Cincinnati Occasional Papers in German-American Studies
No. 6, 2005
The Germanic Museum and Its Creator
By Don Heinrich Tolzmann
Edited by Jerry Glenn and Anna Heran
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The Germanic Museum and Its Creator
During a visit to Boston, I took the time to look up what had once been the Germanic Museum, now the Busch-Reisinger Museum, which had been founded at Harvard University by Kuno Francke before World War I. Few today are probably even aware that there ever was such an institution known as the Germanic Museum, or would know who Kuno Francke was. However, his story and that of the museum he established illuminate an important chapter in the history of German-American relations in general, and of the endeavors at transmitting German culture in America in particular.
Kuno Francke (1855-1930), Professor of the History of German Culture at Harvard, played an important role in his time as the foremost German-American cultural ambassador. Born at Kiel, Schleswig-Holstein, he took his Ph.D. from the University of Munich and then assisted in editing the series of publications on German history, Monumenta Germaniae Historica. In 1884, he came to Harvard where he began offering courses on German literature, art, and thought. Known for his eloquent oratorical skills, he soon attracted a sizable following of students. According to Thomas Haeussler, “contemporary America impressed him as comparable to that estimable age [peaceful eighteenth-century Europe] and seemed extraordinarily tranquil, well balanced, and potent in comparison with the now-troubled continent.”1
In 1897, he and two other colleagues in the German Department published a pamphlet containing a programmatic statement on The Need of a Germanic Museum at Harvard. This affirmed that: “it is a principle now generally accepted that a nation’s history cannot be studied adequately without a consideration of its achievements in the monumental and domestic arts. Nowhere does the spirit of a people manifest itself more clearly and impressively than in the buildings devoted to public worship or public deliberations, in the images embodying the popular conception of sacred legend or national tradition, in the appliances for private comfort and security.”2
The statement also noted that there were, indeed, a variety of museums: “But nowhere in this country is there a chance of studying consecutively even the most important monuments of Germanic civilization. Nowhere in this country can the student obtain a vivid impression of the life and customs of our forefathers, from early Teutonic times to the later Middle Ages, such as is afforded by the Germanisches Museum at Nuremberg and other European locations. Nowhere can be given an accurate conception of the wonderful Romanesque cathedrals of the twelfth century, of the extraordinary power of German sculpture in the thirteenth, of the exquisite works of German wood-carving in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries – or even of the work of such great men as Peter Vischer and Albrecht Duerer.”3
The report went on to recommend the establishment of a Germanic Museum at Harvard and noted that: “It would be the first attempt to bring before the eyes of the American students a picture of early European and medieval civilization. It would, at the same time, be a worthy monument to the genius of a people which has had a large part in shaping the ideals of modern life and which has given to this country millions of devoted citizens.”4
In 1902, during his visit at Cambridge, where he received an honorary degree, Prince Henry of Prussia announced that his brother, Kaiser Wilhelm II, would make “a magnificent gift to the Germanic Museum, which will include key monuments in the development of German sculpture.”5 In 1903, the Museum was formally dedicated with Francke as curator. With the Germanic Museum Francke sought a visual medium to supplement his classes and publications on German culture, inasmuch as he felt they would both complement one another, and both were necessary for an appreciation and understanding of German culture in its entirety.
To further enhance German-American cultural exchange, Francke helped establish the professorial exchange program between Germany and the U.S. in 1905, which enabled universities to establish exchange programs with one another. By the time of the First World War, Harvard alone had exchanged nine professors to Germany and had received eight from Germany. The idea behind the exchange programs was two-fold on the part of Francke. First, it would support German-American aspirations to strengthen the ties between Germany and America, and, second, it would support the Museum by institutionalizing relations between scholars and universities in both countries. Francke, therefore, appealed to, and drew support form the German-American, as well as from the academic communities.
The Germanic Museum and the exchange program contributed not only to German-American relations, but had some immediate as well as far-reaching spin-off developments, some of which directly relate to the field of German-American Studies. First, as a direct counterpart to the Museum, the American Institute was founded in Berlin in 1911, with Hugo Muensterberg, a colleague of Francke’s at Harvard, as the honorary director.6 Its tasks were to serve as a clearinghouse in Germany for publications from the U.S., and also to select German publications for distribution in the U.S. Additionally it served as a general information office for matters relating to the U.S. Finally, it assisted students and scholars in both countries who were interested in study and research in either country.
