Dedicated to the 1st Radebeul town chronicler Adolf Schruth (1872 - 1946) on his 150th birthday

If you enter the name "Schruth" into the town archive database, 151 hits appear, which already give you an idea that this is a significant person for Radebeul. On 11 February 1872, a son was born to the Dresden merchant Emil Theodor Schruth and his wife Anna Johanna Schruth, née Schnell, who was given the first name Fritz Adolph Theodor. He initially followed in his father's footsteps professionally when he opened a grocer's shop in Naundorf, Hauptstr. 19 in 1921 at the age of 39. He married Friederike Pauline Schäller (1876-1949), a Thuringian from Ruhla, on 9 July 1899. The first written record of Schruth in the Naundorf municipal records contains a licence to sell brandy in sealed bottles from 1923. However, his leisure time passion was local history. Schruth was always very interested in it. Due to his profession as a merchant, he certainly got into conversation with many people and learnt a lot about the past and present. The period after the First World War brought with it a general boom in interest in local history, as official documents were accessible to the public for the first time, and with them the state archives. The social conditions of the population - marked by the war, crisis-ridden and disenchanted with politics - could also have been a reason for the increased interest in local history in general.

In August 1924, Schruth therefore took over the editorship of the local history supplement of the Kötzschenbroda newspaper "Die Elbaue - Blätter für sächsische Heimatkunde", of which he was a member of staff from the very beginning. Just three years later, he became a full-time editor and from 1929 to 1941, as the successor to Wilhelm Georg Ziegner (1865-1929), he became the editor in charge of the Kötzschenbrodaer Zeitung, turning his hobby into a profession. He researched the history of the Lößnitz communities and wrote numerous essays and chronicles on Kötzschenbroda, Naundorf, Zitzschewig, Niederlößnitz, Fürstenhain and Serkowitz. As he was the first person ever to analyse the files of the Saxon Main State Archives and maintained contact with many personalities of his time, as well as gaining insight into the municipal files of the Lößnitz villages, it can rightly be said that he is the founder of Radebeul town history research. His articles were entertaining and easy to read and enjoyed general popularity. There are also entertaining theatre plays in the collection of the town archive, where historical traditions were transformed into imaginative stories. Perhaps they will be performed again... Who knows? In 1941, at the age of 69, he was appointed honorary town chronicler by the then Lord Mayor Heinrich Severit (1888-1977). In the following war and post-war years, he wrote the daily chronicles of the town of Radebeul from 1942 to 1945, which were then continued by Paul Brüll (1892-1982), who later became the town archivist, until 1949. He died in Radebeul on 10 October 1946 at the age of 74. He lived for many years at Hermann-Ilgen-Straße 40 near his place of work, Güterhofstr. 5.

The chronicles, the local history articles of the Elbaue and his works in the town archive have already been digitised. The 1924 edition of Elbaue can now be found on the town's homepage. Perhaps we have aroused the curiosity of some of you and inspired you to visit the city archives - in person or virtually. That would make me and my colleagues very happy.

Annette Karnatz

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