Es war Mord! Wahre Verbrechen der Zeitgeschichte
Four people. Four destinies. Four crimes that made history.
With “Es war Mord!” we connect true crime, classical music, and political contemporary history to create an extraordinary concert evening. What fascinates millions as a podcast or streaming format, we bring to a concentrated stage form: intense, reflective, and musically condensed.
At the center of our evening are four real cases from the 20th and 21st centuries:
Matthias Erzberger – Reich Finance Minister, peace negotiator, and victim of a right-wing extremist assassination in 1921. His murder marked a significant turning point for the young Weimar Republic.
Hans Litten – the brilliant lawyer who cornered Adolf Hitler in court as a witness in 1931. After the Nazis came to power, he was arrested, transferred through several concentration camps, and systematically tortured. During his imprisonment, it was primarily the music of Johann Sebastian Bach that provided him with support and inner dignity – a spiritual resistance against dehumanization that accompanied him until the end.
Petra Kelly – co-founder of the Greens and symbol of the peace movement of the 1980s. Her death in 1992 still raises questions today and represents the tensions and fractures of an era.
Anna Politkovskaya – investigative journalist who fearlessly reported on the Chechen wars and exposed systematic human rights violations. She was murdered in Moscow in 2006. The date of her death coincides with October 7, Vladimir Putin's birthday – a fact that raises questions to this day.
These four crimes represent political violence, ideological radicalization, and the high price of civil courage. Together with Roman Knižka, we will guide you through these stories, outline the historical backgrounds, and make the human dimensions of the events tangible.
The music is not just an addition, but a dramatic partner in the narrative. Works by Henry Mancini, Carl Nielsen, Igor Stravinsky, Samuel Barber, Henri Tomasi, and Johann Sebastian Bach enter into a multifaceted dialogue with the texts and deepen the emotional as well as historical dimension of the evening.
The sound of an era also finds its place: In the old Federal Republic of Germany, the largest peace movement in its history formed in the 1980s – its musical expression remains unforgettable to this day. Songs like “Ein bisschen Frieden,” “99 Luftballons,” “Der blaue Planet,” or “Sag mir, wo die Blumen sind” stand for hope, protest, and the longing for a different political reality.
“Es war Mord!” means more to us than just a concert. It is an evening about courage and responsibility, about democracy and its enemies, about civil courage and the fragility of political order.
For our work in conveying contemporary history, we were awarded the Hans Frankenthal Prize by the Auschwitz Committee Foundation. With this program, we continue our artistic path consistently – intensively, relevantly, and closely aligned with the political questions of our present.
Doors open: 18:30 Uhr
Hallo, ich bin Maya.
