Remembering as Working on the Present

Since 2018 Janne and Klaus Weinzierl, has been researching biographies of deprived, persecuted, and murdered employees of the Munich Kammerspiele during the National Socialist era. In the meantime, more than two hundred fates are known.

Based on this model project, the Munich Kammerspiele, with the support of the Federal Ministry of Finance and the EVZ Foundation and under the direction of the dramaturgist Martin Váldes-Stauber, are now establishing an artistic field of research, i.e. “Erinnerung als Arbeit an der Gegenwart” [Remembering as Working on the Present]. In this way, historical research and artistic projects are combined to address the present.

Remembering as working on the open society

The project has a modular structure and strives to achieve a kaleidoscopic perspective. The research findings on SCHICKSALE [FATES] will be made available on a website under the same name and with a weekly series of podcasts. Furthermore, the Munich Kammerspiele connects locally civil society players and cultural institutions and with artists from Chile, Argentina, Germany, Ukraine and Spain, among others. Together, project participants look at mechanisms of action, forms of fascism and the way it continues, right-wing terrorist violence as well as conspiracy theories.

In the sense of an interweaving history, the European dimension of the Shoa (and forced labor) will be reflected upon together and cultures of remembrance will be examined. The project is also concerned with enriching the German understanding of history in a radically diverse, post-migrant society: How does collective remembering operate when the violent (German) past is less and less interwoven with the family biographies of citizens? The aspects of the project will be condensed into a festival at the end of November 2022.

Data Sheet

Project partners:

Project-specific artistic, didactic and media alliances take place with, among others, the Institute of Contemporary History, the Franziskuswerk Schönbrunn, the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial, the NS Documentation Center Munich, the Bavarian Broadcasting Corporation, the Memorial Initiative for the 'Euthanasia' Victims / Relatives Group, the Stolpersteine für München e.V., the Munich City Archive, the Jewish Museum Munich, the Monacensia Literature Archive and the Munich City Museum - as well as international partnerships with artists and institutions in Chile, Spain and Ukraine, among others, including the Matucana 100 (Santiago de Chile), the Centro Dramático Nacional (Madrid) and the Theatre of Playwrights (Kyiv).

Duration: 01.10.2021 until 31.12.2022