WILLIAM KURRELMEYER
1874-1957
WILLIAM KURRELMEYER
1874-1957
William Kurrelmeyer was born in Osnabrück, Germany on Janu-
ary 17, 1874. As he came to America as an eight-year-old child with
his parents, his entire education was obtained in Baltimore, first in the
public schools, then in Baltimore City College, from which he gradu-
ated with high honors in 1893. Thereupon he entered The Johns Hop-
kins University, where he received his A. B. in 1896, his Ph. D. in 1899.
As he taught for only one year at Franklin and Marshall College in
Lancaster, Pennsylvania, from 1899 to 1900, when he returned to The
Hopkins, his life until his death on October 9,1957 was bound up with
Baltimore and The Johns Hopkins University.¹ His wife, Carrie
Herrman, was a Baltimorean, his children were born and educated
in Baltimore and both Carrie May (Zintl) and Bernhard received their
doctoral degrees at The Hopkins.
Though he travelled often and much in Western Europe, chiefly in
Germany, especially in his late years, and through an intensive cor-
respondence was in constant touch with European as well as American
scholars in his fields of interest, Kurrelmeyer rarely moved far away
or for long from his home, his library, and the Hopkins precincts.
President Gilman was still in his best years when he entered college
and most of the original brilliant faculty of the University were still
active. So Kurrelmeyer was able to play an important role in the
development of the University and its expansion after the removal
to Homewood. The Hopkins German Department was not one of those
that had been in the beginning staffed with well-known specialists.
The modern languages were still in the shadow of the classical lan-
guages. The great development of the modern languages as a field for
graduate study came after 1900. So Kurrelmeyer, along with his
teacher, Henry Wood, and later Hermann Collitz, played an important
role in the development of The Hopkins as one of the major research
centers in Germanic studies. He was very early put on the editorial
board of Modern Language Notes, the oldest modern language journal
in this country, and older than most of the European journals. Indeed
there is only one in Germany that is older and none in any other
country. After a very few years he became managing editor, a post
which he occupied for decades, setting the standards that still make
Modern Language Notes one of the most highly respected journals
in the modern language field.
Kurrelmeyer's doctoral dissertation already indicated his main in-
terest, the history of the German literary language, not so much the
grammatical and phonetic problems nor the prehistoric connections
with other languages, as the meat of the language and style, the vo-
cabulary with all its changes and vicissitudes. It was the human aspect
1 See the obituary by E. H. Sehrt in SHGM, XXX (1959), 115-6.
[9]
of language that interested him, not the mechanics of oral communi-
cation. This attitude led him naturally to the field of text criticism.
He was curious to learn what happened to a text after it left the hand
of a poet, was copied by professional scribes, later printed and in the
course of time became, in a measure, distorted.
So, Kurrelmeyer was led inevitably to his first great contribution
to scholarship, the critical edition of the earliest pre-Lutheran Bible
that was published in ten volumes from 1904-1915 in the great series
of the Stuttgart Literarischer Verein, printed in Tübingen. This monu-
mental work is really definitive. All other studies, linguistic as well
as literary, must be based on it.
Long before the last volume of the Erste Deutsche Bibel had come
from the press, Kurrelmeyer had started on a special field of text
criticism that he made peculiarly his own. This was the influence of
Doppeldrucke on an author's text. These are unauthorized reprintings
by an authorized publisher and must not be confused with Nachdrucke,
pirated editions from the presses of unauthorized publishers. It was
customary in the 18th Century for author and publisher to sign a
contract for a fixed number of copies for a lump sum instead of for
a royalty of a specified amount per copy. When an edition was ex-
hausted, a new contract was made. However, the publishers often
secretly reprinted to avoid paying the additional royalty. These proofs
were naturally not submitted to the author. Thus, innumerable errors
crept into the text of Goethe which found their way into the "Ausgabe
letzter Hand," the edition used as the basis of the Sophienausgabe,
the so-called Weimar edition, the hitherto most used critical edition
of Goethe's works.
6
Kurrelmeyer set about re-examining the work of an earlier scholar,
Michael Bernays, who had first pointed out the existence of Doppel-
drucke and soon found that Bernays had hardly scratched the surface.
With incredible patience and diligence, Kurrelmeyer collected and
examined and compared all copies he could find of editions published
in Goethe's lifetime. He compared, word for word, letter for letter,
even the fonts of type used. A fantastic story gradually unfolded. To
cite only one example: The 16-volume edition of Goethe's works
appeared in three installments. Contracts and payments were made
separately for each installment. Volumes one to eight were printed
first. When it came to printing volumes nine to twelve, Cotta, the
publisher, found he had underestimated the market, increased the size
of the edition and without Goethe's knowledge, reset and reprinted the
first eight volumes. The same thing occurred when he came to publish
the last four volumes. So there are three separate printings of the
first eight volumes, two of volumes nine to twelve, and one—the only
one Goethe proof-read—of volumes thirteen to sixteen. Kurrelmeyer,
by his work, laid the foundations for a truly accurate text of Goethe.
