Panoptikum
Century-old wax figure workshop and gallery where sculptors still cast portraits by hand in a family trade.
Location
About this audio guide
At the Panoptikum in Hamburg, a family-run wax museum open since 1879, the guide follows one uneasy commission: a Hitler head modeled by an anonymous sculptor in 1941, banned by the Nazi propaganda ministry from ever being displayed, and crated away through the bombing raids that flattened the building around it. It also traces the meticulous, unchanged craft still practiced by sculptors Saskia Ruth and Gottfried Krueger, who take a subject's measurements by hand and press in human hair strand by strand. Stand on Spielbudenplatz, five generations into that same patient trade.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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