The father of the Wimmelbuch — the German "busy picture book". For 58 years he lived and drew under the roof of Türkenstraße 54, walking Maxvorstadt and Schwabing with a sketchbook. Since 2026 the little square where Barer Straße meets Nordendstraße bears his name.
Munich, 1935. Alfons Mitgutsch was born in Munich on 21 August 1935. His childhood was shaped by war and flight: to escape the air raids on the city the family was evacuated to the Allgäu. School was a struggle — he was dyslexic at a time when nobody knew the word. Later he called himself a "school failure" who was often beaten. What saved him was looking: on pilgrimages with his mother he marvelled at the dioramas — small worlds behind glass in which everything happens at once. The idea of the busy picture was found long before he could draw it.
Apprenticeship and academy. Mitgutsch began training as a lithographer and gave it up. He then studied at Munich's Academy of Graphic Arts and worked as a commercial artist. From 1959 his own picture books appeared — "Pepes Hut" (1959), "Ulus abenteuerliche Reise" (1960), "Nico findet einen Schatz" (1961) — nominated three years running for the German Youth Book Prize. In 1964 he moved into the top-floor flat at Türkenstraße 54, which remained his home and studio to the end of his life.
The breakthrough, 1968. In the 1960s the child psychologist Kurt Seelmann, head of Munich's youth welfare office, encouraged him to paint picture books full of detail — books children could explore without text and without an adult reading aloud. His own three children were the test readers. The result appeared in 1968 with the Ravensburger publisher Otto Maier: "Rundherum in meiner Stadt" ("All Around My Town"), a large-format book with no words at all — building site, park, fair, lido, harbour and the cross-section of an apartment house. In 1969 it won the German Youth Book Prize. It is regarded as the first Wimmelbuch in the German-speaking world, even if the word only arrived years later. Mitgutsch himself preferred to call it "a picture book that tells itself".
Late work and farewell. More than 70 books followed: busy books about village, water, mountains and seasons, the non-fiction series "From Grain to Bread", fairy tales, knights and pirates. From 2007 Mitgutsch built "Traumkästen" — dream boxes, small framed stages in which the dioramas of his childhood returned. He received the Schwabing Art Prize in 2003, the Federal Cross of Merit in 2018 and the Upper Bavarian Culture Prize in 2019. In 2017 he withdrew from public life; requests for illustrations still reached him at 85. He died in Munich on 10 January 2022 of complications from pneumonia, aged 86.
One double page, no text, dozens of simultaneous stories: a ski race, an ambulance, a snowball fight, a child who urgently needs the loo. Round faces, button eyes, bright flat colours. The children in Mitgutsch's pictures are largely independent of the adult world — they climb, fall, laugh and make mischief. Whoever opens the book tells the stories themselves. A running gag: almost always, somewhere, a naked little boy or a Manneken Pis is hiding.
In 1971 the Ravensburger publisher described the success as "a happy mixture of learning and laughing". The books were soon in almost every public library and in thousands of kindergartens. More than five million copies were sold in Germany, more than three million internationally. Mitgutsch founded a genre that has long since carried on without him — from Rotraut Susanne Berner to the licensed busy books of every city. On his 75th birthday the taz called his pictures "for all their naivety cheekier and more anarchic" than those of many successors.
Mitgutsch was a walker. By the accounts of those around him he never left the house without sketchbook and pencil; situations he met on his way through Maxvorstadt and Schwabing were caught in seconds and worked up later. The town in "Rundherum in meiner Stadt" is no particular town — but anyone who knows the book and walks down Türkenstraße will recognise the point of view: back yards, building sites, tradesmen, market, tram. The International Youth Library sums up his work in one sentence: "With him everything is in motion, hardly anyone stands still."
There was criticism too. In its obituary the taz noted that girls play a subordinate role in the early busy books and that the gender roles are those of the sixties. Mitgutsch, who began the books in the year of upheaval 1968, never denied it — his pictures are documents of their time, not manifestos.
From 1964 Mitgutsch rented the top floor of Türkenstraße 54, on the border of Maxvorstadt and Schwabing, a few steps from the Elisabethmarkt. The flat with its large windows was also his studio. Almost all the busy books were made here.
"The Maxvorstadt under pressure", 1972. Mitgutsch was no apolitical draughtsman. When, in the early 1970s, the city wanted to widen Gabelsbergerstraße into a 40-metre ring road and put Barer Straße into a tunnel, the citizens' initiative "Aktion Maxvorstadt" marched on the town hall in 1971 with tenants and a digger. In 1972 Mitgutsch drew the sheet "Die Maxvorstadt unter Druck" for the initiative (Bäumler et al. 2015, p. 16). The tunnel plans were never built — more in the portrait of Barer Straße.
The battle for the houses, from 2007. In 2007 a community of heirs sold the ensemble Türkenstraße 52/54 for 30 million euros to a Munich investor group; rent rises and renovation-driven evictions were announced soon afterwards. In 2008 No. 52 was struck from the list of monuments, in 2009 the demolition application was filed. Mitgutsch, then 74, publicly accused the investors of letting the houses decay since 2007 and systematically emptying them; wealthy second-home owners he called a "cancer" for the quarter. The tenants collected signatures, obtained a hearing in the Bavarian parliament, exhibited in 2013 in the underground gallery at Universität station — in vain. In 2017 the ensemble was sold on for 80 million euros to the subsidiary of an Austrian bank; demolition of No. 52 began in 2019, and in 2020 the rear building of No. 54 fell too. An attempt to have the whole row listed failed. The listed front building of No. 54 — Mitgutsch's house — is to be preserved under the plans; behind it 64 condominiums are being built.
The city council explicitly justified the naming of the square with the fact that Mitgutsch lived "in the immediate vicinity of the new square". From Türkenstraße 54 to the triangle at Nordendstraße is less than a five-minute walk.
