Theodor Kohlmann

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Theodor Kohlmann

Theodor Kohlmann (born June 9, 1932 in Oldenburg ; † August 9, 2011 in Soest ) was a German folklorist and director of the "Museum for German Folklore " in Berlin (today: " Museum of European Cultures - State Museums in Berlin").

Life

After studying classical philology, archeology and folklore in Göttingen and Tübingen, he received his doctorate in Tübingen with a thesis on the tin foundry trade in Lower Saxony.

From 1962 he was a research assistant at the Lower Saxony open-air museum Museumsdorf Cloppenburg and worked together with Helmut Ottenjann .

In 1969 he joined the then Museum for German Folklore of the State Museums Foundation of Prussian Cultural Heritage . Together with his family he moved to Berlin and took over the management of this house in 1974 after Lothar Pretzell left the company. The first years of his tenure were determined by the move from the long-term provisional facility in Lichterfelde to his own building in Dahlem and the construction of a permanent exhibition, which he was able to present to the public on the occasion of the opening of the museum in April 1976. With the opening exhibition of pictures from the collection of the Berlin director Robert Adolf Stemmle , he also presented a significant purchase that followed on from an old collecting tradition of the house.

With the turn to everyday culture in the late 1970s, he followed the scientific reorientation of the subject and thus determined the collection concept of the Berlin Museum as a central museum facility in the following years. He paid particular attention to building up a collection of picture sheets and popular wall decorations, which with around 100,000 sheets today is one of the most important of its kind in Germany. With his later acquisitions of picture sheets and popular wall decorations of European provenance, he laid the foundation for the expansion of today's museum concept.

In 1993 he was able to integrate the collection “The Gospel in the Apartments of the Nations” by Gertrud Weinhold, which had already been secured for the museum by his predecessor, into the museum after her death. It thus received an important increase in holdings from the field of religious folklore, which reached far beyond the German-speaking area.

Under Theodor Kohlmann's direction, the museum presented important parts of its holdings to the public with over 50 special exhibitions and important accompanying publications on folklore and everyday culture. As 2nd chairman of the German Society for Folklore and as a member of the Commission for East German Folklore and the Folklore Commission of the Regional Association of Westphalia-Lippe , Theodor Kohlmann was involved in the discussions of the subject of folklore. He underscored the role of the Museum for German Folklore in Berlin as a central collection and research facility by hosting the Conference of Museums of Cultural History in the German Society for Folklore on Everyday Culture of the Last 100 Years in 1978 and the 24th German Folklore Congress in 1983.

After reunification and the subsequent amalgamation of the Berlin museums, Theodor Kohlmann became the first director of the reunified house, which at that time operated as the Museum of Folklore and had a total of around 200,000 objects. He retired on June 30, 1994. He was succeeded by Erika Karasek . Subsequently, the house - Museum of European Cultures - State Museums in Berlin / Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation - was headed by Konrad Vanja until the end of 2012 . Elisabeth Tietmeyer has been running the house since January 1, 2013 .

Memberships

Fonts

  • Pewter foundry and pewter equipment in Oldenburg, East Friesland and Osnabrück from 1600–1900. Otto Schwartz & Co., Göttingen 1972.
  • Old tin from western Lower Saxony. Museumsdorf Cloppenburg Collection , 1972.
  • Who is playing? Board games on picture sheets. Museum for German Folklore, Staatl. Museums Preuss. Kulturbesitz, Berlin 1978.
  • with Sigmar Radau: The Prussian Image, studies for playing cards. Berlin 1978.
  • The image of the farmer: ideas and reality. Museum for German Folklore, Staatl. Museums Preuss. Kulturbesitz, Berlin 1978.
  • Lay painters from Germany and Austria. Museum for German Folklore, Staatl. Museums Preuss. Kulturbesitz, Berlin 1979
  • Editor: The masterpieces from the Museum for German Folklore Berlin, State Museums Preuss. Cultural property. Belser, Stuttgart / Zurich 1980, ISBN 3-7630-2014-4 .
  • with Heidi Müller: The masterpieces from the Museum für Deutsche Volkskunde Berlin, Staatliche Museen Preuss. Cultural property. Belser Art Library Stuttgart, Zurich 1980, ISBN 3-7630-2014-4 .
  • Edited: Neuruppiner Bilderbogen. Museum for German Folklore, Staatl. Museums Preuss. Kulturbesitz, Berlin 1981, ISBN 3-88609-053-1 .
  • Editor: Sad Fates of Love: Moritat Tables. Harenberg, Dortmund 1982, ISBN 3-88379-329-9 .
  • with Sigmar Radau and Stefan Schlede: Jack, Queen, King: Old playing cards from Berlin museum and private collections. Museum for German Folklore, Staatl. Museums Preuss. Kulturbesitz, Berlin 1982, ISBN 3-88609-100-7 .
  • Berlin playing cards. Association of Friends of the Museum for German Folklore, Staatl. Museums Preuss. Kulturbesitz, Berlin 1984, ISBN 3-924084-01-7 .
  • with Sabine Schachtner: primers, primers ... German primers of the past. Museum for German Folklore, Staatl. Museums Preuss. Kulturbesitz, Berlin 1988.
  • with Karin Göbel, Heidi Müller and Konrad Vanja : Watched for. Earrings from town and country from classicism to the new youth culture. Exhibition Museum for German Folklore SMPK, Berlin. Reimer, Berlin 1989, ISBN 3-496-01068-1 .
  • Model engravers, letter painters, illuminists and map painters. In: Reinhold Reith (Hrsg.): Lexikon des alten Handwerks. CH Beck, Munich 1990, ISBN 3-406-34470-4 , pp. 164-167.
  • From the collection: toys. Museum for German Folklore, Staatl. Museums Preuss. Kulturbesitz, Berlin 1991.
  • with Angelika Iwitzki and Irene Ziehe: European struggles for freedom, the strange year 1848. A new picture newspaper from Gustav Kühn in Neuruppin. Reimer, Berlin 1994, ISBN 3-496-01115-7 .
  • Editor - with Heike Müns : Yearbook for East German Folklore - Volume 38 / 1995. Verlag NG Elwert, Marburg 1995, ISBN 3-7708-1077-5 .
  • Editor - with Heike Müns : Yearbook for East German Folklore - Volume 39 / 1996. Verl. NG Elwert, Marburg 1996, ISBN 3-7708-1077-5 .
  • The big world in small pictures: Berlin picture sheets from two centuries. Stadtmuseum Berlin Foundation, 1999, ISBN 3-910029-23-X .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Kohlmann, Theodor
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German folklorist and museum director
DATE OF BIRTH June 9, 1932
PLACE OF BIRTH Oldenburg
DATE OF DEATH August 9, 2011
Place of death Soest