The other intent was that a Germanic museum in the U.S. might cause additional German houses and institutes to emerge at other colleges and universities throughout the country, which would promote German and German-American Studies. A colleague of Francke’s, Julius Goebel, who came to Harvard in 1905, first articulated this idea.7 Thereafter, Goebel was called as chair of the German Department of the University of Illinois-Urbana, and served as editor of the Journal of English and Germanic Philology and of the journal Deutsch-Amerikanische Geschichtsblaetter, published by the German-American Historical Society of Illinois.
Goebel proposed that German cultural institutes be established based on the model of the Germanic Museum, and which would serve as centers of teaching, research, and exchange in the spirit of the programs fostered by Francke. Such proposals led to the founding of the Deutsches Haus at Columbia University in 1911, as well as similar houses elsewhere, some of which also included libraries. Later on, Heinz Kloss refined the concept and proposed the establishment of German-American research institutes in the 1930s.8 However, it would not be until much later in the twentieth century that centers, institutes, and library collections devoted to German-American Studies would be created. However, the germ seed for the realities of today goes back ultimately via Goebel to Francke.
Essentially, Francke was a cultural historian who taught from the perspective of Kulturgeschichte. He noted in his History of German Literature that he examined German Literature “from the point of view of the student of civilization rather than from that of a linguistic or the literary scholar.” His research and historical studies led him “to see in literature primarily the working of popular forces, to consider it chiefly as an expression of national culture.”9 Haeussler noted that Francke’s history of German literature “was characterized by its efforts to integrate historical and aesthetic experience into a coherent pattern of cultural illuminating symbols and concepts,” and that “while there was no dearth of works treating German literature from a linguistic or literary perspective, there was a decided need for a work which provided a coherent account of the dynamic and dialectically profound interrelation of German cultural production and sociopolitical experience.”10
According to the Dictionary of American Biography, his scholarship “was wide and accurate and illuminated by a poetic idealism and a broad humanity, but his originality lies in his grasp of the principle that literary history is inseparable from the general history of culture.”11 Francke considered his works on the history of German literatures as “a coherent account of the great intellectual movements of German life as expressed in literature.” He believed that his work “should trace the history of the German people in the works of its thinkers and poets.”12 No doubt Francke judged art from the same perspective, i.e., that it projected the historical experience of a people by means of its artists.
In 1906, the Emperor William Fund was established in honor of the Kaiser’s silver wedding anniversary (Wilhelm II, born 27 January 1859 in Berlin, died 5 June 1941 at Door in the Netherlands; married Augusta Viktoria [1858-1921], Duchess of Schleswig-Holstein, in 1881; seven children [six sons; one daughter]).13 This fund amounted to a gift of $30,000 donated by the American Friends of the Germanic Museum, and Adolphus Busch, the well-known German-American brewer of St. Louis, who became president of the Germanic Museum Association. Four years later in 1910, Busch donated an additional $265,000 for the construction of a new building for the Museum, The Adolphus Busch Hall. And in 1913, Hugo Reisinger, the son-in-law of Busch, bequeathed $50,000 to the Museum–hence, the close association of the names Busch and Reisinger with the Museum.14
While establishing the Museum, Francke also edited the landmark multi-volume work German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: Masterpieces of German Literature (1913-14), a work that still stands as a classic in the field.15 However, adverse, external events intervened with the advent of World War I, which affected the German-American heritage drastically. Francke bravely rose to its defense in numerous articles, addresses, and publications, but especially in two books: A German-American’s Confession of Faith (1915) and The German Spirit (1916).16 In the former he wrote: “I, too, hope for a stronger assertion of German individuality in American politics as a result of this war. . . . But I hope this stronger assertion of German individuality will consist in a larger Americanism. Germans have often reproached their fellow citizens of other stocks for considering them a kind of second class American. And it must be admitted that they have often allowed themselves in public affairs, through a certain lack of civic initiative, to be pushed unduly into the background.”17
Due to the rising anti-German sentiment and hysteria, Francke resigned his professorship and moved to the country, but retained his honorary position as Curator of the Germanic Museum, which was then closed indefinitely. Nevertheless, Francke “bore himself with perfect dignity and sanity, submitting to vehement denunciation from all sides, to spying and letter-opening, and to ostracism by men who had been his friends for years. It was characteristic of him that he wrote his reminiscences of this period without bitterness and without pride.”18
Three years after the end of the war, the Germanic Museum opened again in 1921 with the dedication of the new Adolphus Busch Hall. A magnificent structure, it bears the symbolic, but ever so true inscription: “Es ist der Geist, der sich den Koerper baut.” (It is the spirit that builds itself the body). This spirit gave expression to the vision of Francke that the Germanic Museum should become the vehicle for visually explaining the German cultural heritage, and it was this spirit that Francke felt should provide the basis for, and inform the mission of the Museum.