Ali-Mitgutsch-Platz is the green triangular island that forms where Barer Straße, coming from the south, runs into the diagonal Nordendstraße just before Kurfürstenplatz. Barer Straße bounds it to the west, Nordendstraße to the east, Neureutherstraße to the south. Around 2,000 square metres, old lime trees, a lawn edged with shrubs, park benches, an advertising pillar at one corner. The little square has existed since the street grid was laid out here at the end of the 19th century — and for more than 130 years it had no name.
Its usefulness was always limited: the roadways and parking spaces all around act as a barrier, the hedge seals it off. Whoever sits on the benches sits in the traffic. When the limes are in flower, sitting is not advised — the trees drip.
As early as 2018 the Maxvorstadt district committee filed a motion for a redesign. In April 2019 the SPD group on the city council, under the title "Five squares to be made attractive", proposed connecting the green space to the pavement in front of the pharmacy and kiosk and closing the carriageway of Neureutherstraße between Barer Straße and Nordendstraße. In October 2019 the building committee commissioned the city's building department to run a public consultation and a concept study. On 2 June 2022 residents discussed the square with the building department and a landscape architecture practice on the square itself; the concept study was adopted in March 2023 and preliminary design began. In autumn 2024 the district committee approved the variants: different surfaces, a "soft separation" from the traffic, new seating (interrupted so that a wheelchair or pram fits alongside), a fountain and raised beds — and the loss of 24 parking spaces in Neureutherstraße. In July 2026 the district committee additionally applied for the square to be rededicated as a pedestrian zone and redesigned quickly with low-cost measures.
The committee resolves to name the square-like area "south of the junction of Barer Straße with Nordendstraße" after Ali Mitgutsch. Names of persons are decided by this committee, after the council of elders and the district committee have been consulted.
The city announces the naming: street and square names are among the highest posthumous honours the city can bestow; Mitgutsch shaped Munich's cultural life lastingly and lived in the immediate vicinity. On 6 May the Abendzeitung headlines: "A little square for the king of the Wimmelbuch".
The district committee discusses the design of the square, applies for its rededication as a pedestrian zone and resolves to fund its own inauguration celebration, "Einweihung Ali-Mitgutsch-Platz".
In August the street-name signs were still missing on the traffic island. At the beginning of October 2026 they are installed — Ali-Mitgutsch-Platz has arrived in the cityscape. Street code 06826, postcode 80801.
Mitgutsch thus joins the Munich figures after whom the Maxvorstadt has most recently named its squares — from Max-Mannheimer-Platz at the Documentation Centre to Geschwister-Scholl-Platz in front of the university. Unlike most of these namesakes, his work is familiar to every child in the quarter: anyone who has ever crawled across a Wimmelbuch knows his line.
Alongside the new square, the International Youth Library at Blutenburg Castle is showing the first major retrospective since Mitgutsch's death. Curator Christiane Raabe has assembled originals from the artist's estate, which is managed by his three children Oliver, Florian and Katrin Mitgutsch: busy pictures, drawings, sketches, objects and free works from the 1950s to the 2000s — much of it never shown in public, including the "dream boxes" of the late years. The show sets out to prove that Mitgutsch was more than the Wimmelbuch man: non-fiction picture books, fairy tales, posters, puzzles, free painting.
At the opening on 15 September 2026 the heirs talked about their father as artist and human being. There are workshops for school classes. Getting there from Ali-Mitgutsch-Platz: tram 27 to Karlsplatz, S-Bahn to Pasing, then bus to Blutenburg — a good hour. All exhibitions →
Born on 21 August as Alfons Mitgutsch. Wartime childhood, evacuation to the Allgäu, dyslexia. The dioramas of the pilgrimage churches shape his eye.
First picture book of his own after an abandoned lithography apprenticeship, the Academy of Graphic Arts and years as a commercial artist. Nominated for the German Youth Book Prize.
Moves into the top-floor flat with the big windows — home and studio for the next 58 years.
The first Wimmelbuch appears with Ravensburger, encouraged by the child psychologist Kurt Seelmann, tested by his own three children. German Youth Book Prize 1969.
Drawing for the citizens' initiative "Aktion Maxvorstadt" against the ring road and the Barer Straße tunnel. The plans are never carried out.
The city honours the draughtsman from Türkenstraße. In 2007 the "dream boxes" begin, small framed stages.
Demolition application for Türkenstraße 52/54. Mitgutsch accuses the investors of systematic eviction. Petitions, a parliamentary hearing, an exhibition at Universität underground station — without success.
Cross of Merit on Ribbon; Upper Bavarian Culture Prize in 2019. The same year the district committee files its first motion to redesign the triangle at Nordendstraße.
10 January, aged 86, of complications from pneumonia. On 2 June, public consultation on the square that will one day bear his name.
The district committee approves the preliminary design for Barer-/Nordendstraße: surfaces, soft separation, benches, fountain, raised beds, 24 parking spaces fewer.
16 April: resolution of the municipal committee. 5 May: Rathaus Umschau. July: district committee funds an inauguration celebration. October: the signs are up.
The retrospective "Augen auf!" at the International Youth Library runs until 21 March 2027.
"I am a hopeful person, even when there isn't always a reason to be." — Ali Mitgutsch
"A picture book that tells itself." — Ali Mitgutsch on "Rundherum in meiner Stadt"
"With him everything is in motion, hardly anyone stands still." — International Youth Library · 2026
"Street and square names are among the highest honours the city can bestow posthumously." — City of Munich · Rathaus Umschau, 5 May 2026
Neighbours from Türkenstraße, parents, booksellers, the children of back then: we are collecting memories of the artist — and photos of the square that now bears his name.