the finished property on May 16, 1896 to move into it. According to another source, May bought the property at the end of 1895 for 37,300 marks and moved in there on January 14, 1896 with his first wife Emma (1856–1917, divorced in 1903).

As recently as 1896, May had the Villa “Shatterhand.” Written on the street front . In 1897 he bought another piece of land on the opposite side of the street and planted an orchard there.

Karl May's widow Klara (1864–1944), his second wife, had a log house built in 1926 for the Viennese artist Ernst Tobis, who became known under his stage name Patty Frank, in the garden behind the house, the Villa Bärenfett . The Karl May Museum with an Indian exhibition was opened in an extension of the log house in 1928. Patty Frank, as museum curator, kept the museum in the Villa Bärenfett open until his death in 1959 . His wife, who survived him for two years, did the same.

In 1932 the Karl May Association created a memorial grove with watercourses and a heart-shaped water basin in the orchard across the street, and a granite boulder with the inscription "Karl May" and a bronze plaque were erected.

When Klara May died in 1944, the villa became the property of the Karl May Foundation and continued to be used as a residential building.

From 1965 to the Karl May year 1985 it served as a day care center for the Radebeul German Titow secondary school .

Since 1985, the former home of Karl and Klara Mays, the Villa Shatterhand , has also been used as the seat of the museum's biographical department and for study and exhibition purposes in the museum. In 1992 the memorial grove was redesigned into a public park.

From 1960 to 1994 Karl May's study and library as well as objects from the life of the North American Indians collected by Karl May Verlag and a private collector were shown in a Karl May Museum in Bamberg . After the estate was returned to Radebeul, the museum in Bamberg was closed.

In preparation for the Karl May year 2012, the Karl May Museum was rebuilt. In addition to the visitor center, a Karl May adventure trail for children and a house for museum education, the Villa Nscho-chi , were built in the garden . It was inaugurated on March 30, 2012.

In December 2013, Rene Wagner, who had been head of the museum and managing director of the Karl May Foundation for 29 years, was dismissed. The foundation is responsible for the museum. His incumbent successor was the commercial director Claudia Kaulfuß. The main problem was the sharp drop in visitor numbers. At the end of the 1980s, up to 250,000 guests per year could be counted, in 2013 it was only 54,000. In 2017, with 57,000 visitors, slightly more guests came to the exhibition. The museum generates 70 percent of the funds required for its operation itself. On April 1, 2018, the museum specialist and archaeologist Christian Wacker took over the management of the museum in Radebeul. Claudia Kaulfuß should dedicate herself more to commercial tasks in a dual leadership position. A month later, however, Kaulfuß was suddenly dismissed without notice without giving any reasons. It later became clear that she and at least one member of the Foundation Board had signed a general contract for a new museum building. However, this should have been advertised across Europe. The plan for the new building remained current. The costs are expected to be 7.5 million euros, and construction is to start in 2021.

In January 2018, two valuable Indian clay works were presented to the museum.

In May 2020, the museum surprisingly announced the termination of the contract with the managing director Wacker. He had asked for the contract to end on May 31. The successor until further notice was the Lord Mayor of Radebeul Bert Wendsche .

weapons

Silver rifle, bear killer and “Henry Stutzen” (from left) in the Karl May Museum in Radebeul

The three legendary rifles with which Karl May equipped his heroes are exhibited in the Karl May Museum in Radebeul: Winnetou's “Silberbüchse” as well as Old Shatterhands and Kara Ben Nemsi's “Bärentöter” and “Henrystutzen”. May had designed these figures - and with them their weapons - in the 1870s and 1880s without precise knowledge of weapon technology and only subsequently acquired the weapons on display from a gunsmith from Kötzschenbroda after their economic success in the 1890s . Bear killer and silver rifle were specially made. As a “Henrystutzen” - a pure fantasy weapon that never really existed - May bought a Winchester model 1866 rifle with an octagonal barrel.

Henrystutzen

Karl May, Henrystutzen function

The model 1866 Winchester rifle on display has nothing in common with May's description of the "Henrystutzens". In contrast to May's "Henrystutzen", the Henry rifles and their predecessors, the Volcanic rifles, are lever action rifles with a knee joint and a tubular magazine . The only thing in common: A model of the Volcanic rifle has a magazine capacity of 25 rounds like May's Stutzen. The other features sprang from May's imagination: the lock “of a peculiar design”, the “ eccentrically moving ball” as a magazine, automatic reloading after each shot, so idiosyncratic operation that the weapon cannot be used at all without instruction, as well as the status as remaining One of only three produced copies.

