Duitse militairen en omgeving 1940 - 1944

This undated page from a photograph album, by an anonymous maker, employs the everyday materials of paper and photographic emulsion. The gelatin silver prints are of a type that became common in the late 19th century, and are mounted on a card support. What’s interesting about the photographs is their apparent casualness. We see German soldiers in a variety of settings – near a rabbit hutch, walking along a road, standing in a field with cows. These are not posed propaganda shots. Instead, they seem like a family album, recording the everyday existence of people in a specific time and place. Photographs are, of course, never neutral. The act of taking a picture always involves selection, and these images raise many questions. Who took them, and why? What was their intended audience? How do they reflect the complex social dynamics of wartime, of soldiers billeted in a foreign land? By looking closely at the material qualities of these humble photographs, we can begin to understand their layered meanings.