BURKHARD SCHITTNY, Fineart

henkersmahlzeit

HENKERSMAHLZEIT
LEGACY PROJECTS 2015

Archival inkjet print / Framed / 187 × 140 cm (74 × 55 in) / Wall-mounted / 3 + 1 AP

INTRODUCTION
“Since I usually woke up about five o'clock every morning I got into the habit of amusing myself with watching little mice which played around in my small room. I used to place a few pieces of hard bread or crust on the floor and watch the funny little beasts playing around and enjoying themselves with these delicacies.”

— Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, trans. James Murphy, London: Hurst & Blackett, 1939, p. 175.

The work presents a typographic rendering of this passage from Mein Kampf, first published in 1925. In restrained, matter-of-fact language, the text describes mice competing for pieces of bread while its author watches the scene with amusement.

Only the caption identifies Adolf Hitler as the author of the passage, fundamentally altering the viewer’s perception. What initially appears to be an innocuous everyday scene acquires a disturbing dimension, pointing to the worldview and ideology of a regime that turned hunger, dehumanisation, and extermination into instruments of political practice. Viewed in retrospect, the passage reads as an unsettling foreshadowing of the horrors that would later unfold in the ghettos and concentration camps.