Controversy over scalp exhibits

One of the scalps in the museum (2009)

In 2014 it became known that representatives of the Ojibwa Indian people were protesting against the display of 17 scalps . (The display of scalps has been banned in the United States since 1990.) They demand the return of the pieces, especially one that, according to unsecured information from the museum's founder, Patty Frank, could have come from an ojibwa to be buried. The scalps were then brought into the depot ; the required return to the Indian applicants has so far been ruled out, however, as the provenance of the exhibit is unclear. The joint research on the origin - based on a "Letter of Understanding" - has not yet been completed (as of May 2016), the progress is regularly reported in the museum magazine "Der Beobachter an der Elbe".

The Karl May Presentation

On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of his death , the exhibition The Karl May Presentation opened for one year in the western town of Tombstone , which is about 28 km as the crow flies from Radebeul's twin town Sierra Vista . The nearby Apache Spirit Ranch and the Karl May Museum in Radebeul supported the exhibition with numerous exhibits. The loans from Germany were supplemented by original Indian objects such as tomahawks or artfully decorated moccasins. Display boards illustrated Native American lives and revealed how the myths nurtured by movies and books matched reality. The forerunner of the updated exhibition was shown in the same place as early as 2009.

literature

Web links

Commons : Karl-May-Museum Radebeul  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Large district town of Radebeul (ed.): Directory of the cultural monuments of the town of Radebeul . Radebeul May 24, 2012, p. 21 (Last list of monuments published by the city of Radebeul. The Lower Monument Protection Authority, which has been located in the Meißen district since 2012, has not yet published a list of monuments for Radebeul.).
  2. ↑ a b Volker Helas (arrangement): City of Radebeul . Ed .: State Office for Monument Preservation Saxony, Large District Town Radebeul (=  Monument Topography Federal Republic of Germany . Monuments in Saxony ). SAX-Verlag, Beucha 2007, ISBN 978-3-86729-004-3 .
  3. ^ Frank Andert (Red.): Radebeul City Lexicon . Historical manual for the Loessnitz . Published by the Radebeul City Archives. 2nd, slightly changed edition. City archive, Radebeul 2006, ISBN 3-938460-05-9 .
  4. ↑ a b On the history of the Karl May Museum, its Indian collection objects and their presentation ( Memento from December 4, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  5. ↑ Construction progress, future vision, section 1. ( Memento from November 6, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
  6. ↑ Wolf Dieter Liebschner and Ulf Mallek: boss of the Karl May Museum dismissed . In: Saxon newspaper . December 18, 2013 ( paid online [accessed December 19, 2013]).
  7. ↑ Peter Redlich: Karl May Museum has more visitors . In: Saxon newspaper . January 10, 2018 ( online [accessed January 11, 2018]).
  8. ^ Sächsische Zeitung, online edition, January 5, 2018
  9. ↑ New chief for the Karl May Museum
  10. ^ Peter Redlich: Head of the Karl May Museum terminated . In: Saxon newspaper . February 6, 2018 ( online [accessed February 6, 2018]).
  11. ↑ Peter Redlich: Big row around the Karl May Museum . In: Saxon newspaper . May 11, 2020 ( paid online [accessed May 15, 2020]).
  12. ↑ a b Nina Schirmer: Director leaves Karl May Museum . In: Saxon newspaper . May 7, 2020 ( online [accessed May 7, 2020]).
  13. ^ Nina Schirmer: Valuable rarities for the Karl May Museum. In: sz-online.de , January 27, 2018.
  14. ↑ Peter Redlich: First solution to the Karl May crisis . In: Saxon newspaper . May 15, 2020.
  15. ↑ Gerhard Klussmeier, Hainer Plaul: Karl May and his time: images, text, documents: a picture biography , published by Karl May Verlag, 2007, ISBN 978-3-7802-0181-2 , page 283 [1] .
  16. ↑ Karl May: The treasure in the silver lake. Cape. 11, p. 307.
  17. ↑ Karl May: The treasure in the silver lake. Cape. 11, p. 340.
  18. ↑ https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/10/german-museum-karl-may-native-american-scalps
  19. ^ Robin Leipold: On the research status of scalp recovery . In: The Observer on the Elbe, May 2016 ( PDF ( Memento from December 29, 2016 in the Internet Archive )).
  20. ^ Ceremonial opening of the Karl May Museum ( Memento of November 13, 2012 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on June 12, 2012.
  21. ↑ Karl May Museum in Arizona opens on the 100th anniversary of death ( memento of March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on June 12, 2012.
  22. ^ Karl May Museum in Tombstone / Arizona ( March 27, 2012 ) , accessed on June 12, 2012.
  23. ^ German Author Karl May Exhibit at Tombstone Courthouse State Historic Park ( Memento from December 15, 2011 in the Internet Archive ). In: Arizona State Parks, January 8, 2009.

Coordinates: 51 ° 6 ′ 9.7 "  N , 13 ° 40 ′ 24.7"  E