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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 September 2015
This article examines images of Germany's “working world” in the 1930s and 1940s. Analyzing photos from three different genres—factory photography, special-occasion industrial photography, and the work of nonprofessional photographers—it addresses a series of questions: How was the “working world” depicted in photographs from this period? What were the different modes, functions, and effects of visual representations of work and workers in these three genres? In what ways did these photographs contribute to the (visual) production and “shaping” of memory—in terms of worker experiences, as well as with respect to attempts by the National Socialists to promote ideological notions of community-building (Vergemeinschaftung)? The main argument is that photography served as an important tool for the mobilization and self-mobilization of German workers under the Nazi regime.
Dieser Aufsatz untersucht Bilder der “Arbeitswelt” Deutschlands aus den 1930er- und 1940er-Jahren. Anhand von aus drei unterschiedlichen Genres stammenden Fotografien—Werksfotografien, zu besonderen Anlässen hergestellte Industriefotografien und Amateurfotografien—werden eine Reihe von Fragen angesprochen: Wie stellte sich die Arbeiterwelt in Fotografien aus dieser Zeit dar? Welches waren die unterschiedlichen Arten, Funktionen und Wirkungen der visuellen Repräsentation von Arbeit und Arbeitern in diesen drei Genres? Wie genau trugen diese Fotografien zur (visuellen) Produktion sowie zur Formung und “Gestaltung” von Erinnerung bei—im Sinne von Arbeitererfahrungen, aber auch im Hinblick auf die Versuche der Nationalsozialisten, ideologische Vorstellungen von Vergemeinschaftung zu fördern? Wie gezeigt wird, hat Fotografie als wichtiges Werkzeug der Mobilisierung wie auch der Selbstmobilisierung deutscher Arbeiter unter dem nationalsozialistischen Regime gedient.
1 Quote from Wolfgang Hesse in “Fotokultur—Fotowissenschaft—Fotopolitik. E-Mail-Interview von Esther Bauer und Jürg Schneider mit Wolfgang Hesse,” in Blickfänger. Fotografien in Basel aus zwei Jahrhunderten, ed. Esther Bauer and Jürg Schneider (Basel: Christoph Merian Verlag, 2004), 42.
2 Karl-Peter Ellerbrock claims that the 1920s was the decade in which the working world pushed its way into the “middle of the picture.” See Ellerbrock, “Im Fokus der Kamera: Menschen und Fabrikhallen. Anmerkungen zur Industriefotografie im Ruhrgebiet,” in Geschichte—Unternehmen—Archive, ed. Wilfried Feldenkirchen, Susanne Hilger, and Kornelia Rennert (Essen: Klartext, 2008), 503. Reinhard Matz makes an even more specific statement, writing that “at the start of the 1930s, the workplace increasingly became a subject for photography.” See Matz, Industriefotografie. Aus Firmenarchiven des Ruhrgebiets (Essen: Kulturstiftung Ruhr, 1987), 10.
3 Lüdtke, “‘Ehre der Arbeit,’” 344.
4 On the issue of symbolic arrangements, especially in terms of traditions, “innovations,” and ideological background, see Alf Lüdtke, “‘Ehre der Arbeit’. Industriearbeiter und Macht der Symbole. Zur Reichweite symbolischer Orientierungen im Nationalsozialismus,” in Arbeiter im 20. Jahrhundert, ed. Klaus Tenfelde (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1991), 343–92; Rüdiger Hachtmann, “Vom ‘Geist der Volksgemeinschaft durchpulst,’” Zeitgeschichte-online, Jan. 2010 (www.zeitgeschichte-online.de/zol-sprachpolitik-2010); Michael Wildt, “Der Begriff der Arbeit bei Hitler,” in Arbeit im Nationalsozialismus, ed. Marc Buggeln and Michael Wildt (Munich: De Gruyter Oldenbourg, 2014), 3–24. On contemporary photographic representations of “work” and “workers,” see Irene Ziehe, “‘Der Steiger steht am Apparat und knipst.’ Zur Darstellung von Arbeit in privaten Fotografien,” in Produktion und Reproduktion. Arbeit und Fotografie, ed. Wolfgang Hesse, Claudia Schindler, and Manfred Seifert (Dresden: Thelem, 2010), 97–114.
