Professor Dr. Jürgen Erbach

Born in Boppard, Germany, on 8th May 1961.

Lives with his partner Kristof Heil and their two small dogs, Max & Moritz, in the Hessian town of Wetzlar.

The marriage and subsequent blessing in Wetzlar cathedral in August 2008 led to Europe-wide media coverage after Peter Kollas, the priest who held the service, was admonished by the then bishop of Limburg, Tebartz van Elst.

Jürgen Erbach came up with an optics-parcours (Optikparcours) in the heart of Wetzlar, the town where Leica created the first 35mm film camera (the project helping Wetzlar‘s sense of identity to emerge through its optics‘ heritage). Erbach and his partner Kristof Heil founded the Wetzlar Dark Department Store, Dunkelkaufhaus (www.dunkelkaufhaus.de), which currently has six visually impaired employees. Erbach wrote children‘s books in which Max and Moritz, the couple‘s two small dogs, explain the optics-parcours.

Studied engineering at RWTH Aachen University in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.

Doctorate in engineering from the Bergische Universität Wuppertal, Germany.

After working in the property division of the Bankgesellschaft Berlin, Erbach founded his own company, IPEM-Unternehmensgruppe, in 1997; he has developed, amongst other projects, several large entertainment centres, for example the UCI multiplex cinema in Düsseldorf MedienHafen.

In 2001 he became professor for property development (Immobilienprojektentwicklung) in the Real Estate Economics and Management department of the University of Applied Sciences and Arts (HAWK) in Holzminden, Lower Saxony.

Jürgen Erbach has been writing a monthly column in the property magazine Immobilienmanager since 2006 (www.der-streitbare-professor.de).

A six part property thriller The Day After Is Today (Der Tag danach ist heute) was published in 2014 as a column spin-off; it tells of Thomas Middelhoff, the former CEO of Arcandor, and the Sal. Oppenheim bank.

Photographic exhibitions to date:

  • Müllpoesie (Cologne 2012/2013)
  • Müllpoesie (Hamburg 2014)
  • Auf Draht. Der Drahtmann unterwegs in…..Berlin, Hamburg, Köln, Aachen, Wetzlar, Eifel (Cologne, 2014)
  • Auf Draht. Der Drahtmann unterwegs in…..Berlin, Hamburg, Köln, Aachen, Wetzlar, Eifel (Holzminden, 2014)