A Saracen warrior purchased on the island of Sicily back in 1971 is the founding stone of probably the world’s largest collection of puppets and puppet theatres, posters, paintings, props, organs, and manuscripts, all dealing with the facets of the magic world of puppetry. Today the collection consists of more than 20,000 puppets and objects of which only a fraction are exhibited in the five 400-year old houses beneath the walls of Saint Peters Church - the Puppetry Museum of Lübeck.
Fey Family
Owner and director is Fritz Fey. His father, also Fritz Fey, was a puppeteer. He began to carve puppet’s heads after World War II and toured Germany in the 1960’s frequently appearing on TV with his puppet theatre. Later he founded Lübeck Puppet Theatre located right across the road. Fritz Fey Jr. chose another career path, becoming a cameraman and travelling all over the world for NDR, German Public Television. He soon started collecting theatre puppets from Asia, India, Greece and England using all his spare time – and money – on this passion. He says: 
- As a child I never played with puppets and I still don’t. I am interested in history and antiques related to Puppetry. They represent a very old culture, which I have a passion for.
In 1982 he was prepared to open the Lübeck Puppetry Museum parallel with his job thanks to the Possehl Foundation and other sponsors. Today 25,000 visits the museum annually, many of them first meeting his Indian wife Saraswathi Fey adorned in a colourful Indian sari at the entrance.
The museum contains theatre puppets from three centuries and four continents: Europe, America, Africa, and Asia. There are glove puppets, marionette, stick puppets, finger puppets, shadow figures, and mechanical puppets of all kinds, even entire theatres.
Thomas Mann
Author and Nobel Prize Winner Thomas Mann is also from Lübeck (photo), and Fritz Fey isn’t in doubt when he states:
- Thomas Mann was a creative artist and would have loved this museum. The puppets hide thousands of stories just waiting to be unravelled. Fairy tales, biblical stories, Goethe’s Faust, Political comedies, and Robin Hood stories with a social punch. There were even puppeteers travelling with soldiers during the Thirty Year War to entertain them, so that they for a while could forget the horrors of warfare.
Historically puppet theatre was not played for children. Marionette theatres inside the church during the 16th and 17th century enacted central biblical stories and moral teachings to illiterate congregations. A play on the Passion of Christ is still presented by the Théâtre Toone in Brussels. Or glove puppets with huge nazi stars on the hats were used to convey political messages, depending on the sender. As Fey sardonically states:
- The time is not right to display some of my puppets, for instance the one on the photo with a black star on the hat, a signal from the Nazi era that a person is a Jew.
Puppets in puppeteer graves
The museum is an on-going project for Fritz and Saraswathi Fey. Of course most of their time is spent at the museum, continuously preparing new exhibitions and features. Whenever they get the chance they travel together to expand their collections, but also to listen to stories about the culture and life of puppeteers and puppet theatres. Sara quietly explains:
- I have had the opportunity to meet some of the old traditional puppeteers. They are not outgoing, but when they realize they can trust us, then they open up. Puppeteers have historically not been respected and were regarded as gypsies or other nomads. But they are such fine people and wonderful storytellers. Of course the puppets are if not sacred to them, then something they care so much about, that they will be buried together with their favourite puppets.
A vision of puppets linking us together
In most parts of the world the traditional puppet theatres are changing to more modern ways or altogether closing. The Fey couple are gathering documentation of a way of life and a form of art that is rapidly disappearing.
- I have a vision with this place. I want everyone to find his or her own culture here at the museum. Africans, Chinese, Indians and Americans are all welcome to visit us, and perhaps some of the exhibitions will bring back memories as they discover pieces from their home. Our dream is for this to be an institution of peace. In spite of our diversities, puppetry may link us together.
Fritz and Sara Fey are prepared to share their puppets, paintings, instruments and organs (photo, German organ) with others wherever people are interested, be it in Bali, Athens with Kariagozi puppets or London with Punch and Judy. Four complete theatres from Bali including hundreds of puppets and musical instruments are in storage as are numerous barrel organs, lithography and more, just waiting to be shared.
Birgit O'Sullivan
- 19. februar 2007