The 135th birthday of the philosopher and social theorist Karl Marx on 5 May 1953 was celebrated on a grand scale in the German Democratic Republic (GDR). The SED leadership declared 1953 the ‘Karl Marx Year’, decided to rename the city and district of Chemnitz as Karl-Marx-Stadt, and also commissioned a bust of Marx.
The sculptor Will Lammert emerged as the winner of the competition organised by the State Art Commission. He created a bronze portrait bust of Karl Marx, the casts of which were ceremoniously unveiled on 5 May 1953, Marx’s 135th birthday, simultaneously at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (HU), Friedrich Schiller University in Jena and the University of Leipzig. Since 1990/1991, the busts have been in storage at all the universities. To mark the 10th anniversary of the exhibition “Unveiled. Berlin and its Monuments” at Spandau Citadel, the bust from HU will be unveiled once again on 9 May 2026 and will subsequently be on display in the exhibition. Since 2016, the exhibition has featured monuments that were removed from public spaces following political upheavals.
At a glance
- When: Saturday, 9 May 2026, from 3 pm to 4 pm
- Where: Proviantmagazin, Citadel, Am Juliusturm 64, 13599 Berlin.
- Speakers at the unveiling: Dr Christina Kuhli, Curator at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin; Dr Carola Brückner, Deputy District Mayor and District Councillor in Spandau; and Dr Urte Evert, Museum Director.
The event marking the 10th anniversary of the exhibition “Unveiled. Berlin and its Monuments” is free of charge.
The history of the Marx bust at HU
At Humboldt-Universität, the Marx bust was unveiled in front of the Senate Hall in 1953, alongside the new foyer in the university’s main building. In 1991, following a decision by the Institutional Leadership and Management, it was removed from the main building and stored in the art collection’s repository, partly due to fears of vandalism and theft. Prior to this, the commemorative plaque for Karl Marx, which had been affixed to the university’s main building, had already been stolen, as had the commemorative plaque for Lenin at the entrance to the ‘Kommode’, the seat of the Faculty of Law on Bebelplatz.
In 1994, the bust of Marx went on tour for a year to the ‘Feuer und Flamme’ exhibition at the Oberhausen Gasometer. In the summer of 2016, the bust was then presented to the public in the atrium of the main building as part of Ahmet Öğüt’s exhibition “IN THE OPEN”. It was the 200th exhibition at the Kleine Humboldt-Galerie, in which various artists engaged with objects from the HU’s art collection.
