Ulrich Steinmann

Hans Ulrich Steinmann (born November 4, 1906 in Hagenow ; † 1983 ) was a German folklorist . From 1955 to 1971 he headed the Museum of Folklore in East Berlin .

Life

Ulrich Steinmann was born as the son of the lawyer, organist and choir director Adolf Steinmann (1858–1945). The art historian Ernst Steinmann was his uncle.

Steinmann studied history, historical auxiliary sciences and folklore at the universities of Rostock , Munich and Marburg . In 1931 he received his doctorate with a thesis on Low German mill songs. In the following year Steinmann passed the examination for the higher teaching post in Rostock for the subjects history, German, Low German and ethnology. He then began his professional career as a librarian at various academic libraries. From 1948 Steinmann worked at the Gotha Research Library , where he also got to know the work on exhibition projects . When the Gotha Museum was built in 1951, he was involved in the work. In 1952 he worked on plans for a farmer's museum in Bad Frankenhausen .

In 1953 Steinmann moved to Berlin, where he was involved in the preparation of the Peasants' War exhibition at the Museum of German History . Following this activity, he applied in 1954 for the newly approved position of a research assistant at the Museum of German Folk Art , which included the folklore collection of the National Museums in Berlin. The former State Museum for German Folklore had been in an unclear situation since 1948, the continuation of the museum activity was questionable, a relocation to Leipzig was a possibility. Ludwig Justi, as general director of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, campaigned for the collection, which was able to record increases in its holdings despite the lack of management. In 1955 Steinmann took over the management of the museum. In this role he rebuilt the collection and prepared the reopening of the museum on June 25, 1957 in 16 rooms on the upper floor in the north wing of the Pergamon Museum . Taking into account the incomplete collection, the first list followed traditional concepts with the order according to technological, thematic and predominantly landscape aspects. As early as autumn of the following year, the holdings of the Folk Art Museum were put back into storage when the Soviet Union returned parts of the art and cultural goods looted after the end of the Second World War to the GDR. Objects from the former Museum of German Folklore were also in this bundle. As a result, Steinmann was able to present his museum, which has been called the Museum für Volkskunde again since 1958, in a room on the ground floor of the Pergamon Museum under limited spatial conditions.

In the early 1960s, as part of the restructuring of agriculture, the museum ran a new collection campaign together with the Institute for Folklore of the Academy of Sciences of the GDR in Brandenburg, Mecklenburg, Thuringia and Saxony. On the occasion of its 75th anniversary, Steinmann showed the objects that got into the museum in a special exhibition. They should be made permanently accessible to the public in a branch. Steinmann cooperated with the local history museum in Wandlitz , in the vicinity of which a barn was rented in 1966, in which the study collection of agricultural implements was presented from 1967. A study collection on fishing was subsequently shown in a neighboring barn. Steinmann also expanded the collection again in the spirit of Rudolf Virchow . The increase in the collection made the museum's lack of space worse, which is why various solutions were considered over the course of the 1960s. In 1960 Steinmann assumed that he would be able to set up a village open-air museum in Berlin, thus picking up on an old idea for his museum. With this plan in mind, he acquired entire workshop facilities for the museum. Various uses of historical building fabric for the museum were contemplated, but not implemented by the end of Steinmann's term of office. In connection with these considerations, which often had a direct influence on the content of the intended exhibition situation, the collection profile was increasingly expanded with regard to the working population of the big city, which also corresponded ideologically with the ideas of the GDR. In November 1971 Steinmann resigned as director of the Museum of Folklore in East Berlin. After a one-year transition phase , Wolfgang Jacobeit succeeded him.

Publications

• The Middle Low German mill song. An allegorical representation of the fair trade from the 15th century , Wachholtz, Hamburg 1931.
• Ernst Steinmann , Hinstorff, Rostock 1935.
• On the exhibition of the Museum für Volkskunde in Berlin: "Textile art in traditional folk culture. With the traditional costumes and folk textiles handed over by the Soviet Union" , in: Deutsches Jahrbuch für Volkskunde (1960), pp. 439–442.
• The resistance fighter Adolf Reichwein, a practitioner of museum education , Seemann, Leipzig 1961.
• Lucas Cranach's marriage and the year of birth of his son Hans , in: Research and Reports, Vol. 11 (1968), pp. 124-134.
• Some notes on James Simon , East and West Library, London 1968.
• The picture decorations of the collegiate church in Halle. Cranach's Passion Cycle and Grünewald's Erasmus Mauritous panel , in: Research and Reports, Vol. 11 (1968), pp. 69-104.
• Die Klimperküle from Brandenburg , in: Research and Reports, Vol. 13 (1971), pp. 198-202.

literature

• Erika Karasek : A Century of Commitment to Folklore 1889–1989 , in: Museum für Volkskunde (Hrsg.): Clothing between costume and fashion. From the history of the museum 1889–1989 , Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Berlin 1989, pp. 5–48.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Erika Karasek, A Century of Commitment to Folklore 1889-1989 , in: Museum for Folklore (Ed.), Clothing Between Tracht and Mode. From the history of the museum 1889-1989 , Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Berlin 1989, pp. 5–48, here: p. 18.
2. ↑ ^{a b} Erika Karasek, A Century of Commitment to Folklore 1889-1989 , in: Museum for Folklore (Ed.), Clothing Between Tracht and Mode. From the history of the museum 1889-1989 , Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Berlin 1989, pp. 5–48, here: p. 19.
3. ↑ Erika Karasek, A Century of Commitment to Folklore 1889-1989 , in: Museum for Folklore (Hrsg.), Clothing between costume and fashion. From the history of the museum 1889-1989 , Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Berlin 1989, pp. 5–48, here: pp. 20 and 21.
4. ↑ Erika Karasek, A Century of Commitment to Folklore 1889-1989 , in: Museum for Folklore (Hrsg.), Clothing between costume and fashion. From the history of the museum 1889-1989 , Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Berlin 1989, pp. 5–48, here: pp. 22 and 23.
5. ↑ Erika Karasek, A Century of Commitment to Folklore 1889-1989 , in: Museum for Folklore (Hrsg.), Clothing between costume and fashion. From the history of the museum 1889-1989 , Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Berlin 1989, pp. 5–48, here: p. 23.

Web links

• Literature about Ulrich Steinmann in the state bibliography MV
• Works by Ulrich Steinmann in the state bibliography MV