Der dreifach diplomierte Idiot

Das Ringen des Restaurators Erich Spießbach um berufliche Anerkennung

Abstract

"The idiot with a triple diploma” – The Restorer Erich Spiessbach’s Fight for Professional Recognition
The former restorer and dig aide Erich Spießbach struggled for the major part of his life for professional recognition beyond that of the status of an assistant. In 1953, while patient in a mental home, he wrote a long petition hoping to achieve judicial rehabilitation and the annulment of his incapacitation. He added essays and drawings, which were intended to show him to be a scholarly and artistically educated person. He sarcastically subtitled two self portraits “the idiot with a triple diploma”. Such efforts appeared to be of little suitability to prove his mental health. Did the sick person unmask himself unwillingly, was it meant to be a joke or was there a hidden intention? After ten years in a locked mental clinic his hope for release was bitterly serious. Asking for his intentions is part of the phenomenon Erich Spießbach.