Content, English: Photographic Images of the Self and of Others …

Access to source at the UDK > Teilband 1 > Link > https://opus4.kobv.de/opus4-udk/frontdoor/deliver/index/docId/1723/file/Arani_M_Fotografische_Selbst-_Fremdbilder_1.pdf > Teilband 2 > Link > https://opus4.kobv.de/opus4-udk/frontdoor/deliver/index/docId/1723/file/Arani_M_Fotografische_Selbst-_Fremdbilder_2.pdf

Translation of selected contents with the friendly permission of Verlag Dr. Kovač Hamburg.

Author information: Miriam Y. Arani
URN: https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b170-17233
DOI: https://doi.org/10.25624/kuenste-1723
ISBN: 978-3-8300-3005-8
Publisher: Verlag Dr. Kovač
Place of publishing: Hamburg
Document type: Book (Monograph)
Language: German
Year of completion: 2008
Publishing Institution: Universität der Künste Berlin
Date of release: 23.02.2022
GND keyword: Wartheland; Poland – people; Germans; photography; self-image; foreign image; Wartheland; Polen – Volk; Deutsche; Fotografie; Selbstbild; Fremdbild
Page number: 1014
License (German): No license – copyright protection

—

Miriam Y. Arani, Miriam Djamileh Yegane Arani, Dissertation an der UDK Berlin, 2007:

Fotografische Selbst- und Fremdbilder von Besatzern und Besetzten während des Zweiten Weltkriegs am Beispiel der Fotografien von Polen und Deutschen während der nationalsozialistischen Besatzung 1939-1945 in Poznan/Posen und Wielkopolska/Großpolen (sog. Reichsgau Wartheland)

Photographic Images of the Self and of Others by Occupiers and Occupied During the Second World War Using the Example of Photographs of Poles and Germans during the Nazi Occupation 1939-1945 in Poznan/Posen and Wielkopolska/Grosspolen (so-called Reichsgau Wartheland)

Title of book publication: Fotografische Selbst- und Fremdbilder von Deutschen und Polen im Reichsgau Wartheland 1939–1945. Unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Region Wielkopolska, Hamburg 2008.

—

Contents as a PDF

—

Inhalt, Kapitel I – VIII, 2 Bände / Content, Chapter I – VIII, 2 Volumes.

Volume I

I. Introduction 1

Image science (2); problematic situations (7); photographic image sources (9); deduction and induction (12); photographic images of the self and of others as objects of research (13); methodological foundations from art history (15); Reichsgau Wartheland (19); references to historiography (24); German-Polish communication breakdowns (27); National Socialism and the perspectivity of historiography (34); collective image memories (39); the self-images and images of others of Germans and Poles under aspects of communication theory (41); aesthetic messages and symbols (48); press propaganda and other forms of application of photographs (50); references to sociology (52); the narrowing down of the photographic sources to be studied (56); heuristic considerations in the run-up to and in the course of the research (57); on the selection of the photographic collections visited (59); Germany (59); Poland (60); maps (64).

—

II. Methods and Findings … 67

1. methods of source criticism of historical photographs: the external and internal criticism of the source………………………………………………………..67
a. external source criticism: authenticity testing……………………………………..68
i. the examination of the figure of the individual photographic image source (69): captions (71); the distinction between photographic primary and secondary sources (71); photo-historical primary sources: the contemporary originals (72); photo-historical secondary sources: temporally subordinate forms of reproduction of photographs (73); reproductions of photographs made after 1945 from the years 1939-1945 (74); how can one recognize a reproduction made after 1945? (75); under what conditions can reproductions made after 1945 be used as a source? (76); attribution of authorship (77); determination of location (80); dating (81); identification of persons depicted in photographs (83).
ii. examining the origin and transmission of the photographic image source (85).
b. internal source criticism and interpretation of the contemporary significance of a photograph…………………………………………………….. 86.
c. list of criteria for the source-critical recording of historical photographic images…………………………………………………………………….. 88.

2. social science approaches and methods for analyzing photographic sources………………………………………………………………..90
a. the social uses of photography…………………90
b. photographs as social science sources……………………………93
i. basic considerations about photographs as social science sources (94): what questions about social phenomena can be answered by photographs? (95) : material precipitations of social and cultural phenomena in space (97); the socio-spatial organization of society (98); the recording of concretely situated social and cultural phenomena (98).
ii. what strategies can be used to generate photographs as social science sources and to examine them for their information content? (100): generation of visual data in the case of historical photographs (101); the relationship between photographer and photographed (101); the photographer’s visual style and individual levels of selection of moments of reality (102).
iii. the social scientific evaluation of photographic image sources (104): open exploration and structuring into larger units (104); from the visual details of photographs to abstracted scientific statements (104); error prevention: checking the validity and reliability of photographs as a source of data (105); the use of multiple photographers to determine the information content of sources (106); photographic sources in the light of other data – triangulation and interpretation (106); generating a random selection and analytical redaction (107); content analysis (108).

