Amazing photos of Nazi Germany by Hugo Jaeger using a Leica LTM??

[SimonSawSunlight]

Simon, I don't think those are concentration camp shots. Probably refugee camps.

.

what shots? I posted a link to a google search which mostly brings up articles about IBM's involvement in nazi germany. I don't know what photos you are talking about. but in any event, I would think that it is highly unlikely to find photos of IBM employees posing in front of hundreds of massacred bodies like japanese tourist girls.

 

[SimonSawSunlight]

I'd like to revise my statement on keeping the ideology debate out of this thread. My meaning was, let's keep the demagoguing out of this thread. Suggesting the Tea Party would find the Nazi Party "swell" is abhorrent to me...so would suggesting the Occupy movement might find the Khmer Rouge "dandy". Haven't we learned anything from history? I guess it's human nature, or perhaps just easier, to blame others for a current state of affairs...

a lot of people still like their propaganda, simple and easy. it's just that for some reason it doesn't call itself propaganda anymore.

 

[sig]

Interesting tread. For me it is strange to see this praise of a photographer that were used and used his creativity to promote Hitler and the Nazis. I do not mind looking at them and do not think they should be removed, but still I do not get the praise here.

Maybe we are so far away (in time) from the WW2 that photos like this can be seen in a 'non-nazi' setting? Disconnected from the subjects, symbols etc, seen in a 'nice colours and composition' only setting.

 

[zauhar]

Dear Randy,

Why 'middle class' and why 'today'?

Are there many exceptions in history? Except when led by demagogues?

Cheers,

R.

Hi Roger,

I focus on "middle class" because Americans of the lower class are a little more likely to tell someone to go to hell, even though their situation is objectively more desperate. They are also a lot more likely to be physically violent.

Middle class Americans have a weird passivity that I have seen take over gradually. It is more than a little frightening, since the proclivity to violence has not gone away - witness the effect if one of them thinks you have "cut them off" on the expressway. You have the sense that nasty stuff lies just beneath the surface. I look at Jaeger's photos, and see faces that look like some of my fellow Americans, and I can easily make uncomfortable connections.

I do not idealize the world of my youth - for example, there was a level of overt racism that is unthinkable today. But neither do I believe that our society has progressed in the ways that some fantasize. People are careful to not say racist things because they will get in trouble for it now, just like they are careful to maintain the corporate line and not appear "different". Frankly, it is difficult to sort out - nowadays people are supposedly free to be individuals, but they seem to be individual in highly stereotypical ways.

On a positive note, the Occupy movement has given me some hope. As disorganized as it may be, it has the potential to shake people out of their stupor.

Randy

 

[StevenJohn]

Hi Roger,

It is more than a little frightening, since the proclivity to violence has not gone away - witness the effect if one of them thinks you have "cut them off" on the expressway. You have the sense that nasty stuff lies just beneath the surface.

Randy

I think much of this stems from the fact many Americans have gained a 6th sense... the sense of entitlement. We are not taught to accommodate others. Also, we are taught to suppress our anger instead of handling it efficiently and productively. Eventually the relief valve has to blow.

 

[Sejanus.Aelianus]

Kein Fuehrer indeed.

Rather unkindly, the left in Britain loved to describe John Major as "the only boy who ever ran away from the circus to join a bank".

There has to be a picture in there somewhere... 😉

 

[lytton]

Interesting tread. For me it is strange to see this praise of a photographer that were used and used his creativity to promote Hitler and the Nazis. I do not mind looking at them and do not think they should be removed, but still I do not get the praise here.

Maybe we are so far away (in time) from the WW2 that photos like this can be seen in a 'non-nazi' setting? Disconnected from the subjects, symbols etc, seen in a 'nice colours and composition' only setting.

If we forget (or ignore) what happened in the past, we are doomed to repeat it. Take a long hard look. NEVER forget. Another worldwide depression would be enough to set the stage again...