5 Lüdtke, “‘Ehre der Arbeit.’” Nazi invocations and proclamations of “honor” frequently praised not only the worker, but also the farmer. See, e.g., Anon., “Bauer und Arbeiter haben ihre Ehre wieder. Das deutsche Volk hat zu den wahren Werten seines Daseins zurückgefunden,” in Arbeitertum 8, no.8 (1938–39): 7–9Google Scholar.
6 See Eike Hennig, “Hitler-Porträts abseits des Regierungsalltags. Einer von uns und für uns?,” in Führerbilder. Hitler, Mussolini, Roosevelt, Stalin in Fotografie und Film, ed. Martin Loiperdinger, Rudolf Herz, and Ulrich Pohlmann (Munich: Piper, 1995), 36–37. The highest known print-run number of this series, which was published by the Cigaretten-Bilderdienst, Hamburg-Bahrenfeld (i.e., the Reemtsma cigarette company), indicates that there were at least 2.4 million copies. See the corresponding title entry in the online catalogue of the Eutin Regional Library: www.lb-eutin.de.
7 According to payroll records from 1932, the company had seventeen employees, including the young Eva Braun, who worked at the shop counter. After 1933, the company “Heinrich Hoffmann, Publisher of National Socialist Pictures” grew into a major photo agency with its own press and publishing departments, eventually employing up to three hundred workers at eleven branches: its sales grew from 680,000 RM in 1933 to 15.4 million RM in 1943. See Rudolf Herz, Hoffmann & Hitler. Fotografie als Medium des Führer-Mythos (Munich: Klinkhardt & Biermann, 1994), 49, 52–53, 60–61.
8 The image archive databank of the Preußischer Kulturbesitz (“Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation”) in Berlin dates this photo to 1932. See Bildagentur für Kunst, Kultur und Geschichte (http://www.bpk-images.de).
9 See a corresponding article by Hannemann, Karl, “Die Bildjäger. Arbeitskameraden mit der Kamera,” in Arbeitertum 8, no. 1 (1938–39): 20Google Scholar.
10 It is plausible that this “fellow-worker-with-the-camera” trope was also introduced as a Nazi substitute for an earlier (self-)understanding of the “Arbeiter-Fotograf” (“worker-photographer”), i.e., as a way of “tidying up” after the 1933 Nazi takeover and the destruction of the organized labor movement. A magazine with the same name was founded in 1926 and published by Willi Münzenberg. See Joachim Büthe et al., Der Arbeiter-Fotograf. Dokumente und Beiträge zur Arbeiterfotografie 1926–1932 (Cologne: Prometh-Verlag 1977), 34–45. In 1928, Franz Höllering, the editor-in-chief of the Arbeiter-Illustrierte Zeitung, characterized the “worker-photographer” not as a “fellow worker with the camera” but rather as a “reporter and artist.” See Höllering, “Der Arbeiter-Fotograf als Reporter und Künstler” (Jan. 1928), in Der Arbeiter-Fotograf. Offizielles Organ der Vereinigung der Arbeiter-Fotografen Deutschland 2, no. 5 (1927–28): 3–4.
11 This use of the generic term assembly line deserves a more precise nomenclature given the existence of many highly diverse conveyor systems for assembly-line work. If one compares the conveyor seen in the MAN photos with a contemporary overview chart of the various common types in use at the time, as well as with a photographic illustration, the MAN photos seem to depict a (circulating) “Standbahntisch,” i.e., a “standing-track worktable” with trays on rails for work performed while standing. See K.-H. Schmidt, “Die Fördermittel für Fließarbeit,” in Fließarbeit. Beiträge zu ihrer Einführung, ed. Frank Mäckbach and Otto Kienzle (Berlin: VDI-Verlag, 1926), 95 and 103 (Fig. 103b).
12 See, e.g., the photos in Matz, Industriefotografie, 74–81.
13 Workflow stoppages for factory photography have been common practice since the early days of industrial and factory photography. See Ulrich Wengenroth, “Die Fotografie als Quelle der Arbeits- und Technikgeschichte,” in Bilder von Krupp. Fotografie und Geschichte im Industriezeitalter, ed. Klaus Tenfelde (Munich: Beck, 1994), 89–105.
14 See Timo Luks, Der Betrieb als Ort der Moderne. Zur Geschichte von Industriearbeit, Ordnungsdenken und Social Engineering im 20. Jahrhundert (Bielefeld: transcript, 2010), 196.
