This dissertation analyzes how photographic representations in mass-market picture books and private soldiers' photo albums shaped memory of the First World War in Germany during the Weimar Republic. It begins with a consideration of amateur photography during the war and how soldiers organized...

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Bibliographische Detailangaben

1. Verfasser:	Court, Justin (VerfasserIn)
Format:	Abschlussarbeit Elektronisch E-Book
Sprache:	English
Veröffentlicht:	Madison, Wis. University of Wisconsin-Madison 2018
Schlagworte:	German literature History First World War Memory Photo Albums Photography Picture Books Weimar Republic Hochschulschrift
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Zusammenfassung:	This dissertation analyzes how photographic representations in mass-market picture books and private soldiers' photo albums shaped memory of the First World War in Germany during the Weimar Republic. It begins with a consideration of amateur photography during the war and how soldiers organized their memory visually in private photo albums. In contrast to the general and often politicized interpretations of war in popular picture books, photo albums establish specific, personal narratives that attend to a fuller spectrum of lived experience. By considering private practices of photography, this study opens up lines of inquiry into how individuals remembered the past and offers photo albums as a counterpoint to popular Weimar-era war picture books, which differ radically in form and intent in their effort to shape collective memory. The study then considers an assortment of successful mass-market picture books published in the 1920s, including Ernst Friedrich's Krieg dem Kriege! (1924), Deutschland: Ein Buch der Größe und der Hoffnung in Bildern, 1914-1924 (1924; introduction by Walter Bloem), the Reichsarchiv series "Erinnerungsblätter deutscher Regimenter," "Schlachten des Weltkrieges," and the two-volume Der Weltkrieg im Bild (1926/28; introductions by George Soldan and Werner Beumelburg), and Franz Schauwecker's So war der Krieg! (1927) and So ist der Friede (1928). These picture books exemplify how questions of war memory tied remembrance to contemporary public debates, such as those surrounding the nature of defeat, the legitimacy of the Republic, and the future of the German nation. The study shows how authors and book editors from across the ideological spectrum mined the war's rich photographic archive to present supposedly realistic and therefore authoritative accounts of the conflict at a time when its meaning was hotly contested and weighed heavily on the outcome of political dispute
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