Politics aside, the images here are stunning from a historical POV and from a photographic history angle considering the technology at the time. Although the colors are muted and not as vibrant as today's, it still takes away the abstraction that B&W lends to photography. That said, I find the images to be much eerier because they are that much closer to my idea of "reality".

 

[bigeye]

what shots? I posted a link to a google search which mostly brings up articles about IBM's involvement in nazi germany. I don't know what photos you are talking about. but in any event, I would think that it is highly unlikely to find photos of IBM employees posing in front of hundreds of massacred bodies like japanese tourist girls.

Sorry, I thought you were discussing this topic.

.

 

[Arvay]

Who are these guys? Ethiopia?

 

[Frontman]

It is interesting to see the political interpretations these photos have brought out. I am neither a liberal nor a conservative, but it seems strange to relate Naziism to America's tea party, or to say that right-wing conservatives were a driving force in the rise of Hitler. One could likewise argue that left-wing socialists inspired regimes which ended up killing more people than Hitler's Nazis ever did.

Politicizing evil is simply stupid, because, in reality, politics has nothing to do with anything. As the OWS people point out, 99% of people are more or less in the sway of the remaining 1%. Politics is important to the 99%, but irrelevant to the 1% who drive the bus. Hitler took the most effective path he could find to ultimate power. Had communist socialism been a step easier, he certainly would chosen it.

As for those "conservatives" who supported Hitler, their personal beliefs were like flags which changed their directions according to whichever way the wind blew. The same 1% will find their way to rulership regardless of the political environment in which they live. They are the "alpha" types which exist in man as they do in nature. Politicians and businessmen nowadays are much the same, and will change their parties and principles as quickly as they change a coat. They make liberals hate conservatives, or conservatives hate liberals, or Muslims hate Christians; knowing that the easiest way to control people is to make them afraid.

Hitler and his Nazis are an extreme example of the 1% manipulating the rest using another form of political ideology. We can't forget that Hitler's era was one of great political and moral flux. A world where old desires mixed with new beliefs, and newer, more terrible weapons.

The pictures are frightening, showing the wolves among the sheep. The sheep don't know they are sheep; they think they are people who are in control of their destinies, not simply sheep being driven to shearing or to slaughter. They show a madness which is not unique to the time or place, and can be seen today if you open your eyes and look for it.

People should look at these pictures and see how "human" the people appear to be. They could be you and I; in a few cases they may be you and I.

 

[Sparrow]

Who are these guys? Ethiopia?

Italian architecture and flags with north african subjects ... Abyssinia? I would guess

 

[sevo]

but it seems strange to (...) say that right-wing conservatives were a driving force in the rise of Hitler.

Now that is NOT strange indeed - it is not a insinuation of the "these evil conservatives sympathised" kind, but he was, as the leader of a minority party, directly put into power by a right wing conservative coalition and the likewise right wing conservative president.

 

[zvos1]

It is amazing that some of these interior shots were taken with such a slow film. It makes some people sound ridiculous when they argue which camera is better at at 3200 iso.

Reading some of the discussions on the forum you'd think that only way to take indoor shot is with 1.1 lens and full frame camera with clean 6400iso.

 

[Sejanus.Aelianus]

Reading some of the discussions on the forum you'd think that only way to take indoor shot is with 1.1 lens and full frame camera with clean 6400iso.

When I did press work, a colleague got the job of covering the "new" Italian restaurants opening in London (this was in the 'sixties). He came back with a stunning set, all available light and shot on HP3 in a Canon, with two lenses, a 35mm and a 135mm, both f3.5 maximum aperture.

The secret? A little known device called a "tripod".

 

[Roger Hicks]

Hi Roger,

I focus on "middle class" because Americans of the lower class are a little more likely to tell someone to go to hell, even though their situation is objectively more desperate. They are also a lot more likely to be physically violent.

Middle class Americans have a weird passivity that I have seen take over gradually. It is more than a little frightening, since the proclivity to violence has not gone away - witness the effect if one of them thinks you have "cut them off" on the expressway. You have the sense that nasty stuff lies just beneath the surface. I look at Jaeger's photos, and see faces that look like some of my fellow Americans, and I can easily make uncomfortable connections.

