Selfhood, Place, and Ideology in German Photo Albums, 1933–1945

This article explores the significance of photography and photo album making as practices through which many Germans recorded their lives during the ‘Third Reich’. Millions of photos not only offer us insights into everyday life under National Socialism: mass photography itself had a transformative effect, turning seemingly mundane actions into performances for the camera and conscious acts of self-representation. The article also considers the relationship between amateur snapshots and propagandistic and commercial photographs. Identifying connections between these genres, it argues that these are best understood as two-ways processes of borrowing and (re-) appropriation, in which private subjectivity and public ideology constantly commingled. Particularly important in linking the two were photos of emotional or affective states, such as relaxation, exploration, introspection, and even melancholy, which were often defined or underscored by the way in which both civilians and soldiers positioned themselves in relation to particular landscapes. The photographic archive is highly varied, but such variation notwithstanding, it helped cement immersive ‘experience’ as the basis for individual and collective identity, which was central to the ideology of the National Socialist regime, even if its meanings were never wholly controlled by it

Introduction: photography and twentieth-century German history

In the introduction to this special issue on photography and German history, we outline current research on using both professional and amateur or snapshot photography to elucidate problems in 20th-century German history. We argue that an approach is required that focuses on the transformative impact of the mass production and circulation of images in this period, and the way in which this altered people's consciousness of their own role vis-a-vis larger social and political process, and in changing the boundaries between public and private life. We also explore the role this practice played in enabling new forms of politics, including, but not confined to, so-called totalitarian regimes

Franz of Anhalt-Dessau and England: the Wörlitz landscape garden and anti-Prussian politics in the late enlightenment.

This thesis is not available on this repository until the author agrees to make it public. If you are the author of this thesis and would like to make your work openly available, please contact us: [email protected] Library can supply a digital copy for private research purposes; interested parties should submit the request form here: http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/collections/departments/digital-content-unit/ordering-imagesPlease note that print copies of theses may be available for consultation in the Cambridge University Library's Manuscript reading room. Admission details are at http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/collections/departments/manuscripts-university-archive