Opening Event - "Wieder ans Licht"

100 years of wall and ceiling paintings

"Zukunft gestalten" (Shaping the Future) is the motto of Lamspringer September 2026, and the opening event tells a story that embodies this motto in a striking way: the rediscovery of Alfred Ehrhardt's ceiling paintings in the crypt of the Lamspringe monastery church, which were whitewashed over during the Nazi era.

Ehrhardt was just 25 years old in 1926/27, working as a music and art teacher, when he was entrusted with the complete decoration of the crypt. The iconographic programme was boldly modern - shaped by Expressionism and the Neue Sachlichkeit movement. It was precisely this proximity to the avant-garde that drew the ire of certain National Socialists: in 1938, the Klosterkammer Hannover - renamed "Staatliche Kulturfondsverwaltung" under Nazi pressure - ordered the murals to be destroyed.

Rediscovered decades later, the restoration of the paintings was made possible in part through the efforts of the Alfred Ehrhardt Stiftung and the support of the Klosterkammer.

The evening sheds light on the work itself and, above all, on how it was saved - featuring eyewitnesses and those directly involved in the restoration.