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The Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation and his family honoured the memory of the great Berlin collector Erich Marx, who died last year, with a moving memorial service at the Hamburger Bahnhof. Erich Marx was closely associated with the Nationalgalerie of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin for almost forty years. At the invitation of Foundation President Hermann Parzinger and Axel Marx, the son of the deceased, around 200 personalities from politics, culture, business and society came to the Museum der Gegenwart, including Minister of State for Culture Monika Grütters and the Governing Mayor of Berlin Michael Müller.

On behalf of the family, Professor Axel Marx, son of Dr Erich Marx, paid tribute to his father, who had previously been portrayed in a film by Gero von Böhm - which visibly moved the family members:

"My father loved Berlin, the city's wealth of art and its cosmopolitanism. We know how much our father, Erich Marx, is missed as the creator of the "Marx Collection", as a patron of the arts and as a good personal friend to many of those here today. It was therefore a very special wish of the whole family that we should come together today for this memorial service and remember my father, even though we can never replace the wonderful man Erich Marx. The void he left behind is great, very great.

We as his family will continue his work and his connection to Berlin. We are endeavouring to permanently transfer all Beuys works from the Marx Collection - and thus such important works as "Das Kapital", "The secret block for a secret person in Ireland" or "Tram Stop [2nd version]" - to the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation beyond existing loan agreements by the time the Museum of the 20th Century opens. We are already working intensively with the SPK to create the necessary legal conditions for this. Josef Beuys - who, like my father, would have celebrated his hundredth birthday this year - was a great artist who shared a close friendship with our father. Because we are honouring both of them today, there is no better day than today to announce this intention."

Monika Grütters, Minister of State for Culture and the Media: "As one of the greatest art collectors and patrons of his time, Erich Marx persistently ensured that valuable art went where it belonged: into the public domain. By loaning one of the world's most important collections of post-war modern art to the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation in 1996, he wanted to make art accessible to everyone on a scale that would never have been possible with state funds alone. I am therefore all the more grateful that Erich Marx's art treasures in the Museum of the 20th Century will in future receive the full public recognition and appreciation they deserve."

Michael Müller, Governing Mayor of Berlin: "In Erich Marx, we have lost a generous patron of the arts and a pioneering patron of contemporary art, whose work has written its own chapter in recent Berlin art history. The works from the Marx Collection paved the way for the Hamburger Bahnhof to establish itself as an important museum of contemporary art. It is impossible to imagine the Museum of Contemporary Art at Hamburger Bahnhof without Erich Marx. Erich Marx has rendered outstanding services to the cultural city of Berlin, for which we owe him our very special thanks."

SPK President Hermann Parzinger emphasised: "Without Erich Marx, Hamburger Bahnhof would not exist. The National Museums in Berlin, the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, owe him a great debt of gratitude. And the Museum of the 20th Century, where the works in his collection will be on display in the future, was also a matter close to his heart. His grand gesture when he acquired the environment "Das Kapital Raum 1970-1977" by Joseph Beuys and made it available to the Nationalgalerie on permanent loan remains unforgotten. I deeply regret that he will no longer be able to experience the future presentation of this work in the new building at the Kulturforum. I would like to thank Erich Marx's family for remaining so deeply connected to the museums and the SPK and for continuing the path that Erich Marx travelled with us."

Gabriele Knapstein, Director of the Hamburger Bahnhof - Museum der Gegenwart - Berlin, and Joachim Jäger, Director of the Neue Nationalgalerie: "Erich Marx was one of Germany's great collectors. He decided early on to make his important collection permanently accessible to the public. Since the opening of the Hamburger Bahnhof in 1996, the Marx Collection has been an irreplaceable asset: the large groups of works by Joseph Beuys, Robert Rauschenberg, Cy Twombly and Andy Warhol are still among the Nationalgalerie's crowd-pullers today. We are delighted that the Marx Collection will continue to be on permanent display at the Hamburger Bahnhof and later at the Museum of the 20th Century. We are deeply indebted to Erich Marx for his vision and for his decades-long association with the Nationalgalerie."

When building up his collection, Erich Marx focussed on a few artists whose works particularly fascinated him: Andy Warhol, Cy Twombly and Joseph Beuys, Anselm Kiefer, Robert Rauschenberg, Roy Liechtenstein and a few others. They are represented with impressive work groups and key works that make their respective artistic development comprehensible. Erich Marx formulated the claim early on that his collection should also fulfil the requirements of a museum. His important collection of contemporary art was first shown to the public in 1982 in the upper hall of the Neue Nationalgalerie. In order to give this collection a place in Berlin, the Hamburger Bahnhof was expanded into the Museum für Gegenwart. For over 20 years, it was on display there in the context of the works of the Nationalgalerie, and later also the Friedrich Cristian Flick Collection. The collection is on long-term loan to the Nationalgalerie and is presented by the museum's curators in changing exhibitions. With the opening of the Museum of the 20th Century at the Kulturforum, it will move there in a few years and find its place in a new context.

Erich Marx cultivated a special relationship with Joseph Beuys in particular throughout his life as a collector. The installation "Tram stop. A monument to the future" at the Venice Biennale made a deep impression on him. It was not least through Heiner Bastian, Beuys' confidant and Erich Marx's long-time advisor, that the businessman and collector developed a close relationship with the exceptional artist in the years that followed. Marx also supported Beuys in the realisation of several works, such as the creation of "Unschlitt" for the Skulptur Projekte Münster 1977 or the "7,000 Oaks" project for documenta 7 in Kassel. Erich Marx regarded the acquisition of the work "Das Kapital Raum 1970-1977" together with his son Axel Marx as the final highlight of his collecting activities.