‘Table with 12 Chairs’ monument

The artist Thomas Schütte (born 1954) from Düsseldorf designed this monument commemorating resistance to National Socialism, which was dedicated in 1987. It is made of bricks and takes the form of twelve chairs arranged around an oval table.

On the backs of eleven of the chairs are the names of Hamburg resistance fighters: Georg Appel, Clara and Walter Bacher, Rudolf Klug, Curt Ledien, Reinhold Meyer, Hanne Mertens, Ernst Mittelbach, Joseph Norden, Margaretha Rothe, Kurt Schill and Paul Thürey. All of them were murdered by the Nazis. Streets in the vicinity of the memorial were named after them in 1984.

The twelfth chair has no name on it. Instead it has a plaque that explains the monument and invites visitors to take a seat and remember the men and women of the resistance.