Friday, September 06, 2013  The Schultüte and the Ranzen Go to
School  Early photo of boy with Schultüte and Ranzen  Wooden
Ranzen School Satchel  School has just begun in Germany, and it
seemed to me that a post about the Schultüte would be very
timely. American school children, as well as most other school
children outside of Germany are not familiar with the custom of
the sugar cone Schultüte. In fact, the English language has no
exact equivalent word for it, but the picture above will give
you the idea of this "school bag." (Tüte means "bag" when
translated literally; however the Schultüte was in the shape of
a cone.)  After seeing some pictures of a young relative from
the area near Saarburg, Schultüte in her arms and a shy smile on
her face, I wanted to determine if the custom reached back to
the time of my Kreis Saarburg great grandparents or, if not,
just when and where did this custom originate.  To begin my
search, I called up the German version of Google and found two
good articles that answered ma