BRÄNDE was initiiated on July 4, 2026, with the participatory intervention “The 1926 Party Congress – A Parodic Re-enactment” on Weimar’s Theaterplatz. The project marked the centenary of the NSDAP’s first nationwide party congress, which had taken place in Weimar on July 4, 1926. The congress marked a moment in which the still-young NSDAP began experimenting with forms of political staging and propaganda that it would further develop and radicalise in the years that followed.
For the intervention, the Leipzig-based Körperfunkkollektiv developed a participatory audio performance that explored the mechanisms behind this political staging. Through headphones, participants received instructions and became part of the unfolding performance themselves. Marching in step and collective movement, propaganda and seduction, belonging and exclusion were approached not merely from a historical distance, but made physically tangible through movement, changing roles, and collective action in public space. Different groups and perspectives encountered one another, bringing to the surface the social dynamics upon which National Socialist propaganda would come to build.
The intention was explicitly not to create an authentic reconstruction of the party congress. Instead, historical fragments were interwoven with fictional and parodic elements, looking back at the events of 1926 from the present and asking how political spectacle operates, how a sense of belonging is produced and exclusion normalised—and what these mechanisms might mean for the present.
The performance was accompanied by a series of video clips parodying the preparations for the historical party congress, as well as an interactive media installation. Together, these elements created a direct connection between the historical event and the political struggles of the present.
An archival exploration of the intervention and the events surrounding the 1926 NSDAP party congress has been on view at the Stockwerk Project Space since August 2026 (visits by appointment).
The project was funded by Partnerschaft für Demokratie Weimar as part of the federal programme “Demokratie leben!” and the Thuringian state programme “Denk bunt,” as well as by Diakoniestiftung. With the kind support of Alternative 54 Erfurt e. V.