The debates waged in features pages on the subject of the so-called »new wars«, depicted as deterritorialized, stateless and »dirty«, date these to the Vietnam War and the conflicts in post-colonial Africa or in the Yugoslavian sub-republics. Even at the time, contemporary literature dubbed the African colonial battles – by contrast with wars between nation-states – »small wars«. But the lines of demarcation between the supposed »old wars« and the new no longer seem so easily drawn if one takes into consideration blood-drenched colonial imperialism or anti-»partisan« terror against the Serbian civilian population during the First World War. This would seem at least to be the line of reasoning pursued by the issue of the Vienna journal »Fotogeschichte« that focuses on the subject of »war and photography«. In his article, Namibia-born historian Joachim Zeller falls back on colonial photographs taken in former German Southwest Africa, with images of forced labor, racist pornography and genocide. Over three quarters of the Hereros were slaughtered just like their cattle, while those remaining were condemned to a life of slavery on their own land.

Looking death in the eye by means of these photographs was thought to help harden up soldiers; hence, such images were by no means suppressed or censored in any way. A sensitivity to the »overstepping of visual codes – assaults on civilians, the brutal beating of enemies«, which Habbo Knoch describes as a »sign of the immorality of war«, seems incapable of being »politicized« until well into the 20th century. Only after the First World War do the Allies begin to use images of German colonial atrocities to denounce »Germany's failure in the realm of colonial civilization«, in the words of the British »Blue Book«. This explosive dossier brings together photo documentation, images of the opening of mass graves and legal and media accusations, as do the studies begun in 1914 by former criminologist Rodolphe Archibald Reiss by order of the Serbian government on war atrocities in the Balkans. Such reports assume a supranational neutrality in order to denounce the inhumanities described before the entire world. They thus subject themselves to the risk of serving as an extended arm of the pro-war propaganda. But they simultaneously try to act as a deterrent to war. To cite one example, the powerful photo book »Krieg dem Kriege«, compiled by Ernst Friedrich in 1924 and still being reprinted in large numbers today by the mail-order house Zweitausendeins, got its inspiration mostly from the »Blue Book«.

»Has war in the 21st century, which is often described as a war free of images, a war waged more than ever through the media, fundamentally changed the relationship between image and event?« asks publisher Anton Holzer in his foreword to the special issue. He demonstrates with the articles therein that this »imagelessness« is a recurring mode of concealment. The »dramatization of the protracted trench warfare« on the western front during the First World War is contrasted with the relative lack of imagery showing the massacres committed by the Austro-Hungarian army on the eastern front. »According to prevailing reconstructions, the First World War, although full of cruelty and great suffering, was still a »clean war«. The war waged against the civilian population in eastern and southeastern Europe, however, is another story entirely«. This »war of extermination« had been part of Prussian military doctrine since 1870, from the colonial imperialist campaigns in German Southwest Africa to the mass crimes committed by the Wehrmacht in the Second World War.

Just as with the Hereros in colonial times, the contempt and disdain felt for the massacred Serbian population is reflected by a wall of silence and the subsequent suppression of existing (photo) documents. »These pictures are out there, but they were neither seen nor interpreted. For some strange reason they escaped the eyes of historians. And they have disappeared from collective memory«, Holzer writes. Private photo collections, which might also tell us something about the war experiences of the photographers, remain inaccessible to posthumous generations, whether out of shame or ignorance. This is probably why, in his article, Bernd Ulrich closely examines 42 photos taken by his father during his wartime days in the Navy.

The traveling exhibition presented by Hamburg's Institute for Social Research on the »Crimes of the Wehrmacht« – in which 80 percent of the first version consisted of private photos – brought a number of pictorial sources to light, donated by visitors to the exhibition. Cultural scientist Miriam Y. Arani goes so far in her article on the history of this exhibition as to speak of a »scientification« of the much-criticized presentation. In the extensively revised second version, shown first at the Berlin Kunst-Werken, photos from private collections were to a great extent excluded. About half of the photos came from propaganda campaigns, whereas these had been reduced to 20 percent in the first version: »In comparison with the first version, the selection of images in the newly conceived »Wehrmacht exhibit« goes a long way toward accommodating the political opposition: it showcases more of the »beautifully made« professional photos taken by the German Wehrmacht and less of the »ugly« private snapshots of the death of foreigners«.

There must be at least 1.5 million archived pictures of the Nazi horrors alone, but we can only speculate as to how many additional photos are slumbering in private hideaways. At the beginning of the war probably every tenth soldier possessed a camera. A snapshot with brief notes on the back often replaced long letters home. The Wehrmacht offered soldiers special conditions for developing pictures from the field, helping itself to selected images from the photo reservoir created by the soldiers. No photographs were permitted of top-secret sites, but such prohibitions helped little to stem the voyeurism of soldiers witnessing executions: »The encouragement of private photographic production was not used as a tactical instrument by the military leadership to increase soldiers' motivation by allowing them some simple pleasures. Instead, it was a more of a targeted attempt on the part of the NS regime's military institution to integrate the visual memory production of the troops into its own propaganda machine. In this way, soldiers could bring their view of the war into line with that of the regime«, writes historian Bernd Boll.

Perhaps, now that 150 years have gone by, the subject of »war and photography« is history. »Pictures« of New Wars come via mobile phone or as audiotapes. The journal begins with the caesura formed by September 11th 2001, or more precisely with the war waged by the US Army against »the terror« in Afghanistan: vapor trails left by B-52 bombers, explosion clouds rising up behind mountain ranges, isolated vendetta victims, ruins left behind by past civil wars. »The new out-of-focus war« (Bernd Hüppauf) is low on telling photographs: »A war with a fluid beginning and end and without a recognizable frontline is destined to condemn imagery to meaninglessness«. The private snapshots taken by soldiers – if there are any – are inaccessible, while commercial satellite photos, in their function as part of military operations, are kept off the market. The photography regime of the US administration is strictly regulated. What, then, does »terror« look like? Is it a war against the technocracy and a war of the technocrats? Like a battle within a permanent state of war between big city and cave, Boeing and drone, Fox and al Jazeera?

 

Translated by Jennifer Taylor-Gaida

 

---