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Stühleverschwinden an der Uni Lübeck

33:05 recording · EN · 3 speakers

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Brief overview

Sixty stolen Mensa chairs in Lübeck turned out to be design classics worth about 30,000 euros.

  1. A 300-euro report hid a 30,000-euro lossThe Mensa reported 5 euros per chair; new Bruno Rey chairs start at around 500 euros.
  2. Nobody at the university knew what they ownedThe student work only confirmed the chairs were designer pieces when Pia Schreiber asked directly.
  3. Stolen design furniture is almost untraceableNo serial numbers, no license plates, endless colour variants, and dealers who sand and repaint them.
Executive Summary AI
  • Guest Pia Schreiber, a legal scholar with a master's in international criminology now at Zeit's data and investigative team, found the story during an internship at Zeit Campus after Lübeck local media and the NDR reported that 60 chairs had vanished from the cafeteria of the University in Lübeck.2:45
  • Mensa head Andreas Mildner, a former Four Seasons star chef who cooks for up to 1,800 students a day, came to work on February 17, 2025 and found 20 chairs missing, and by the Friday of the same week the remaining 40 were gone too.3:19
  • Assuming they were 5-euro plastic chairs, Mildner reported the theft to the police and estimated the damage at 300 euros.7:36
  • The Zeit Campus editors recognised them as Bruno Rey's designer chair, the Type 3300 of 1971, today sold as Ray 22 by the Swiss firm Ditica and built more than a million times — new from around 500 euros, so roughly 30,000 euros for 60 chairs, and 200 to 280 euros each second hand on Ebay.9:24
  • Identical thefts followed in Oldenburg and Braunschweig, where pool attendant Ingo Schwettmann stopped two men carrying chairs out at 22 o'clock and chased them in his Birkenstocks, but 60 chairs were already loaded; the case remains unsolved and the chairs are suspected to be circulating in the Netherlands.24:18
Key Quote
“And he came in the morning and it was a sunny weekend and he noticed that 20 chairs were missing in my cafeteria.”
— Pia Schreiber3:34
Key Quote
“He said they were like mushrooms from the ground, which I found a very interesting description for a cook.”
— Pia Schreiber4:32
Key Quote
“It was sitting on a treasure that she didn't recognize.”
— Pia Schreiber10:20