Photography in World War I

Berliner Illustrationsgesellschaft, Paul Castelnau, Fernand Cuville, Hans Hildenbrand, Leipziger Presse-Büro, Wilhelm Voigt

More than every other war that preceded it, World War I brought about an enormous acceleration in technological development. Photography was also caught up in this propulsion toward modernisation and became an integral component of warfare in myriad ways. Presenting works from its own collection together with loans from numerous collections on World War I from Germany and abroad, the exhibition introduces the ways in which photography was implemented in the war – as weapon, documentation, photo report, propaganda, and journalism.
The archives contain extensive portfolios of photographs by official war photographers and amateurs, panorama and aerial views, photo postcards and illustrated war diaries; this theme-oriented presentation makes these materials available to a wider public for the first time. Its goal is not to provide photographic evidence to support a history of the war, but to present a history of photography as practiced throughout the war. Hence the focus is on original prints, as well as photographs used in posters, books, magazines, albums, etc.