The photographic fix: memory, ideology, and the First World War in the Weimar Republic

Abstract

The Photographic Fix explores how photographs from World War I were used in personal photo albums and mass-market picture books to determine the meaning and legacy of the postwar Weimar Republic. Due to their publication success and wide reception, picture books should be considered no small part of this broad struggle of ideas to cement the war's legacy in the Weimar era. Drawing from a large archive of photographs created during the war by amateur soldier-photographers and professional reporters alike, Justin Court explores how visual depictions of the war were used to construct and distort memory in the highly contested realm of war commemoration in the Weimar. These picture books reveal an effort to shape how the war was visually remembered in order to influence public opinion on myriad matters following in the war's wake, including notions of German guilt and responsibility, the legitimacy of the Republic, and the political future of the German nation. Whether it be a peaceful future without war, an affirmation of the fighting German spirit and a return to Wilhelmine ideals, or a visionary new nation under the leadership of soldiers transformed at the front, the photographic fix comprised the effort to envision a different present and a prospective future by remembering the past through specific frames. By utilizing relatively neglected sources, The Photographic Fix expands scholarship on German war photography to illuminate how images from the war and Weimar period reflected the public's understanding of the medium at the time.