In 1925, Francke published another in a series of guides to the Museum, Handbook of the Germanic Museum, and in 1927 published a post-war collection of his thoughts on the times, German After-War Problems.19 Here he wrote what he considered it to be “the paramount duties of German-Americans, as heirs and guardians of German culture in this country.” Francke commented sagely: “It seems to me clear that these tasks to not lie in the pursuit of group politics.” He advocated focusing on the best in German character, which he identified as: “independence of personality, depth of conviction, freedom from prejudice, earnestness of intellectual effort, breadth of view, spiritual striving, just appreciation of cultural values.”20
And, Francke wisely concluded: “Let us cultivate, each in his own way, these precious legacies of our Old World ancestry. Let us, like Carl Schurz, take our stand by the side of our fellow citizens of other descent as fully rounded personalities, bent on high achievements; let us take part in all matters concerning the political, intellectual, moral, social, and artistic elevation of the masses; in other words, let us make use of the best of German culture in the service and for the benefit of the our new fatherland. Through such a forward-looking attitude we shall win genuine respect for the German character among our fellow citizens. And, above all, we shall in ever-increasing measure be in the front frank of those who are creating what is sacred to us all: the ideal America of the future.”21
Before the great stock market crash of 1929, an endowment ($150,000) was established for a Kuno Francke Professorship of German Art and Sculpture, which is a chair that continues to the present time in Harvard’s Germanic Languages and Literatures Department. Among Francke’s publications completed after World War I, his autobiography, Deutsche Arbeit in Amerika: Erinnerungen (1930), is especially interesting in illuminating how he viewed his role as that of a German-American cultural ambassador. By this time, Francke “again enjoyed public regard as the most distinguished Germanist in America.”22 Before his death in 1930, Francke could look back on a lifelong series of accomplishments at the center of which stood the Germanic Museum. To this endeavor of establishing and building, he clearly had devoted his life. Fortunately, it has survived not only the oppressive times of World War I, but also the brutality of World War II and the vicissitudes of the Cold War. The history of the Museum itself “is, above all, a story of the triumph of artistic expression over the hatreds spawned by two world wars.”23
During Second World War the Germanic Museum was closed for a second time as a result of anti-German sentiment, and the artworks and library were moved to the Fogg Art Museum. Adolphus Busch Hall was taken over by the U.S. Army Chaplain School, and the Biggs organ concerts were broadcast from the building as well until 1958.
After the Second World War, the daughter of Adolphus Busch and widow of Hugo Reisinger donated $205,000 to Harvard to help re-establish the Museum. Although the Museum survived the war, its name was changed reflecting the evolution of the Zeitgeist. In 1950, its name was changed to the Busch-Reisinger Museum of Germanic Culture in recognition of the support that had come from the Busch and Reisinger families in the past. The name-change announcement did, however, also indicate that the Museum would continue to focus on Germany and the German-speaking cultures, exemplified by the current exhibits: “Marcel Breuer: A Special Installation of 1930s Furniture,” “Before Expressionism: Art in Germany circa 1903: An Exhibition for the 100th Anniversary of the Busch-Reisinger Museum,” and “Kandinsky in 1914.”
In 1991, the Museum’s new quarters in the Werner Otto Hall were officially opened to the public. This new building is adjacent to and attached to the Fogg Museum of Art at Harvard. The Museum’s entrance is through a complex that includes the Sackler, Fogg, and Busch-Reisinger museums. Entrance to the latter is found on the second floor by means of a visitor’s guide. References are noted to the Busch-Reisinger Museum, but not to the full official title of the Museum as the Busch-Reisinger Museum for Germanic Culture, nor are there references anywhere to Kuno Francke.
The visitor’s guide contains a floor plan to the building, indicating which rooms have Asian, Islamic, and Indian galleries, but those not familiar with the Busch-Reisinger might not know that its focus is on Germanic culture, as this is not indicated. One would have no idea what its contents might be. Today, rather than a freestanding museum, the Busch-Reisinger appears to form a wing within the framework of a larger general museum of art.
