The collection consists of four letters, dating from November 20, 1922, to June 29, 1923, that Daniel Zutt wrote to his mother Elise Hartmetz Zutt while he was studying in Berlin and traveling around Europe. The letters primarily discuss Zutt's social activities and the economic situation in the Weimar Republic.
While in Berlin, Zutt boarded with the Rehse household at Hektorstrasse 5 in Halensee. He discusses his frustration with the bureaucratic police registration process for foreigners and his difficulty in finding time to write home and keep his diary. Zutt traveled around Germany including Mainz, Worms, and Aachen to visit family as well as sight-see with another American. He celebrated Thanksgiving, visited the American embassy in Berlin, and attended a Berlin Philharmonic concert courtesy of free tickets from his landlady and her violinist daughter. Zutt intersperses German words in his letters and notes that he socialized with Germans to learn the language, including attending cabarets. Zutt comments on costs, the untenable economic situation, uncertainty over the value of the German mark, export rules, and the food shortage. Zutt later studied in Paris, France, but returned to Berlin for a stay in 1923, traveling through former WWI battle zones.
Daniel Jacob Zutt was born December 22, 1900, in Evansville, Indiana, to Elise (Hartmetz) Zutt (1873-1967) and John Charles Zutt (1866-1936). He had two siblings: John Hartmetz Zutt (1898-1981) and Elizabeth Hartmetz Zutt (1914-2006). A 1922 graduate of Harvard University, Zutt subsequently attended law school at Columbia University (class of 1930) and worked in law and real estate in Evansville. In 1938, he joined the Central Glass Company in Louisville, Kentucky. Zutt married Virginia Dale Sharp (1910-1964) on June 6, 1937, in Evansville. He died on March 24, 1990, in Louisville, Kentucky, and is buried in Oak Hill Cemetery in Evansville, Indiana.