15 See Josef Moser, Oberösterreichs Wirtschaft 1938 bis 1945 (Vienna: Böhlau, 1991), 297.
16 Karsten Uhl, Humane Rationalisierung? Die Raumordnung der Fabrik im fordistischen Jahrhundert (Bielefeld: transcript, 2014), 61–68. Uhl refers to Karl Hilpert, Die Rundfunk-Industrie, dargestellt am Beispiel der Blaupunkt-Werke G.m.b.H. Berlin-Wilmersdorf (Leipzig: J. J. Arnd, Verlag Übersee-Post, 1939), 22–23. Studies that appeared before Uhl include, e.g., Rüdiger Hachtmann, Industriearbeit im “Dritten Reich”. Untersuchungen zu den Lohn- und Arbeitsbedingungen in Deutschland 1933–1945 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1989); Mary Nolan, Visions of Modernity. American Business and the Modernization of Germany (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994).
17 Bernd Weisbrod, “Der Schein von Modernität. Zur Historisierung der ‘Volksgemeinschaft,’” in Geschichte als Möglichkeit. Über die Chancen von Demokratie. Festschrift für Helga Grebing, ed. Karsten Rudolph and Christl Wickert (Essen: Klartext, 1995), 224–42.
18 See J.B.R. (aka J.B. Ring), “Rhythmus der Arbeit. Im Takt unserer großen Zeit,” in Arbeitertum 6 , no. 1 (1936–37): 24–26Google Scholar.
19 A photo from a company roll call at the Allgemeine Elektricitäts-Gesellschaft (AEG) in Berlin, likely commissioned in 1935 by the Nazi factory cell of the AEG, was published in the magazine Arbeitertum with a caption underlining its function in promoting togetherness: “The company roll call is an expression of the solidarity between company leaders and followers.” See Gusko, Curt, “Vom Unternehmer zum Betriebsführer. Die Menschen sind das wertvollste Gut, nicht die Maschinen,” in Arbeitertum 5, no. 1 (1935–36): 19Google Scholar.
20 Reich Youth Leader Baldur von Schirach called the 1935 National Vocational Competition a “symbol of youth that perfectly embodies its grand ethos, the ‘Honor of Work.’” He also borrowed from the militant rhetoric of the socialist workers’ movement: “Furthermore, I see in this the greatest socialist action of all times, the perennial battle cry of the productive against the exploiters. One day we will be victorious…” See the preface by Baldur von Schirach (dated April 29, 1935 in Saarbrücken), in Arbeitertum 5, no. 4 (1935–36): 3. The slogan of the 1936 National Vocational Competition later conveyed an entirely different, explicitly anti-Bolshevik sentiment: “Against Stakhanov: For the Four-Year Plan.” See Eichelberger, Kurt, “Der 4. Reichsberufswettkampf beginnt: 90 Prozent aller Jugendlichen haben sich gemeldet,” in Arbeitertum 6, no. 21 (1936–37): 14Google Scholar.
21 On the “Beauty of Labor” organization and its campaigns, see Chup Friemert, Produktionsästhetik im Faschismus. Das Amt “Schönheit der Arbeit” von 1933–1939 (Munich: Damnitz, 1980); also see Anson Rabinbach, “Die Ästhetik der Produktion im Dritten Reich,” in Kunst und Kultur im deutschen Faschismus, ed. Ralf Schnell (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1978), 57–85.
22 After Alfred Tritschler (1905–70) submitted his resume to the renowned Frankfurt photographer Paul Wolff (1887–1951), the two men founded the “Dr. Paul Wolff & Tritschler” photo agency in 1927. Their photo assignments included the 1936 Berlin Summer Olympics; they also offered training courses for photojournalists from 1935 to 1942. In the late 1930s, the company had around twenty employees. See the historical account on the company's website: http://drwolffundtritschler.de.tl/Bildarchiv.htm; also see Rolf Sachsse, Die Erziehung zum Wegsehen. Fotografie im NS-Staat (Dresden: Philo, 2003), 436. Wolff's small-format photos of the Opel plant in Rüsselsheim, taken in 1936 with a Leica camera, helped set a new trend in factory photography. See Dr. Paul Wolff—Pionier der Kleinbildfotografie. Fotografien 1927–1939. Eine Ausstellung der Adam Opel AG, 2nd ed. (Rüsselsheim: Adam Opel, 1989), 12. Although the official company records of Opel AG do not refer to Tritschler's photos, but rather to small-format ones by Paul Wolff taken in the mid-1930s, they support the assertion that the company staged visual tableaux. Wolff relied “on taking multiple shots with small-format photos, forgoing the custom of the arranged single shot.” See Ibid., 13. Surviving negatives of the photos taken by Tritschler and his staff at SWA show both methods: rapid-fire photo sequences of the same subject, as well as more meticulous arrangements and staged poses.
