Wilhelm Kutter

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Wilhelm Kutter (born September 16, 1905 in Ulm , † May 11, 1980 in Stuttgart ) was a German radio journalist and Fastnacht researcher. Through his broadcasts and writings as well as his work as a functionary of the Association of Swabian-Alemannic Fools' Guilds (VSAN), he exerted great influence on the shape of the Swabian-Alemannic Carnival .

life and work

Kutter initially studied electrical engineering for a few semesters in Stuttgart, but then switched to the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich to study German and theater studies . As a student he attended traditional demonstrations and folk plays in the Alpine region with Professor Artur Kutscher . He later described himself as a "latent folklorist". Two semesters in Cologne and one semester in Berlin followed.

After a year as a director at the theater in Stendal in 1929 and the direction of the Reformation Festival in 1930 in Ulm, he worked as a feature editor of the "Neu-Ulmer Anzeiger". In 1934 he was again engaged as a director, this time at the Würzburg Theater, before he began working as an editor for the Süddeutscher Rundfunk (later Reichssender Stuttgart) in 1935 . In 1936 he was permanently employed there in the entertainment department and was mainly responsible for folk music. During the Second World War he was a war correspondent in a German propaganda company in France and Russia.

Although Kutter was not a member of the NSDAP, after the end of the war he had to wait until 1948 until he was able to return to work as a former radio employee at Süddeutscher Rundfunk. From 1955 until his retirement in 1970 he was the head of the folklore and regional studies department of this station and also oversaw numerous programs on Carnival.

In 1957 he became an advisor to the VSAN admission committee, and from 1959 as the association's "cultural advisor". From the 1960s onwards he collected data on the local Carnival in Baden-Württemberg in a large questionnaire. During this time he created the division of the Swabian-Alemannic carnival into eight carnival landscapes, which was also officially adopted by the VSAN in 1964. The names of some types of fools also come from Kutter, including the “ white fool ”.

In 1970, VSAN entrusted Kutter with the establishment of the Narrenschopf Carnival Museum in Bad Dürrheim . The permanent exhibition opened in 1973, the detailed and richly illustrated guide to the exhibition and the large book on Carnival that appeared shortly afterwards crowned his life's work. In 1978 he resigned from his office in the VSAN after disagreements with guild representatives. His successor was Jürgen Hohl . In 1980 Kutter died in Stuttgart. His estate is kept in the Württemberg State Museum .

reception

Kutter's extensive book on the Swabian-Alemannic Carnival was the first standard work on the subject and recorded over 350 fools guilds in more than 300 locations. The work, published in 1976 in an edition of 30,000 copies, developed a strong impact in southwest Germany, as the fool figures, often presented here to the general public for the first time, served as models for numerous newly founded fools' guilds and their mask carvers. Kutter's remarks on the history of Carnival are now considered outdated, as he, like most folklorists of his generation, adhered to the illusion of a continuity of pagan winter expulsion customs to today's Carnival in the tradition of the folk-influenced folklore of Hermann Eris Busses and about the probably exclusively Christian origin of the Mardi Gras ignored. It is due to the wide distribution of Kutter's book and his many years of activity in the committees of the VSAN that Kutter's view of Carnival is still occasionally spread today in publications by fools' guilds, in tourism advertising and by local researchers, although the folklore specialist literature and also the they have unanimously rejected official VSAN publications since the 1990s at the latest.

Fonts

  • Landscapes and figures of the Swabian-Alemannic carnival. Fixed contribution to the big fools meeting in Offenburg in 1964 . City of Offenburg, Offenburg 1964 (76 pages)
  • Swabian-Alemannic mask figures. Guide through the fool's head in Bad Dürrheim . VSAN, Bad Dürrheim 1975 (156 pages)
  • Swabian-Alemannic carnival . With the collaboration of Frieder Knauss. Sigloch, Künzelsau et al. 1976 (219 pages)
  • numerous forewords and essays in festival publications on the subject of Carnival

literature

  • Norbert Blümcke: Wilhelm Kutter - the association's “cultural advisor”. Researcher and promoter of the Swabian-Alemannic Carnival - father of the fool's head . In: Association of Swabian-Alemannic fools' guilds (ed.): On the history of organized carnival . Doldverlag, Vöhrenbach 1999, ISBN 3-927677-17-5 , pp. 127-131
  • Otto Heuschele: A life for home (obituary). In: Leaves of the Swabian Alb Association . 86th year 1980, p. 179 f.

Individual evidence

  1. a b c d e f g Norbert Blümcke, 1999, see literature
  2. nachlassdatenbank.de
  3. Description in the VSAN shop