06/04/2022
Last night at my camera club members were asked to talk about an image (by themselves or made by someone else) that was special to them. This is my image.
John Heartfield (Helmut Herzfeld) 1891-1968
This image was made by John Heartfield a leftwing activists and anti-fascist in Germany, throughout the inter war period. At one time he was on the SS’s most wanted list. He confronted Germain fascism though his brilliant photomontages and carried on with this work after escaping Germany in 1933.
He anglicised his name during the Great War in protest at German nationalism.
Along with Hannah Hoch and Raul Hausman, he was active in the Berlin Dada movement in 1917, together they developed photomontage, which is a collage constructed of photographs.
This montage is called ’Millions Stand Behind Me’
Was created in in 1932, for the cover of the popular magazine AIZ (Workers Illustrated Newspaper) six months before Hi**er took power.
Heartfield often said ‘laughter is a devastating weapon’, his work was based around biting satire and a very clear message, describing complex issues.
For me ‘Millions’ is a perfect combination of image and title. It is a brilliant comment on the shadowy business men and rightwing politicians who enabled Hi**er and the NSDP to take power through the manipulation of the democratic constitution. As far as these backers were concerned Hi**er’s primary job was then to sort out the left, the Social Decorates and Communists.
I chose this picture because I’ve always been a huge admirer of Heartfield and his work, he was a deeply brave man who understood the power of satire as a weapon against oppression. This is one of his best known pieces, but is one of a huge number of equally brilliant images he created for the magazines, newspapers, posters and book covers.
I chose this image because it, and his other work remains deeply resonant even now. You could replace the image of Hi**er with Putin and it would have pretty much the same meaning.
Apart from Peter Peter Kennard I’m not sure how many others were inspired by Heartfield. Kennard created a number of brilliant photomontages in the 1970’s and 80’s, such as adding cruise missiles to Constable’s ‘The Haywain’ that attacked the placing of US controlled atomic cruise missiles on British soil.
Heartfield published his political photomontages, many of which savagely satirized the N**i regime, in the Arbeiter-Illustrierte Zeitung. In this widely disseminated workers' newspaper (500,000 readers in 1931), the often deceptively realistic montages appeared cheek-by-jowl with straight documentar...
