Leipzig (dpa/sn) – Where the internationally well-known orchestra of the Leipzig Gewandhaus otherwise plays, crime scene cleaner Thomas Kundt sensitized his audience to loneliness on Wednesday evening. “I estimate that in Germany 50,000 to 70,000 people die lonely and alone – and that’s simply 50,000 to 70,000 too many,” said the 44-year-old from Thammenhain in the Leipzig district before his performance in the almost sold-out Great Hall of the Gewandhaus. Kundt shows pictures of crime scenes, tells the stories behind them, and explains, among other things, about addiction and psychopathy.
Kundt said he was often asked about his job. After the first very well-attended evenings in Leipzig’s Kupfersaal, the crime scene cleaner is now known nationwide and has performed in Dresden, Hamburg and Rostock in recent months. At the last date of the year, when Kundt once again reviewed special experiences and encounters in the Gewandhaus, not only Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer (CDU) came, but also a whole coach full of people from his home village sat in the audience and cheered.
The topics of death and loneliness – tragic stories that Kundt and his team find at a wide variety of crime scenes – are best conveyed with a good dose of humor: “Sometimes laughing is the pleasant form of crying,” says the Thammenhainer. Some of what he shows is blatant. “But then I also say, look, don’t look away, because the message of the evening is: Pay attention to your fellow human beings.”