3. contemporary originals in the photographic collections reviewed: what types of uses of photographs have survived? who were the originators of the photographs?………110
a. on the basis of the photographs themselves, possible distinctions between groups of originators……………………………………………………………. 111
press photographs (112); amateur and “snapshooter” photographs (112); examples (113); other producer and product groups of photographs: studio portraits and people registration [Personenerfassung] (116); examples (118); the visual group style as a way of assigning authorship (123).
b. the German and Polish photographers who can be identified by name…………………………………………………………………………..124
4. the construction of national images of self and other through the archival record………………………………………………………127
a. what classification systems and objectives determined the inventories reviewed?…………………………………….. 132
state archives (132); collections of various kinds (132); internationally embedded national narratives framing the collection focus of photographic image sources (136); how were photographs classified in the institutions visited? (141).
b. an originator group at the crossroads of two national traditions of transmission…………………………………………………….. 144
Germans and their cars (145); attacks on symbols of “foreign” faith: the destruction and profanation of Jewish and Catholic monuments (153).

—

III. National Socialist Press Control [Presselenkung] and Photographic Publicity … 173

1. the Anti-Polish “atrocity propaganda” [Greuelpropaganda] at the beginning of the war in 1939 and the “Bloody Sunday in Bydgoszcz” [Bromberger Blutsonntag] …………………………………………..173
a. the event and the difficulties of its reconstruction………..174
German-Polish controversies in the reconstruction of the event (176); the source base on the event (180).
b. the attacks by Poles on Germans in September 1939 as a subject of Nazi press propaganda……………184
the photo-publicity on Polish “atrocities against ethnic Germans” in the “Illustrierter Beobachter” (187); the brochure “Polnische Blutschuld” (194); the book publication “Dokumente polnischer Grausamkeit” (198).
c. the identifiable photographers and their photographs from Bydgoszcz and the surrounding area……………………………………………………..207
d. the “atrocity propaganda” as a war-specific form of propaganda of the Nazi regime……………………………………………………………………215
e. summary………………………………………………………………..218

2. press photography in the context of Nazi propaganda media in the Reichsgau Wartheland……………………………… 224
a. photographs as propaganda means and as documentation medium of visual propaganda means…………………..226
the officially licensed press photographers in the Warthegau (230); what is propaganda? (231); McClung Lee’s definition of propaganda (234); mass psychology (236).
b. National Socialist propaganda resources……………………………………237
ubiquity of propaganda with threat of violence (237); various National Socialist propaganda means (239); radio (240); sound film (241); propaganda means in public spaces (242); National Socialist holidays (243); the specific function of photography as a means of propaganda: enhancing credibility and creating an illusion of objectivity (245).
c. National Socialist pictorial propaganda in the press……………………247
the image propaganda of the labor movement as a model for National Socialist image propaganda 1939-1945 (247); Willy Stiewe’s theory fragments of National Socialist image propaganda in the press (249).
d. National Socialist press guidance [Presselenkung]………………………………………..252
i. institutional press control (253): the Reichs Ministry of Popular Enlightenment [Volksaufklärung] and Propaganda (253), the Schriftleitergesetz (255), the Reichskulturkammergesetz (257), German propaganda institutions in Posen 1939-1945 (259), the NSDAP-Gaupresseamt in Posen (259), the NSDAP-Gaupresseamt picture archive (262), the identification of a NSDAP-Gaupresseamt photographer in Posen (266).
ii. economic press control (271): seizures and press concentration in the Reichsgau Wartheland (273).
iii. press control in terms of content (277): pre-censored news (278), “Reichspressekonferenz” of the Ministry of Propaganda (278), press control as indirect censorship (280), the influence of press control of content on layout and photographic journalism (281), the “guided” German press photography in the contemporary professional discussion (283); the working methods of the photographers of the NSDAP-Gaupresseamt (289).
e. some subject and topic areas of press control in terms of content………………………………………………………………………309
language regulations (309); concealment of domestic and foreign political events (310); “German” and “un-German” Germans (311); shielding from foreign countries, foreigners as a propaganda tool (313); moral justification of aggression against other people or peoples (314); settlement policy (315).
f. press directives on the content of Germans’ self-image and images of others…………………………………………………..316
“press instructions” on how Germans should be portrayed (316); pictorial propaganda on the subject of pseudo-democracy (316); pictorial propaganda on the subject of “national community” [Volksgemeinschaft] and collecting campaigns (318); enemy images brought about and reinforced by the substantive “press instructions” (321); the “press instructions” concerning Poland during the war years (322).
g. photographic publicity in the legal Poznan daily press September 1939 – January 1945……………………………………………….324
i. the Posener Tageblatt (324); photographic publicity during the period of German military administration (325).
ii. the Ostdeutscher Beobachter (326); the editorial staff (329), the news sources and picture suppliers (330); topics and forms of reporting (332); photo-publicity (334), relationship of photo-publicity to the “press instructions” (335), the portrayal of Germans in the Ostdeutscher Beobachter (336), the portrayal of Poles in the Ostdeutscher Beobachter (338): 1939/40: Polish Terror, Polish Economy, and Polish Folk Character [Polnischer Terror, polnische Wirtschaft und polnischer Volkscharakter] (339), from 1943: Katyn as a turning point in anti-polish propaganda (341); peculiarities of the photographic representation of Poles in the Ostdeutscher Beobachter (343); target group and reception of press propaganda in the Ostdeutscher Beobachter (345).

