Schutt's career as a photo-journalist began in 1952 when he was approached by a local newspaper editor and accepted an invitation to become a part-time photo-reporter for the . His first commission involved a visit to a garden festival at Forst, since 1945 a border town, some 35 km / 20 miles to the east, beyond Cottbus. The route was nevertheless relatively level, which was important for a photo-journalist whose sole means of travel was his bicycle. The recently launched Brandenburgische Neueste Nachrichten was a stand-alone and modestly equipped publication, and on getting home to Vetschau later that day Schutt went straight back to the photography department of "Spreewald-Drogerie Petzold", the specialist shop where he was employed, in order to develop his film and print off the pictures, which he was able to deliver to his editor's desk the next day. He was helped in this task by a colleague who soon became his wife. After they set up home together and Schutt became a full-time press photographer, films were developed at home and the pictures were dried off not in a photo-laboratory at the back of a shop, but in their own family kitchen. Things changed after the Lausitzer Rundschau relocated its operations to Cottbus during the second half of 1952, even if the role of a staff "photo-journalist" remained somewhat "niche" among regional newspapers in the "German Democratic Republic" for many years. The Brandenburgische Neueste Nachrichten had been launched as the local newspaper of the "National Democratic Party" (NDPD), a "bloc party" permitted to exist as a component of the tightly controlled East German "National Front" party grouping, whereas the Lausitzer Rundschau, as the local mouthpiece for the ruling Socialist Unity Party (SED) was much better resourced. During or before 1953 Schutt switched to the Lausitzer Rundschau, becoming the newspaper's first - and for some time its only - full-time press photographer. During more than four decades with the "Rundschau" Erich Schutt emerged as one of the best known press photographers in east Germany. He remained a member of the newspaper's staff till his retirement at the age of 63.
