Visual Power? The Politics of Images in Twentieth-Century Germany and Austria-Hungary
The University of Texas at Austin
dfcrew{at}mail.utexas.edu
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Abstract |
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In the twentieth century, images have played a crucial role in the construction and reproduction of political power. Yet German historians have only recently begun to pay serious attention to the politics of images. The five books under review here show that visual power has operated in two major ways: first, through the production and circulation of the ‘right images’ of any specific historical event or period, which is the subject of almost all the works discussed here; and second, through the direct observation and surveillance of subjects considered by state authorities to constitute some kind of threat, as in the use of photography by the East German Stasi analysed in Karin Hartewig's pioneering study, Das Auge der Partei. What makes those who produce and circulate images believe that they will achieve the desired effect? Is it the subject, the style, the medium or the genre? Does it matter where and how viewers encounter images? Do officially approved pictures still contain messages that may allow viewers to read them in subversive ways? Does the attempt to control images actually promote the viewer's visual desire to see what has not been shown in the ‘right pictures’? These are some of the central questions which the books reviewed here address.
Keywords: Visual history, photography, Hitler, World War I, Stasi, GDR
Visual History. Ein Studienbuch. Edited by Gerhard Paul. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht. 2006. 379 pp.
21,90 (paperback). Die andere Front. Fotografie und Propaganda im Ersten Weltkrieg. By Anton Holzer. Darmstadt: Primus Verlag. 2007. 368 pp.
39.90 (hardback). Das Auge des Dritten Reiches. Hitlers Kameramann und Fotograf Walter Frentz. Edited by Hans Georg Hiller von Gaertringen. Berlin: Deutscher Kunstverlag. 2007. 256 pp.
39,90 (hardback). Das Auge der Partei. Fotografie und Staatssicherheit. By Karin Hartewig. Berlin: Ch. Links Verlag. 2004. 272 pp.
19,90 (paperback). Die DDR im Bild. Zum Gebrauch der Fotografie im anderen deutschen Staat. Edited by Karin Hartewig. Alf Lüdtke and Göttingen: Wallstein Verlag. 2004. 238 pp.
32 (paperback).