3. is there an iconography of human representation in NS photographic publicity?………………………………………………………………….348
a. “visual norms” as social construction of visual conventions of meaning……………………………………………………….350
b. the “völkisch” self-image of Germans in Nazi photographic publicity 1933-45………………………………………………….. 353
the “völkisch” understanding of the German nation (357); portrait photographs of “German” peasants in comparison (361); the photographic image of man marginalized as “alien” by “völkisch” portrait photography (362); on the iconology of German models (365); National Socialist interpretations of the face: „Das Antlitz des Deutschen im Wartheland“ [“the face of the German in the Wartheland”] (367).
c. National Socialist racism as a “visual ideology”……….376
“race” as the key to the National Socialist image of man (379); average-photographs of faces as an illustrative type of an interdisciplinary eugenic-racial-biological movement (383); eugenics, racial theories, and the Aryans as the “noblest race” (387); “Germanization” versus democratization in the German Empire (394); the National Socialist model [Leitbild]: the “Nordic race,” the “Germanic peoples,” and the “Aryans” (402); on the teaching of racial biologism in schools under National Socialism (408); the three great “racial circles” (415); the Poles in racial studies (419); arguments against the validity of the racial biologistic paradigm (424); “racial hygiene” and breeding ideas (426); the intended iconography of the image of man in Nazi photographic publicity (428).

—

IV. The Change of the Production Conditions of Photographs for Poles through the Occupation Policy in the Territory of the Reichsgau Wartheland 1939-1945 … 431

1. the national socialist racial ideology as a basis of the Poland policy in the Reichsgau Wartheland………………………………………. 431

2. changes in the photographic industry of the newly formed Reichsgau Wartheland: the expropriation of Polish business owners since the end of 1939 …………………………………………………436

3. the ban on the possession and use of cameras by all Poles, “enemy aliens” and “Jews” in the Reichsgau Wartheland from 1941…………………………………..440
a. the confiscated cameras of Poles in the Schrimm (Srem) district …………………………………………………………………..441
b. the confiscated cameras of the Poles in the district of Grätz (Grodzisk)…………………………………………………………………..443
c. the further seizure and use of cameras seized from Poles …………………………………….. 444
d. the ban on the possession and use of cameras for Poles in the territory of the Reich………………………………………………………447

—

Volume II

V. Institutional Producers of Photographs … 449

1. police and photography………………………………………………………………450
a. press photographs depicting police and SS in the Reichsgau Wartheland…………………………………………………………………………….452
NSDAP-Gaupresseamt photographs of police and SS (452); internal police reports compared with NSDAP-Gaupresseamt photographs (456); private photographs compared with NSDAP-Gaupresseamt photographs (460); NSDAP-Gaupresseamt photographs of police and SS compared with photographic sources from other sources (461); invisible connections: Himmler and the SS and Police Apparatus (470); photographic representations of the police and SS in the daily newspaper “Ostdeutsche Beobachter” (474); photographic publicity in the magazine “Die deutsche Polizei” (484).
b. private portraits and group portraits of German police and SS men…………………………………………………………………. 486
c. the German police as producers of photographs……………………. 491
the surreptitious and black market trade in foodstuffs targeted by the German police (494); other subjects of police photographs: motor vehicle traffic, construction projects, and building damage (498); photographs from the Reichsgau Wartheland in annual reports of the German police (503); the album of the “Umwandererzentralstelle” (511); private photo volumes and albums of police officers (515); the photo volume of a guard from the Posen-Glowna transit camp (516); the “Schmidt” album (523); the Mensebach collection (527).
d. photographs of persons for identification purposes………………………………. 533
photographs in Gestapo card indexes and collections I: German resistance (540); photographs in Gestapo card indexes and collections II: Polish forced laborers (545); “photo identification cards” (548); photographs for racial screening of individuals by the RuSHA of the SS (556).
e. summary………………………………………………………………..561

