Re: [Leica] Strategic area bombing of Germany - Operation Gomorrah - photographs

["Slobodan Dimitrov" <s.dimitrov@charter.net>]

Werner Bischof is the first name to come to mind. A series of images called
'After The War' are published by the Smithsonian. It's just a small part of
his wider work.
I believe LIFE also covered the after effect on the Germans in a series of
photo essays. They also covered the plight of the Volk-Deutch . Their
collaboration with the occupying German forces and administration forced
their retreat into the currently bordered German nation.
Just because Germans aren't talking about it doesn't they are not brooding
over it. They do talk about those matters within the family, and harbor a
great deal of anger.
An anger, not too dissimilar from Arminius', that one day will stab us in
the back.
Slobodan Dimitrov


- ----------
>From: Tim Atherton <tim@KairosPhoto.com>
>To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
>Subject: [Leica] Strategic area bombing of Germany - Operation Gomorrah -
photographs
>Date: Fri, Aug 1, 2003, 1:25 PM
>

> I have just been reading W.G. Sebalds essays "On the Natural History of
> Destruction" about the Allied strategic area-bombing campaign undertaken in
> order to destroy German cities during WWII - in part known as Operation
> Gomorrah. During the campaign, from 1942 onwards to the end of the war 131
> German towns and cities were targeted, with 600,000 German civilian dead and
> seven and a half million left homeless and displaced.
>
> The devastation and impact were immense. What Sebald examines is the almost
> complete lack (with only very few exceptions) of any kind of serious, in
> depth contemporaneous writing (fiction or non-fiction) within Germany about
> these events, either from during the period 1942-45 or in the immediate
> psot-war period. He bleieved that given the astonishing scope of the
> devestation there was in fact a sort of collective denial within Germany
> about the experience, and ominous silence that has left a large gap in the
> cultural memory.
>
> My question is this: is anyone aware of any in depth photogrpahic work
> examining and or recording/documenting this overwhelmingly massive
> destruction and loss of civilian life - especially German work (I imagine
> there is a certain amount of post-war allied photography, as there is a
> small amount of writing on the subject).
>
> Sebald goes on to argue that the experience of these events obviously had a
> huge effect on the collective German post-war psyche - but the overwhelming
> silence about the events has had an equally profound effect. (These city
> ruins lasted for some good period of time after the war, despite
> reconstruction.)
>
> I found it intriguing reading what he has to say about the written record
> (or lack thereof) and that naturally led me to think about the photographic
> record.
>
> tim a
>
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