Martin is a dramaturg at the Schaubühne Berlin and an author, director and curator. In 2018, he founded a Erinnerung als Arbeit an der Gegenwart (Memory as work on the present), international interdisciplinary platform that explores how the performing arts can contribute to remembrance. Martin studied economics and sociology at the LMU Munich, the Zeppelin University in Friedrichshafen as well as at UC Berkeley and Cambridge. His research interests include organisation theory and refugee studies. He has taught global urban studies in Munich, Berlin, Friedrichshafen and elsewhere.

Martin joined global dis:connect as an artist fellow.

Recording absences, tracing trajectories: the prosecution of theatre makers in Nazi Germany

Because of their progressive agenda and avant-garde aesthetics, many theatre-makers were in danger before Hitler’ seized power in 1933. That’s why the subsequent purge of theatres was swifter and more radical than in other milieus. While thousands of artists fled Germany, many more made their way, benefitting from job opportunities and massive Nazi investment in theatres. 1933 therefore marks a profound rupture in the history of German theatrical institutions and aesthetics. It simultaneously meant a disconnection from international communities of practice and, for the refugees, an expansion of global networks.