2. other institutional producers of photographs………………………… 568
a. propaganda companies of the German Wehrmacht……………………. 568
the organization, equipment, and duties of propaganda companies with special reference to PK photographers (568); the propaganda companies deployed in Poland in the fall of 1939 with special reference to PK photographers (572); the propaganda companies deployed in Poland in 1940-1944, with special reference to the PK photographers deployed in the Reichsgau Wartheland (574); the Wehrmacht Propaganda Department at the OKW (575); the content of PK pictorial reporting away from the front and away from home (576); the PK photographers (578); summary (581).
b. state, city, and county picture offices…………………………………………581
c. Deutsches Ausland-Institut……………………………………………………. 590
photographs from the Reichsgau Wartheland in the DAI picture index (595); photographs of “resettlement” in the Reichsgau Wartheland (603); Baltic Germans “resettled” (604); Germans from eastern Poland (607); Romanian Germans and Black Sea Germans (608), special train of “flying” EWZ commissions (609); professional and non-professional photographic design (613); the “foreign” Germans (615); the Warthegau settlement process in the countryside (618); paradoxical relationships between “Reich Germans,” “ethnic Germans,” “resettlers,” and Poles (621); the visual selectivity of photographs from the Warthegau in the DAI picture index (623).

—

VI. Polish Producers, Collectors and Distributors of Photographs between Adaptation, Self-Assertion and Resistance … 625

1. overview of various producers, distributors and collectors………………………………………………………………………………..626
visible works of physical destruction (627); the demolition of Polish monuments (642); expulsions of Polish natives (648); “Germanization” as humiliation of Poles (658); no entry for Poles (667); rituals of faith, love and hope against a Nazi biologization of the social with genocidal dimensions (676); a deportation of Poles to a concentration camp (681); visible traces of Allied attacks on the Reichsgau Wartheland (683).
2. it’s darkest inside the lamp: Polish photo lab workers in “German” photo factories……………………………. 688
The Foto-Stewner enterprise in Posen (688); the Foto-Stewner laboratory (691); Adam Glapa – an educator of Polish folk culture (696); duplicate prints of photographs by German originators (701); a photographic legacy of a Polish photo-laboratory worker (702); the “Rollgalgen” [rolling gallows] picture (709).
3. photography in the Polish resistance in the Reichsgau Wartheland……720
The Szare Szeregi and their photographs from the Wielkopolska region (721); the organization of the Szare Szeregi in Posen and the surrounding area (723); charitable activities (727); culture and education (729); Polish resistance to Nazi educational policy (735); the destruction of Polish books (743); documentation and foreign information (747).

—

VII. Concluding Summary … 752

the findings on the “Reichsgau Wartheland” (757); art-historical and qualitative social-scientific methods (758); the institutional construction of national images of self and other (762); German press and image propaganda 1939-1945 (769); “Bromberger Blutsonntag” (771); press photography and photo-publicity in the Reichsgau Wartheland (774); how Germans were to see themselves and Poles in the “Ostdeutsche Beobachter” (777); on the iconography and iconology of human representation in German press photography 1939-1945 (781); visual sign system in public space 1939-1945 to distinguish “ethnic groups” (787); the changing conditions of production of photographs for Poles in the Reichsgau Wartheland 1939-1945 (788); the German police as institutional producers of photographs (793); institutionalized uses of photography: anthropometric photographs of persons, police central indexes, and photo identification cards (797); individual and spontaneous uses of photography: “snapshooting” policemen and internal police reports (800); Polish originators, collectors, and distributors of photographs in Wielkopolska 1939-1945 (803); self-taken photographs of the Szare Szeregi (808); Polish photo lab workers as collectors and distributors of photographs of German originators (809); epilogue (813).

—

VIII. Appendix … 825

1. directory of photographers working in the Reichsgau Wartheland and their clients…………………………………………………………….. 825
2. directory of surviving contact sheets of the NSDAP-Gaupresseamt Posen, including identified contemporary publications……………………………………………920
3. sources and literature………………………………………………………………..933
a. unpublished sources (933); b. source editions (934); c. contemporary publications (936); d. memorial literature published after 1945 (943); e. secondary literature (944).
4. abbreviations…………………………………………………………………………..986