23 Another photo of this beaming worker also exists: a close-up shot from below, where she seems to stagger almost backwards under the weight of the spools. See Stadtarchiv Augsburg (hereafter StadtAA), photo collection, SWA 2050.
24 See Andreas Feininger, Menschen vor der Kamera. Ein Lehrbuch moderner Bildnisfotografie (Halle: Heering, 1934), 66. Emphasis in original.
25 A similar photo showing just one female worker amid the raw cotton was ultimately selected for the photo section of the commemorative volume. Its caption simply reads: “Im Baumwollstock” (in the cotton stockpile). See Hundert Jahre Mech. Baumwoll-Spinnerei und Weberei Augsburg (Munich: Bruckmann, 1937), unpag. photo section.
26 Some 4,500 copies were printed. See the 1937 Annual Report by management in StadtAA, SWA, company files, 211,5.
27 See, e.g., Karl-Peter Ellerbrock, ed., Profile. Typen der Arbeitswelt in der historischen Werksfotografie (Essen: Krupp, 1994), 24–25; idem, “Im Fokus der Kamera,” 497; Matthias Frotscher, Arbeitswelt und Alltag. Der Werkfotobestand des Kunstgussmuseums Lauchhammer (Dresden: Verlag der Kunst, 2003), 38, 59. Anton von Rieppel, General Director of the MAN company, commissioned in 1890–91 one of the most comprehensive photographic records of a company workforce. The corresponding negatives of the “Rieppel Album” are stored (noncontiguously) in the historical archive of the MAN company in boxes containing negatives numbered 31–1010, 1011–1676, and 1677–2095.
28 According to a retrospective report by SWA management, a large festival tent “on a field near our plant in Aumühle” served as an “assembly space for our guests and company personnel—about 5,000 people.” See the 1937 Annual Report 1937 by management in StadtAA, SWA, company files, 211,5.
29 The company bought more than just a few praline boxes for this anniversary, of course: “The monies expended for the celebration, for bonus payments to the workforce, and for various donations benefitting public causes, came to a total of about 376,000 RM.” See Ibid.
30 See StadtAA, SWA, company files, 189,5, invoice from the agency “Dr. Paul Wolff & Tritschler—Photo Studios · Film Shoots—to the Mechanical Cotton Spinning and Weaving Company,” June 21, 1937. The agency charged “for the preparation of a photo report of your anniversary celebration,” including “transportation costs for two gentlemen,” who spent three days in Augsburg in order to document the preparation and execution of the festivities.
31 This was how the DAF functionary Theo Hupfauer formulated it in October 1939; quoted in Tilla Siegel, “Rationalisierung statt Klassenkampf. Zur Rolle der Deutschen Arbeitsfront in der nationalsozialistischen Ordnung der Arbeit,” in Herrschaftsalltag im Dritten Reich. Studien und Texte, ed. Hans Mommsen and Susanne Willems (Düsseldorf: Schwann im Patmos Verlag, 1988), 208.
32 See the historical archive of the MAN company, Augsburg, 2.2.3/19, letter from engineer H. K. (of Ratingen) to MAN (Augsburg), May 3, 1982.
33 The strong textual similarities between H. K.'s letter and the photo's inscription (especially the emphasis on the personal initiative of the workers at the MAN shipping department) point to the fact that the inscription was retrospectively added to the photo in 1982 (an assessment further confirmed by the use of ballpoint pen and the post-Nazi expression “NS Zeit,” meaning “Nazi period”).
34 A photo depicting a sports field under construction—likely on the company premises of Knorr-Bremse (“Knorr Brakes”)—was published alongside an article by “R” (the initial of an unknown author) in “An der Geburtsstätte der NSBO. Die Deutsche Arbeitsfront in den Betrieben. Besuch bei der ‘Knorr-Bremse,’” in Arbeitertum 5 no. 1 (1935–36): 11–13Google Scholar. For the DAF quote, see Forstreuther, Adalbert, “Tat und Planung im Amt ‘Schönheit der Arbeit’. Weit über 200 Millionen Mark aufgewendet,” in Arbeitertum 5, no. 20 (1935–36): 11Google Scholar.
