Campus #26 „Play Auerbach!“

We get to know each other and visit the exhibition together. Based on Auerbach's biography, Nathalie Jacobsen provides an overview of Nazi and post-war history. Originals from the collection of the Nazi Documentation Center relating to Philipp Auerbach are displayed and explored by us. Afterwards, we examine sources from the archives of the Nazi Documentation Center.

Who is commemorated in public spaces in the form of monuments and sculptures? And which individuals and stories are missing from public remembrance?

Philipp Auerbach, a Shoah survivor and head of the Bavarian State Compensation Office, is presented at the NS Documentation Center as a protagonist of the postwar period in Munich. His office was a linchpin of the early Federal Republic of Germany's reparations policy and served as the central point of contact for victims of racial, religious, and political persecution in Bavaria. In Munich's public space, however, the story of Auerbach and the displaced persons he cared for is largely invisible. Artists Samuel Fischer-Glaser and Angela Stiegler contrast this absence with visible and materially dominant examples of post-war monuments, such as the larger-than-life bronze sculptures by Bernhard Bleeker and his students Alexander Fischer and Hans Wimmer. Using the works and biographies of these artists, Fischer-Glaser and Stiegler trace continuities in Nazi-compliant visual language and body ideals in public space.

The practical part of the workshop provides space for joint experiments on a hypothetical, ephemeral monument to Philipp Auerbach: What might it look like, how does it differ from what we see in public spaces, what form and materials are suitable for it, and who is it aimed at?

Schedule
12:00 – 13:30 Walk in the vicinity of the Kammerspiele theatre
13:30 – 15:00 First practical session with designs for the Philipp Auerbach memorial
15:00 – 16:00 Lunch break
16:00 – 19:00 Second practical session and conclusion
19:00 Dinner together in the theatre canteen (at your own expense)
20:00 Performance of ‘Play Auerbach!’