The guide does, however, list highlights of the museums, indicating that the Busch-Reisinger includes “examples of German expressionism, Vienna Secession art, 1920s abstraction, and contemporary art.” Therefore, the visitor is provided with hints to the role of the Museum. Perhaps a more general statement on its purpose might be in order, rather than references to collection highlights, as this would alert the uninformed to what the Museum is all about.
A more specific statement of the purpose of the Museum, as well as signage indicating its relation to Germanic culture, would relate the Museum to Francke’s conception that: “It is a principle now generally accepted that a nation’s history cannot be studied adequately without a consideration of its achievements in the monumental and domestic arts. Nowhere does the spirit of a people manifest itself more clearly and impressively than in the buildings devoted to public worship or public deliberations, in the images embodying the popular conception of sacred legend or national tradition, in the appliances for private comfort and security.”24
However, Harvard press releases for the centennial celebration of the Museum clearly identify the historical background and purpose of the institution, stating that it was “founded as the Germanic Museum by scholar Kuno Francke” that it currently is “the only U.S. museum devoted to promoting the appreciation of art from this area of the world from the Middle Ages to the present,” and that it “grew out of Harvard’s commitment to the study of Germanic culture and a dedication to creating museums that are exceptional interdisciplinary resources.” It also notes that it is “distinguished by its collection, its unparalleled leadership in advancing the appreciation of Germanic art within the United States, and its role in shaping the development of scholars and leaders in the field.” Its curator, Peter Nisbet, commented that the “Museum’s impact on the study and appreciation of the art of German-speaking countries has been unmatched by any other U.S. museum,” and that:
Through its 100 years of vigorous collecting, teaching, and researching art of this culture, the Museum has built a foundation in the United States for the popular appreciation of German art. The Busch-Reisinger Museum has also played a seminal role in shaping the study of art history at Harvard, and, in turn throughout the United States.25
Moreover, the Museum enjoys the support of a European group of patrons, which is unique among American art museums. The Friends of the Busch-Reisinger Museum, or Verein der Freunde des Busch-Reisinger Musuems, was established in 1983, and enjoys a membership from Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and other countries.
After leaving the Museum, the visitor might gaze longingly down to the street to the majestic site of the old Germanic Museum and recall how Francke had once so aptly written that how often things German are all too often simply “pushed unduly into the background.”26 Imbued as he was with the Germanic spirit, Francke had masterly sought to bring Germanic culture into the foreground. In so doing, he aimed to place the study and research of the topic within the same academic framework along with the various other civilizations and cultures. He perceptively noted that there was a gap, and sought to fill it by means of the Museum and his various programs and activities.
If Francke were alive today and could visit Harvard, he would have some difficulty in finding the Germanic Museum, for it is no longer at the site of its original location, and it no longer bears its former name. After having made inquiries, he would no doubt find it at its new location under its new name. Nonetheless, he would most likely rejoice that it had survived and thrived into the 21st century. Indeed, he would have definitely joined in celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Museum, which was marked by an exhibition of German Art, ca. 1903, held at the Museum from October 2003 through February 2004.27
The Museum website indicates that the Museum “is the only museum in America devoted to promoting the informed enjoyment and critical understanding of the arts of central and northern Europe, with a special emphasis on the German-speaking countries.” Also, the site indicates that it has developed into “one of the leading collections of modern art from Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and related cultures.”28
Anyone interested in German culture in America in general, and German Studies and German-American Studies in particular, should visit the Museum, and while there take the time to also visit the Adolphus Busch Hall, which once housed the Germanic Museum. Thereafter, one might also examine the exemplary works of its creator, Kuno Francke, a German-American cultural ambassador par excellence.29
Note: This Occasional Paper is a revised and expanded version of an article that originally appeared in the Society for German-American Studies Newsletter 24:3(2003): 17-20.
1 “Kuno Francke,” Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 71: American Literary Critics and Scholars, 1880-1900, ed. John W. Rathburn and Monica M. Grecu (Farmington Hills: The Gale Group, 1988) pp. 66-70.
2 Peter Nisbet and Emilie Norris, The Busch-Reisinger: History and Holdings (Cambridge: Harvard University Art Museums, 1991), p. 19.
3 Ibid.
4 Ibid, p. 20.
5 Ibid, p. 9.
6 Hugo Muensterberg (1863-1916) was a widely published and influential German-American intellectual of the pre-World War I period, who was attracted to Harvard by William James in 1897. His numerous publications include Aus Deutsch-Amerika (Berlin: Ernst Siegrried Mittler und Sohn, 1909) Tomorrow: Letters to a Friend in Germany (New York: Appleton, 1916).
