A time photographed
Jupp Darchinger: the Fifties and early Sixties. By Klaus Honnef. Excerpt from the book 'Wirtschaftswunder'
Page [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]
Education and upbringing were-and still are-concepts that leading politicians liked to talk a lot about. After all, the problem of a fundamental change of mindset was on the political agenda, with the aim of producing mature and responsible citizens. A man like the prime minister of Hesse, Georg August Zinn, demonstrated his commitment personally when he visited one of the new "center schools" in the summer of 1956. The pupils' grandfathers probably sat at the same desks. And the majority of those serving as teachers were the same that had propagated national socialist ideology under the "brown" dictatorship. Alternatives were few and far between as long as the replacements were still studying. Not infrequently, with apparently unexpected suddenness, the entirely foreseeable school leaving exams would interrupt what in most grammar schools was the sluggish flow of chronologically administered history teaching, so that "First World War" and "Second World War" had to be rushed through in abbreviated form for the sake of duly fulfilling the requirements of the curriculum. Not a word about genocide. As a sharp-eyed observer, Darchinger gave vivid shape in his pictures to the mainstays of the social system in the Federal Republic: politics, industry, technology, consumerism, and education. Culture proper is absent-except for a cabaret-style protest against German rearmament, a price that Chancellor Adenauer was prepared to pay for the-limited-sovereignty of the defeated and occupied country. Against the will of the majority of the people. The reason for the striking omission is on the one hand the assignments the photographer's profession required him to fulfil. He was often away on commissions for the Social Democratic Party. He put together informative slide shows with synchronized sound for briefing purposes and did portraits of party grandees for election campaigns, which were atrociously re-touched but gave him access to the political caste. He also produced postcards and took photographs in a variety of genres for all kinds of newspapers and illustrated magazines. On the other hand, the huge need felt in the immediate postwar period to make up for cultural deprivation had evaporated by the time the photographer began his unintended chronicle, and material interests had taken the place of cultural ones. Cinema flourished as never before and signalled a growing need for entertainment. In June 1956, a single hoarding in Cologne advertised four films, an art exhibition, dancing lessons, a political function and a "great battle day for boxing" featuring the popular middleweight Peter Müller or "Müllers Aap" as he was affectionately nicknamed in the vernacular because of his monkey face. The television conquered the living rooms and drove the radio from its central position. It would not only substantially transform the universe of images but by virtue of its pictures would also change the world and the behavior of the people in it. A process that Darchinger's political photographs for the Spiegel magazine (more intensively after 1964) and the weekly Die Zeit memorably illustrate.
The workers were the cornerstone of the economic upturn
Cultural circles in the Fifties largely saw themselves as a stronghold of opposition to the prevailing conditions in the country. The ruling CDU and their satellites were seen by many as too reactionary, the SPD opposition as too philistine. In return, the politicians in government would occasionally denounce the rebellious culture luminaries as "rats" or "blow-flies". It was only with the advent of Willy Brandt that relations changed fundamentally. Darchinger photographed the charismatic governing mayor of Berlin and new leader of the largest of the opposition parties on an election campaign tour at a specially organized event in Bayreuth in 1965, as he listened to the writer Günter Grass and other intellectuals holding forth.
Page [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]
Page [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]
Education and upbringing were-and still are-concepts that leading politicians liked to talk a lot about. After all, the problem of a fundamental change of mindset was on the political agenda, with the aim of producing mature and responsible citizens. A man like the prime minister of Hesse, Georg August Zinn, demonstrated his commitment personally when he visited one of the new "center schools" in the summer of 1956. The pupils' grandfathers probably sat at the same desks. And the majority of those serving as teachers were the same that had propagated national socialist ideology under the "brown" dictatorship. Alternatives were few and far between as long as the replacements were still studying. Not infrequently, with apparently unexpected suddenness, the entirely foreseeable school leaving exams would interrupt what in most grammar schools was the sluggish flow of chronologically administered history teaching, so that "First World War" and "Second World War" had to be rushed through in abbreviated form for the sake of duly fulfilling the requirements of the curriculum. Not a word about genocide. As a sharp-eyed observer, Darchinger gave vivid shape in his pictures to the mainstays of the social system in the Federal Republic: politics, industry, technology, consumerism, and education. Culture proper is absent-except for a cabaret-style protest against German rearmament, a price that Chancellor Adenauer was prepared to pay for the-limited-sovereignty of the defeated and occupied country. Against the will of the majority of the people. The reason for the striking omission is on the one hand the assignments the photographer's profession required him to fulfil. He was often away on commissions for the Social Democratic Party. He put together informative slide shows with synchronized sound for briefing purposes and did portraits of party grandees for election campaigns, which were atrociously re-touched but gave him access to the political caste. He also produced postcards and took photographs in a variety of genres for all kinds of newspapers and illustrated magazines. On the other hand, the huge need felt in the immediate postwar period to make up for cultural deprivation had evaporated by the time the photographer began his unintended chronicle, and material interests had taken the place of cultural ones. Cinema flourished as never before and signalled a growing need for entertainment. In June 1956, a single hoarding in Cologne advertised four films, an art exhibition, dancing lessons, a political function and a "great battle day for boxing" featuring the popular middleweight Peter Müller or "Müllers Aap" as he was affectionately nicknamed in the vernacular because of his monkey face. The television conquered the living rooms and drove the radio from its central position. It would not only substantially transform the universe of images but by virtue of its pictures would also change the world and the behavior of the people in it. A process that Darchinger's political photographs for the Spiegel magazine (more intensively after 1964) and the weekly Die Zeit memorably illustrate.
The workers were the cornerstone of the economic upturn
Cultural circles in the Fifties largely saw themselves as a stronghold of opposition to the prevailing conditions in the country. The ruling CDU and their satellites were seen by many as too reactionary, the SPD opposition as too philistine. In return, the politicians in government would occasionally denounce the rebellious culture luminaries as "rats" or "blow-flies". It was only with the advent of Willy Brandt that relations changed fundamentally. Darchinger photographed the charismatic governing mayor of Berlin and new leader of the largest of the opposition parties on an election campaign tour at a specially organized event in Bayreuth in 1965, as he listened to the writer Günter Grass and other intellectuals holding forth.
Page [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]
Josef Heinrich Darchinger, Wirtschaftswunder
Hardcover, slipcase 15.6 x 13 in., 290 pages
$ 600.00
$ 600.00
Rare color photographs of the German "economic miracle." Limited to 1,000 copies, each numbered and signed by J. H. Darchinger and containing the signed color photograph Reichstag, Berlin, 1958
On the banks of the Rhine in Bonn.
Photo (c) Josef Darchinger, 1959
The national average German at home: salaried employee, married, three children, terraced bungalow on a newly-built estate. Frankfurt 1964.
Photo (c) Josef Darchinger