Jasper Schwering

Bauten der Bewegung explores the current use of selected buildings in Munich that were of significant importance to the execution of the Third Reich regime and dissemination of Nazism in Germany.

Named by Hitler as ‘Capital of Movement’, the city of Munich held a superior place in the maintenance of Hitler‘s ideology compared to other German cities. For the duration of the Nazi regime, many major head offices for the NSDAP — or Nazi Party — were situated there, as well as numerous Nazi officials and Hitler himself owning private residences there. In addition to its administrative importance, many of the buildings the Nazis constructed or occupied in Munich were valuable centres for culture and the arts.

Starting the work in 2020 — one hundred years after Hitler founded the NSDAP — seemed to be the right moment to engage with this part of history. At the centenary of an event which changed the course of history, it allowed me to consider not only how such a catastrophe happened, but how Nazism was upheld within German society’s social and administrative spaces. The regenerative shifts in both the use of these spaces and German culture is something I felt had to be recorded.

Named Bauten Der Bewegung, my project alludes to a 1942 book of the same name which documented the architecture of the Third Reich. In contrast, my work seeks not to promote these buildings as pillars of Nazism; but examine the contemporary functions of such spaces with a history that should neither be glorified, nor ignored. I would like this work to serve as part of the so-called ‘Erinnerungskultur’, literally meaning ‘Culture of Remembrance’. Despite its translation, Erinnerungskultur is not solely about remembering our history; it is an active relationship and interaction with the past which allows us to mourn, educate and progress. I would like to use this work to reaffirm that this era of our history should not be forgotten; instead using these cultural displays as tools for information.