In the case of Wieland the variations brought about by the secret
printings were vastly greater, entire paragraphs having been omitted
in the illicit reprints. This was first shown by Kurrelmeyer in his
2
See Taylor Starck in Modern Language Notes, Vol. 68, No. 5, (May, 1953).
[ 10 ]
important monograph, Die Doppeldrucke von Wieland's Werken, pub-
lished in the Proceedings of the Prussian Academy of Arts and, Sciences.
A critical edition of Wieland's works, not yet complete, was in course
of publication by the Prussian Academy. Seven volumes had already
appeared. When Kurrelmeyer's findings were made known, the presses
were immediately stopped and a large volume of corrections of the first
seven volumes was published under Kurrelmeyer's editorship. He was
then appointed editor of Wieland's prose works, many volumes of
which he published before his death. The remaining volumes are being
edited on the basis of Kurrelmeyer's work and notes.
But Kurrelmeyer found time aside from his teaching for the editor-
ship of Modern Language Notes and for a considerable number of
articles on words not included in the compendious Deutsches Wörter-
buch begun by the brothers Grimm in 1856 and thereupon often called
Grimm's Wörterbuch. Though this has now recently been completed in
twenty-eight large volumes, a revised edition is under way that takes
account of Kurrelmeyer's very considerable contributions.³
All this work Professor Kurrelmeyer carried on together with his
editorship of Modern Language Notes and the many university studies.
At the same time he accumulated one of the great private libraries in
Germanic studies, early editions, rare publications and periodicals,
thousands of letters and autographs which through his bequest have
become the property of The Johns Hopkins University.
His contributions to the work of our Society are a matter of record.
After many years of membership, he was elected President in 1939.
During his incumbency, Kurrelmeyer worked energetically to increase
the membership. He approached all of whom he could learn who had
a Maryland German background and still retained an interest in the
State, though living far away. Kurrelmeyer did much to stimulate
the activities of the Society and to make it more useful. He retired
from the Presidency in 1952 and was thereupon elected Honorary
President.
In 1932 Kurrelmeyer took a leading role in the establishment of
the Maryland Chapter of The Goethe Society of America which is
among the more active of such organizations in the country.
But no account of William Kurrelmeyer's life work is complete
without a picture of the man that he was. He is unforgettable for
those of us who had the good fortune to sit at his feet in undergraduate
and graduate years. Though always a sharp critic, who demanded
much of himself and expected his students to do likewise, he was one
of the kindest and most generous individuals we had ever known. He
had a keen sense of humor and always achieved more by holding our
stupidity or ignorance up to ridicule instead of chastising us. His
sharp criticism was always accompanied by an infectious laugh that
took out the sting.
He was never too busy to devote hours outside the classroom to
continue the training of his students. Always a generous host, he
would invite his more mature students, usually on weekends, to his
home in Ellicott City, singly or in pairs. " Come out to lunch and
3
See the various articles in the May, 1953 number of Modern Language Notes which was dedicated
to Kurrelmeyer.
[11]
stay the afternoon!" This often meant not only the entire afternoon
but also supper followed by another session in the evening in his
wonderful library. "Just see what I got today!", he would say, taking
down a book or set of volumes. And if he saw a questioning look in
our eyes, he continued, "What? Don't you know about that?" And
then followed an impromptu lecture. And the family was always
present or in and out: Mrs. Kurrelmeyer and the two children, Carrie
May and Bernhard. Mrs. Kurrelmeyer was an excellent musician, so
we often had music or talked about it. Kurrelmeyer played no in-
strument but he loved music and knew a great deal about it. He was
an indefatigable opera-goer, especially in late years, every summer in
Munich, Bayreuth or Salzburg.
Kurrelmeyer worked hard, but when the time came he stopped and
played with equal enthusiasm. In later life he took up Skat, and I
recall many Skat sessions in the summer on Linden Avenue with
Kurrelmeyer and Gustav Strube, the founder and first conductor of the
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. There were arguments, of course.
When was there ever a Skat game without an argument? Usually the
argument started when the last card had been played and it was
apparent that Kurrelmeyer had, as he often did, played the role of
Mauermeister, not bidding his hand up to its full value. "Why should
I take a silly chance?", he argued.
And it was just this characteristic of great caution that made him
such a great scholar and teacher. He never made a categorical state-
ment unless he was sure of his ground and he remorselessly poked fun
at us when we came out with an ill-considered judgment. And it was
this characteristic also that made it possible for him to build up the
magnificent library that is now at Homewood and a comfortable
fortune.
This shrewdness, coupled with his kindness and real interest in his
students, is what makes him unforgettable to all of us. He never con-
sidered his duty done when we had completed our studies. He kept in
constant touch with us; found us positions if we had none; and when
he thought we might be better placed, he continued to make our
troubles and ambitions his own, criticized our work and made sug-
gestions for further research and tried to place us more advantageously.
That is why the man Kurrelmeyer lives on in the memories of so
many of us. What we may have become is in a great measure due to
the example he set, to the continuous care, friendship and love that
he beamed forth.
TAYLOR STARCK
[12]
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