35 See the document cited in note 33.
36 Rudolf Käs offers such an example based on an interview the Centrum Industriekultur of Nuremberg conducted with a former employee of a large company located in that city; see his “Arbeiter unterm Hakenkreuz. Zur Lage in den Großbetrieben,” in Unterm Hakenkreuz. Alltag in Nürnberg 1933–1945, ed. Centrum Industriekultur (Munich: Hugendubel, 1993), 77.
37 J.B.R. [J.B. Ring], “‘Kraft durch Freude’ auch im neuen Jahr schöpferisch. KDF-Foto-Kurse für Anfänger,” in Arbeitertum 5, no. 21 (1935–36): 28Google Scholar. On the KdF, see Shelley Baranowski, Strength through Joy: Consumerism and Mass Tourism in the Third Reich (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).
38 See Seitz, Carl, “Gründet Werksphotogruppen,” in Photographie für Alle. Zeitschrift für alle Zweige der Photographie 33, no. 2 (Jan. 15, 1937): 28Google Scholar. Emphasis in original.
39 See the announcements “Anschriftenänderung [der AEG.-Photo-Arbeitsgemeinschaft, Berlin],” and “Ausstellung und Wettbewerb des Photovereins ‘Siemens’ e.V.,” in Photographie für Alle. Zeitschrift für alle Zweige der Photographie 33, no. 21 (Nov. 1, 1937): 346. By the mid-1920s, Siemens had already become one of the world's top five electric goods companies.
40 See the classifieds section “Photogruppe in der Accumulatorenfabrik Hagen i. W.,” in Photofreund. Halbmonatsschrift für Freunde der Photographie 15, no. 21 (Nov. 5, 1935): 418.
41 See Sachsse, Die Erziehung zum Wegsehen, 120–22, 297–301.
42 See “Mitteilungen. Neue Fotogruppen im RDAF,” in Photo-Illustrierte 6, no. 2 (Feb. 1941): unpag. [6]; also see “Mitteilungen. Neue Fotogruppen im RDAF,” in Photo-Illustrierte 6, no. 3 (March 1941): unpag. [6].
43 See the press documents folder in StadtAA, SWA, company files, 189,7.
44 Mason correctly describes four parallel control strategies of the Nazi regime: repression, neutralization of potential resistance, concessions in cases of discontent and unrest, and integration. But, if one includes the medium of photography in the analysis, it was the symbolically loaded opportunities for integration (and its “em-body-ments”) that proved to be a more long-lasting topos, and one that was frequently used at the time—also in visual terms. See Timothy Mason, “Die Bändigung der Arbeiterklasse im nationalsozialistischen Deutschland. Eine Einleitung,” in Angst, Belohnung, Zucht und Ordnung. Herrschaftsmechanismen im Nationalsozialismus, ed. Carola Sachse et al., (Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1982), 18, 34.
45 See the document cited in note 33. According to Nazi sloganeering, the Beauty of Labor campaign strove—in the words of Robert Ley in 1936—to give back to German workers “a sense of the worth and importance of their work.” Quoted in Rabinbach, “Ästhetik der Produktion,” 58.
46 On amateur photographers in Nazi Germany, see Timm Starl, Knipser. Die Bildgeschichte der privaten Fotografie in Deutschland und Österreich von 1880 bis 1980 (Munich: Koehler & Amelang, 1995), 99–110.
47 On nationalist attitudes in the photography from World War I, see, e.g., Gerhard Paul, Bilder des Krieges–Krieg der Bilder. Die Visualisierung des modernen Krieges (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh and Wilhelm Fink, 2004), 137–44, 153–71; Anton Holzer, Die andere Front. Fotografie und Propaganda im Ersten Weltkrieg, 2nd ed. (Darmstadt: Primus, 2007).
48 There has been little historical investigation of the role played by the photographic practices of amateurs in actively helping to shape community-building processes and the ways in which these may have become ideologically “charged” during the Nazi period. See, e.g., the examples discussed in Starl, Knipser; Sachsse, Erziehung.
49 The lower two photos depicting orderly ranks of women as they jog or march, with some singing songs or reciting slogans, seem particularly in tune with the inscription's spirit.
50 See “Stirn und Faust: Neuer Wettbewerb des Foto-Beobachters,” in Foto-Beobachter 6, vol. 5 (May 1936): 145Google Scholar.
51 Walter Benjamin, The Arcades Project, trans. Howard Eiland and Kevin McLaughlin (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1999), 479.