"Look, here he is, ugh!, the Struwwelpeter!" And indeed, here he looks at the inexperienced hiker with wide eyes.

And if you look closely, they may even secretly wink at you.

Heinrich Hoffmann's story, written for his son Carl at Christmas 1844, is omnipresent in Frankfurt.

There is a pharmacy with this name and, of course, a hairdresser, as well as two fountains, one in stone and one in bronze, dealing with the classic children's book.

And in the rebuilt house of Aunt Melber, a museum not only brings the title hero to life in a playful way, but also fidgety Philipp and Pauline, the evil Friederich and Hanns look-in-the-air.

Christopher Schutte

Freelance author in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

  • Follow I follow

But folklore was never Friedrich Karl Waechter's thing.

After all, the author and illustrator, who died in 2005, was one of the founding members of the New Frankfurt School alongside Robert Gernhardt, FW Bernstein, Chlodwig Poth and Eckhard Henscheid.

FK Waechter, who would have turned 85 this year, posthumously poured Heinrich Hoffmann a large glass.

And landed a bestseller himself with his “Anti-Struwwelpeter” published in 1970: anti-authoritarian education.

comedy for everyone

FK Waechter's sculptures, based on a series of drawings made in collaboration with the Caricatura Museum after Waechter's death, are also popular in the best sense of the word.

And has long since become the destination of family trips to Frankfurt's green belt.

Whether the "Dicke Raupe" realized by the sculptor Andreas Rohrbach, the "Monsterspecht" in the city forest or the "Struwwelpeter", which is basically little more than a shaggy pollarded willow that has not been shaped for a long time, designed by Till Hergenhahn: The comic art of The New Frankfurt School has arrived in mainstream society with the sculptures of FK Waechter.

Which, if you think of the upbringing ideals of our great-grandparents, can in no way harm.

The figure is easy to overlook, at least in daylight.

Bushes, shrubs, trees - and also one or two pastures - there is a whole range more in the extensive Schwanheim meadows.

Older and younger, here with a daring side parting, there with bald spots, maybe freshly shaved or disheveled by rain, wind and weather.

In addition, Waechter's "Struwwelpeter" always looks different over the course of the year.

If you have found it on a bike tour in late summer or early autumn, you would like to stay a while longer, at least until sunset.

After all, one would love to watch how fox and rabbit seem to wish each other good night under Struwwelpeter's bright, wide-open eyes.

Sometimes, when it's very quiet and almost dark, you might even hear the bunny muttering indignantly to one side: "Zausel should go to the hairdresser's again sometime." And to be honest, that's none of his business.