7 Julius Goebel (1857-1931) came to America in 1881. He taught at Johns Hopkins University and Stanford before coming to Harvard, and was especially well known as the editor of the yearbook of the German-American Historical Society of Illinois. See his Der Kampf um deutsche Kultur in Amerika: Aufsätze und Vorträge zur deutsch-amerikanischen Bewegung (Leipzig: Durr, 1914).
8 See Heinz Kloss, Research Possibilities in the German-American Field, ed. LaVern J. Rippley (Hamburg: Helmut Buske, 1980).
9 Kuno Francke, A History of German Literature as Determined by Social Forces (New York: Holt, 1916), p. v. Although born in 1855, Francke must have been imbued with the spirit of the 1848 Revolution, as he concluded his history: “But the day will come when 1848 will have taken its place in German history by the side of 1813 and 1870 as one of the supreme moments of the nineteenth century. The time will come when the March Revolution, with all its puerile mistakes and lamentable failures, will have been universally recognized as the great national awakening without which even the successes of Imperial Germany would have been impossible,” p. 547.
10“Kuno Francke,” Dictionary of Literary Biography.
11“Kuno Francke,” Dictionary of American Biography Base Set. American Council of Learned Societies, 1928-36. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center (Farmington Hills: The Gale Group, 2003)..
12 Francke, A History of German Literature, p. v.
13 Regarding Wilhelm II, see his autobiography Ereignisse und Gestalten aus den Jahren 1878-1918 (Leipzig, K.F. Koehler, 1922).
14 For further information on the Busch family, see Peter Hernon, Under the Influence: The Unauthorized Story of the Anheuser-Busch Dynasty (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991).
15 Kuno Francke, ed., The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: Masterpieces of German Literature, Translated into English, 20 vols. (Albany: J.B. Lyon, 1913-14).
16 Kuno Francke, A German-American’s Confession of Faith (New York: B.W. Huebsch, 1915), and also his The German Spirit (New York: Holt, 1916).
17 Francke, A German-American’s Confession of Faith, pp. 49-50.
18 See “Kuno Francke,” Dictionary of American Biography.
19 See Kuno Francke, Handbook of the Germanic Museum. 5th rev. ed. (Cambridge: Harvard University, 1925). This work is divided into four parts: 1. Antiquities of the Pre-Karolingian Period, 2. Monumental German Sculpture of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, 3. Monumental German Sculpture from the Baroque Period to the Present, and, 4. Medieval Pictile Ivories and German Metal Work from the Twelfth to the Eighteenth century. Also, see Francke, German After-War Problems (Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1927).
20 Francke, German After-War Problems, p. 92.
21 Ibid, pp. 93-94.
22 Ibid, p. 92.
23 John Lenger, “Busch-Reisinger Marks A Century,” Harvard University Gazette, 6 November 2003.
24 Nisbet and Norris, The Busch-Reisinger, p. 19.
25 “Harvard’s Busch-Reisinger Museum Celebrates 100 Years of Advancing the Study and Appreciation of the Art of German-speaking Countries,” Harvard University Art Museums Press Releases, 27 May 2003.
26 Francke, A German-American’s Confession of Faith, pp. 49-50.
27 Regarding the 100th anniversary of the Museum, see Peter Nisbet and Joachim Homann, Birthday Presents: Acquisitions for the 100th Anniversary of the Busch-Reisinger Museum, Harvard University (Cambridge: Harvard University Art Museums, 2004).
28 http://www.artmuseums.harvard.edu/busch.
29 Two works by Francke, not previously cited, that are also of interest with regard to this work are Glimpses of Modern German Culture (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1898), and German Ideals of Today, and other Essays on German Culture (Boston: Mifflin, 1907). Also, the following works treat the history of the Germanic Museum: Reiner Pommerin, “Die Grundung des Germanischen Museums an der Harvard Universität: Zur Geschichte deutscher Kulturpolitik in den USA unter Kaiser Wilhelm II,” Archiv fur Kulturgeschichte 61:2 (1979): 420-30; Guido Goldmann, A History of the Germanic Museum at Harvard University (Cambridge: The Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University, 1989); and Franziska v. Ungern-Sternberg, Kulturpolitik zwischen den Kontinenten Deutschland und Amerika: Das Germanische Museum in Cambridge/Mass (Weimar: Boehlau, 1994). The latter contains more than fifty illustrations of Francke and the Germanic Musuem, as well as its various holdings.