Kutscher, Gerdt (1913-1979)
Gerdt Kutscher was a German specialist in ancient American studies. From 1934 to 1979 Kutscher worked at the Ibero-American Institute (IAI) of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation in Berlin; he was research director from 1970 and deputy director from 1974 to 1979. From 1948 to 1979 he also worked at Berlin Free University’s Institute for Latin American Studies (LAI), firstly as a lecturer and later as a professor. His research focused on the Chimú and Moche archaeological cultures in Peru. Walter Lehmann’s papers and the archaeological materials available in Berlin’s Ethnological Museum played a key role in Kutcher’s work. He was instrumental in relaunching the IAI’s publication activities after the war and had a defining influence on its publications until the end of the 1970s.

Material:

• 78 ring-binders and cases, 1 box. Another 13 ring-binders containing correspondence on IAI publications have been indexed under “Ibero-American Institute (IAI) of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation”.
• manuscripts
• lectures
• translations
• book projects
• archaeological drawings (drawings of ceramics)
• notes on scholarly works
• letters
• personal papers
• documents from his activities at the IAI and LAI
• newspaper clippings
• photographs
• negatives
• photographic materials (a large collection of slides has been integrated into the IAI’s image archive)
• open-reel audio tapes
• manuscripts and texts by other specialists in ancient American history in Berlin
• documentation on the process of indexing Max Uhle’s papers and manuscripts and on Uhle’s papers that were published by Kutscher
• photographs (Disselhoff’s excavations in Peru, 1966)
• 711 small-format photographs (Kutscher and Disselhoff’s trips in Peru)
• 38 large-format photographs (Kutscher and Disselhoff’s trips in Peru)
• materials on Chongoyape (some of it published in the Baessler archive)

Keywords: Peru, archaeology, history of photography, history of the IAI, travelogues