[Leica] IMG: Kennedy in Berlin, 1961

[jhnichols at lighttube.net (Jim Nichols)]

That's a real piece of history, Nathan.? Thanks for sharing.

Jim Nichols
Tullahoma, TN USA

On 7/29/2018 12:36 AM, Nathan Wajsman wrote:
> In connection with our upcoming move, I have been packing books and other 
> things, including stuff that I have kept from my father?s things since he 
> died in 2004. I discarded things (newspapers etc.) that he had kept but 
> that had no obvious connection to him. I kept copies of articles that he 
> had published and various other writings, and of course all the old family 
> photos. But what I want to share here is an interesting historical 
> document?interesting, both because of the events it depicts but also of 
> the status that photography once had. It is basically a set of nine 
> postcard-sized photos of Kennedy?s visit to West Berlin in 1961 (this is 
> when he delivered his famous ?Ich bin ein Berliner? address) in a small 
> cardboard enclosure. On the front it simply says ?President Kennedy in 
> Berlin?; on the back the publisher is identified?Kunst und Bild?and the 
> buyer is assured that the enclosure contains ?nine genuine photos?.
>
> I have no idea when and how my father got hold of this. It must have been 
> published shortly after the visit, but I assume that it was on sale in 
> Communist Poland where we lived at the time, nor in East Germany, a 
> country my father visited often. I suspect that he might have picked it up 
> in West Germany on his way to France some time in the 1960s?he went a 
> couple of times to visit the French branch of the Wajsmans, and in those 
> days such a trip was made by train. He always made those trips alone, the 
> authorities would not let us all travel to the West, so effectively my 
> mother and I were the assurance that he would not defect.
>
> In any event, at the tiny risk of infringing the copyright of Kunst und 
> Bild (tiny, because German copyright on published photographs lasts 50 
> years after first publication, and I am assuming that these were published 
> shortly after Kennedy?s visit in 1961, so more than 50 years ago), here 
> they are:
>
> https://www.greatpix.eu/Kennedy-in-Berlin/
>
> A memento of a time when photographs were valued possessions and when a US 
> president visiting Europe came here with significant moral authority. Both 
> in contrast to today?s situation.
>
> Cheers,
> Nathan
>
> Nathan Wajsman
>
> Alicante, Spain
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