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  • Stephan Kuttner (1907-1996):The ‘Pope’ of Canon Law Studies: Between Germany, The Vatican and the USA
  • Ludwig Schmugge*

Stephan Georg Kuttner, whom one could justifiably describe as the most important canonist of the twentieth century, came from an affluent Frankfurt family with Jewish roots.1 Born on March 24, 1907 in Bonn, the son of Georg Kuttner (1877-1916), a judge and later a professor who had earlier converted to Protestantism, he died after a full and active life on August 12, 1996 in Berkeley, California.2 After his Abitur at the Lessing Gymnasium in Frankfurt, this versatile, and musically highly gifted, man (he left behind string quartets, a Mass, songs and poems) began his university legal studies first in Frankfurt, then [End Page 141] in Freiburg and lastly in Berlin. There he sat the Referendar exam in 1928 and in March 1929 became an Assistant to Professor Kohlrausch at the Berlin Law Faculty. On July 2, 1930 he was awarded the civil law degree, doctor iuris utriusque, having submitted and defended a thesis on criminal law.3

The seminar of Ulrich Stutz (1868-1938), the Swiss canonist who taught at Berlin, introduced Kuttner to medieval canon law, to the sources to which he was to devote his entire scholarly life.4 Professors Stutz and Kohlrausch had suggested to him that he obtain his Habilitation with a thesis on medieval criminal law. Kuttner took leave from his Assistant and Referendar positions in the winter of 1930-1931 to work on this subject. He went to Rome with a stipend from the ‘Notgemeinschaft der deutschen Wissenschaft’ (the precursor of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) in order to study canonical manuscripts in the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana.

Italy was the land of his dreams. At the age of 19, Stephan, his mother, and sister, in the tradition of the grand tour, had traveled the length of the country down to Sicily by chauffeur-driven car.5 In an interview held in 1988 with his son Thomas, Kuttner recounted of his second stay in Italy in 1930-1931:6

I had an introduction to the German Historical Institute - at that time it was called the Prussian Historical Institute in Rome (…). It had a wonderful library where I worked in the afternoon hours (…) I had contact with other Germans who were there on [End Page 142] scholarships. After the first month I knew that I would never learn Italian by doing what the others did - taking Italian lessons. So I decided to ask for room and board with a family, and I moved there and stayed with them. (…) And I think they are still disappointed that I didn’t marry their daughter. She was a very nice girl.

In 1930-1931 Kuttner lived with the Rapaport family on Piazzale Flaminio. However, he did not marry the Rapaport daughter but rather Eva Susanne Illch (1914-2007), seven years his junior, on August 22, 1933 in the Church of the Holy Spirit in Berlin-Westend. He had been engaged to Eva, who hailed from a well-placed Berlin Jewish lawyer’s family, on his 26th birthday in March 1933. Both had converted to Catholicism two weeks before their marriage.7 They were convinced to take this step through conversations with the Jesuit and Professor of the Universitas Gregoriana, the canonist Ivo Zeiger (1898-1952). Father Zeiger and Kuttner had met in Berlin in Stutz’s seminar.8 In Rome, Zeiger introduced his seminar colleagues to the church historian Robert Leiber (1887-1967), at that time the secretary of Eugenio Pacelli (Pope Pius XII).9 Kuttner maintained lifelong, close contact with both Jesuit priests.10

After the Rome intermezzo Kuttner took up his assistantship in Berlin again but continued to travel to Rome [End Page 143] during summer vacations.11 He read manuscripts in the Vatican and afternoons studied in the Prussian Historical Institute, where ‘again I was met with the kindest reception’, as he wrote to Stutz in 1932. He seems to have also enjoyed the goodwill of the Director, Paul Fridolin Kehr.12 In the winter semester of 1932-1933 he again participated in the Stutz seminar.13 As a result of his sojourn in Rome, during...

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