Damage to Speckbacher's bronze works in Weilheim: It wasn't a silly boy prank

Created: 03/06/2022, 08:00

Big sphere, small sphere, once dirty, once damaged: the fate of Speckbacher's works of art really touches Helmut Tomaschewski.

©Andreas Bretting

A little over a year ago, bronze works by the artist Kurt Speckbacher became victims of vandalism.

The perpetrator was convicted.

However, damage to one bullet is irreparable.

Weilheim

– One day after the end of the exhibition, it was February 15, 2021, Helmut Tomaschewski wanted to pick up the works of art from the show, but the glass panel of the Sparkasse showcase was levered out.

The Weilheimer remembers the moment of horror vividly.

He hadn't even noticed that something was missing.

"Only a photo of the exhibition opening, taken by Tagblatt photographer Emanuel Gronau, proved the loss of the bronze ball."

The lost work is called "Aufbruch" and has a list price of 1700 euros, Tomaschewski knows.

The Weilheimer manages the few unsold works by the bronze artist, who last spent his active decades in Pähl.

"Kurt Speckbacher wanted to use the bullet to criticize the atomic bomb tests on the Mururoa Atoll," he says.

In fact, "Aufbruch" is conceived as a golden polished sphere that - similar to a lava fissure - seems to break open at a crack.

"That's how we'll destroy our world," Speckbacher (1925-2018) commented sarcastically on the plastic and thus the nuclear tests.

The perpetrator was in his mid-20s

The art vandal obviously had no sense for these time-critical subtleties and took the object.

The work was finally rediscovered two days later, on the eastern corner of the Altstadt-Center.

However, the marble base was missing and the sphere was visibly scratched.

"I initially assumed that high-spirited young people would have played with it," says Tomaschewski, who was able to receive the bronze sculpture again at the end of February 2021 after consultation with the police and Weilheim's public order office.

Tomaschewski, who was an important witness, saw the accused in the Munich district court on January 26 and quickly realized that the arrested person had nothing to do with a silly prank.

The Munich district court confirmed that the perpetrator was already in his mid-20s, lived without a permanent address in Bavaria and came from North Rhine-Westphalia.

The fact that the defendant in Weilheim was charged with stealing a mobile phone from a Vodafone shop made things worse.

Double theft in combination with damage to property, that gave a juicy sentence of one and a half years imprisonment, which - after having already served detention - was ordered as accommodation in a rehabilitation center.

Marble base was replaced free of charge

Theoretically, Kurt Speckbacher's descendants could still sue for damages under civil law.

Tomaschewski expects little benefit, since the depreciation of the work of art would be difficult to quantify and because the convicted person was probably penniless.

"I just think it's sad that people do something like that," sums up the art curator, who doesn't want to mourn the scratches on the ball forever.

"When someone is intoxicated, that's life." After all, the natural stone specialist Lindner from Pollingen replaced the marble base free of charge, "out of an old bond with Kurt Speckbacher," says Tomaschewski

Memory of Kurt Speckbacher could be refreshed

The administrator of the art estate would be happy if at least the public sector kept Speckbacher's works in better condition, such as the large ball in front of the Weilheim vehicle registration office.

"It was designed in 1979 for the district military replacement office that was based here at the time, with the ball standing for Germany." The concrete enclosure symbolizes the protection of the Bundeswehr.

The sphere was repaired only half-heartedly a few years ago, Tomaschewski regrets, and looks a little sadly at the dirty casing, which should actually shine in a noble aluminum coating.

In general, Tomaschewski hopes that the memory of Kurt Speckbacher - who also created the "Weilheimer Stückl" reliefs at the northern entrance to the pedestrian zone - can be refreshed more often through small exhibitions.

Andrew Bretting