Frans Jozef Theo Rutten (15 September 1899 in

Schinnen Schinnen (; li, Sjènne ) is a village and a former municipality in the province of Limburg, the Netherlands. It is home to US Army Garrison Schinnen, a support base for US personnel assigned to nearby Allied Joint Force Command Brunssum. It i ...

– 21 April 1980 in

Lopik Lopik () is a municipality and a town in the Netherlands, in the province of Utrecht, close to the Lek river. History Lopik lies within the Lopikerwaard region, which used to be occupied by swamps and forests until the area was cultivated in th ...

) was a Dutch

politician A politician is a person active in party politics, or a person holding or seeking an elected office in government. Politicians propose, support, reject and create laws that govern the land and by an extension of its people. Broadly speaking, a ...

and minister for the

Catholic People's Party The Catholic People's Party ( nl, Katholieke Volkspartij, KVP) was a Catholic Christian democratic political party in the Netherlands. The party was founded in 1945 as a continuation of the Roman Catholic State Party, which was a continuation of ...

. Rutten was from 1931 professor of

psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries betwe ...

at the

Katholieke Universiteit Nijmegen Radboud University (abbreviated as RU, nl, Radboud Universiteit , formerly ''Katholieke Universiteit Nijmegen'') is a public research university located in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. The university bears the name of Saint Radboud, a 9th century D ...

, succeeding his mentor :nl:Francis Roels. In 1948 he succeeded Jos Gielen as Minister of Education in the

First Drees cabinet First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1). First or 1st may also refer to: *World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement Arts and media Music * 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and reco ...

. He unfolded his first "Onderwijsnota" (teaching note) plans for an integrated approach to secondary education, which

Jo Cals Jozef Maria Laurens Theo "Jo" Cals (18 July 1914 – 30 December 1971) was a Dutch politician of the defunct Catholic People's Party (KVP) now the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) party and jurist who served as Prime Minister of the Netherland ...

would later expand upon. Rutten had 1952 legislation introduced for the training of teachers. After his period as minister, he returned to the sciences. He was the father of the late-twentieth-century Dutch top economics civil servant . As Minister of Education, Rutten became infamous in the world of

Dutch comics Dutch comics are comics made in the Netherlands. In Dutch the most common designation for the whole art form is "strip" (short for "stripverhaal" – "strip story" – , though the old-fashioned expression "beeldverhaal" – "picture ...

for the letter he had published on October 25, 1948 in the newspaper ''

Het Parool ''Het Parool'' () is an Amsterdam-based daily newspaper. It was first published on 10 February 1941 as a resistance paper during the German occupation of the Netherlands (1940–1945). In English, its name means ''The Password'' or ''The Motto' ...

'' and directly addressed to all educational institutions and local government bodies, advocating the prohibition of comics. In the letter, he had stated, "These booklets, which contain a series of illustrations with accompanying text, are generally sensational in character, without any other value. It is not possible to proceed in a legal manner against printers, publishers or distributors of these novels, nor can anything be achieved by not making paper available to them, since this for those publications necessary paper, is available on the free market," further implying that it became the civil duty of parents, teachers and civil servants, including policemen, to confiscate and destroy comic books wherever they found them. Less than a month later, a 16-year old girl was murdered in a bizarre manner on November 19 in the small town of

Enkhuizen Enkhuizen () is a municipality and a city in the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland and the region of West-Frisia. History Enkhuizen, like Hoorn and Amsterdam, was one of the harbor-towns of the VOC, from where overseas trade wi ...

by her 15-year old boyfriend, who had tied her down to railroad tracks where she was killed by a passing train. The police subsequently uncovered that both had been readers of comic books of the kind that were in concordance with Rutten's definition.dickbos.info
/ref> Taken as validation, a

witch-hunt A witch-hunt, or a witch purge, is a search for people who have been labeled witches or a search for evidence of witchcraft. The Witch trials in the early modern period, classical period of witch-hunts in Early Modern Europe and European Colon ...

ensued, complete with comic book destructions all over the country, nearly destroying the comic phenomenon in the Netherlands, which had only just begun recovering from the

war War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular o ...

years. In an atmosphere of near-hysteria, all comic publications were suspended forthwith by societal, self-

censorship Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information. This may be done on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient". Censorship can be conducted by governments ...

. Considered "healthy", the comic productions of the Toonder Studio's, which included the as literature considered ''

Tom Poes ''Tom Puss'' (''Tom Poes'' in Dutch) is a Dutch comic strip, created by Marten Toonder. Together with Hans G. Kresse's '' Eric de Noorman'' and Pieter Kuhn's ''Kapitein Rob'' it is regarded as the Big Three of Dutch comics. ''Tom Poes'' was a ta ...

'', were the only ones for which an exemption was made.lambiek.net
/ref> In this respect, Rutten has been to Dutch comics, what

Fredric Wertham Fredric Wertham (; born Friedrich Ignatz Wertheimer, March 20, 1895 – November 18, 1981) was a German-American psychiatrist and author. Wertham had an early reputation as a progressive psychiatrist who treated poor black patients at his Lafargue ...

would six years later become to the American comic world. With Wertham, Rutten had a background in psychology in common.

Publications

* Franciscus Josephus Theodorus Rutten et al. (Ed.) (1955): ''Menselijke Verhoudening''. Bussum: Paul Brand.

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rutten, Theo 1899 births 1989 deaths Dutch psychologists Dutch Roman Catholics Catholic People's Party politicians 20th-century Dutch politicians Rectors of universities in the Netherlands Ministers of Education of the Netherlands People from Schinnen Utrecht University alumni Academic staff of Radboud University Nijmegen 20th-century psychologists

Publications

Further reading

References

External links