10 May 2025

Encounter and public reading

Commemorative event: "Munich Reads - from Burnt Books"

  • Saturday, 5/10/2025
  • 11:00 am – 6:00 pm

Event location
Königsplatz Munich

Public event

Target audience
students, employees, publically, TUM members

On May 10, 1933, the Nazis staged a book burning on Munich’s Königplatz, incinerating the works of innumerable authors, whom they had ostracized for racist, political or ideological reasons. Nazi book burnings marked the beginning of a systematic persecution and extermination campaign that cost millions of people their lives.

To commemorate this injustice, the artist Wolfram P. Kastner invites you to the public event “Munich Reads - from Burnt Books” on Saturday, May 10. The event begins at 11:00 a.m. with the creation of a burn mark on the lawn of Königsplatz at the site of the 1933 book burning. Then, as an act of remembrance and symbol of democratic values, participants will read from works by those authors whose books were banned and ceremoniously burned in 1933. The event ends at 6 p.m.

Professors of the TUM Senior Excellence Faculty will be reading: 

11:50 a.m.: Prof. Michael Molls from Leo Perutz – Unter der steinernen Brücke 
11:55 a.m.: Prof. Kristina Reiss from Erich Kästner - Die Konferenz der Tiere 
12:00 p.m.: Prof. Wolfgang Weise from poems by Bertolt Brecht

If you would like to actively participate or read at Königsplatz yourself, please contact Dr. Birgit Herbst-Gaebel (see contact). 

How to find us

Königsplatz, 80333 Munich

Event overview
HSTS