I do not idealize the world of my youth - for example, there was a level of overt racism that is unthinkable today. But neither do I believe that our society has progressed in the ways that some fantasize. People are careful to not say racist things because they will get in trouble for it now, just like they are careful to maintain the corporate line and not appear "different". Frankly, it is difficult to sort out - nowadays people are supposedly free to be individuals, but they seem to be individual in highly stereotypical ways.

On a positive note, the Occupy movement has given me some hope. As disorganized as it may be, it has the potential to shake people out of their stupor.

Randy

Dear Randy,

Fair enough, and thanks for the reply. Of course, things are further confused by the different meanings of 'middle class' in different countries; and, of course, by their different political and cultural priorities.

Cheers,

R.

 

[bobbyrab]

pick one https://www.google.com/search?q=IBM...&rls=org.mozilla:de:official&client=firefox-a

That was a very interesting read and not something I'd come across before, so thanks for the link. Although it does read as though the material support would have come from the German division rather than visiting Americans, a moot point perhaps.

 

[semilog]

Oh, for the love of God. Can't we leave modern day politics out of this? Every group, left or right, is always compared to the Nazis by the other side. The Nazis shouldn't enjoy the privledge of being compared to mainstream non-violent groups. It cheapens their atrocities.

I agree with this. I suspect that one reason why people are inclined to too quickly draw analogies with the present and wherever it is that they live, is that they don't actually know enough about the specific conditions in Nazi Germany (or interwar Europe more generally) to be able to discuss it in a meaningful way. They fall back on what they do know about. But history is not analogy.

@Roger, one may certainly think about bureaucratic momentum, and argue the extent to which the holocaust was pre-planned, but the goal was clear from the beginning: to suppress, culturallly destroy, and ultimately eliminate the other: Jews, homosexuals, gypsies. As you know, ten million were killed; the Shoah ended only because the Allies invaded Germany.

My own perspective on this comes in part from my grandfather, who was trained in finance and economics, and who directed a small team of accountants sent in by the Allied occupying forces to do financial forensics on I.G. Farben, the largest corporation in Nazi Germany. His 1947 book, among the earliest of many similar studies that would follow it, traced the mechanisms though which the German corporate state enabled and in many cases directly participated in the Nazi regime's eliminationist program. One of the best of these books, one that really shows how carefully the Nazis employed information technology to plan and manage the Shoah, is Edwin Black's IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance Between Nazi Germany and America's Most Powerful Corporation.

 

[Bike Tourist]

Thank you for this important and interesting reference. I compare these, in my mind, with my own images made while there about two decades later. Surprising, that color was used by the photographer. Most unusual for the times. I will keep looking at these images!

 

[Roger Hicks]

. . . @Roger, one may certainly think about bureaucratic momentum, and argue the extent to which the holocaust was pre-planned, but the goal was clear from the beginning: to suppress, culturallly destroy, and ultimately eliminate the other: Jews, homosexuals, gypsies. As you know, ten million were killed; the Shoah ended only because the Allies invaded Germany. . .

Don't get me wrong: the elimination of 'sub-humans', 'defectives' etc. was as clear a goal as anything ever was in the Third Reich. I was questioning only the idea of meticulous planning, because there were so many competing fiefdoms that almost everything was done at the expense of something else. Of course that's always the case, but as I am sure you are aware, it is comparatively easy to argue that if the Nazis had been better organized, they might have won.

How long they would have survived their own internal contradictions is another question, but again, that was equally true in the past of Soviet Russia and is equally true today of today's Chinese Empire, and for that matter, of the particular, specialized model of capitalism that has been most popular for the last 20 years or so and is not looking very well at the moment.

No political system lasts forever, and most simply aren't anything like as well organized as their supporters maintain, or as their enemies fear.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Sparrow]

... it would be difficult to argue any lack of planning post the Wannsee Conference at the start of 1942