Deborah Schamoni

For this Ruine we explore multiple visible and invisible webs of interrelationships surrounding the biotope on the base of the former ‘Ehrentempel’, located in the center of Munich, close to Königsplatz. The foundations are the remnants of the first Nazi-Monument built in 1935 as a cultic site, housing the coffins of members of the Nazi Party who had been killed in the failed ‘Beer Hall Putsch’, a hundred years ago in 1923. After the war in 1947, the ‘Temples’ were demolished but the bases remained. Later they were filled with earth and planted over, and over time biotopes developed that inhabit the bases today. Their existence is living testimony to a debate about the ‘right’ way to deal with the former monument that remains unresolved to this day.

During our research, we came into exchange with the composer Leon Zmelty, who studies at the Academy of Music, which is located in the immediate vicinity of the Nazi pedestals, in the building of the former ”Führerbau“. Leon has written for us a composition for six saxophones, which takes the historically grown entanglements around the biotope on the Nazi pedestal as a starting point. The choice of instrument is related to the fact that, as we learned from musicologist Tobias Reichard, there was probably no instrument in the Nazi-era that was more controversial, more symbolic, more ‘political’ than the saxophone. On July 16, 2023 at 4 p.m. the composition will be performed at the Max-Mannheimer-Platz for the very first time.


Link to the Companion-text:
Das Biotop auf dem Nazisockel / The Biotope on the Nazisockel