Photography of the Proletariat: A note on files and documents concerning the history of worker photography

Wolfgang Hütt, Die Fotografie 8/1960

Among the files of the Leipzig City Archive, there is a file catalogued as Chapt 35 No.1500. Conscientiously and clearly written on the lid is written: »Association of German Worker Photographers, Local Group Leipzig.« Whoever opens the file will find a brief yet significant correspondence as well as protocols from two meetings of the Leipzig City Council. Included also in this file is a copy of the magazine The Worker Photographer, the organ of the Association of German Worker Photographers. It dates from 1928, the same year in which file Chapt 35 No. 1500 was made.

At this time, the Local Leipzig Group of Worker Photographers asked the city council for a heated room with water and electrical light. They also asked for permission to set up a darkroom in this room and to use light and water for their photographic work free of charge.

The supply with sufficient means to support the photo groups of the workers is one of the many things which can be taken for granted in the GDR. Those workers who petitioned the Leipzig City Council on July 23, 1928, however, did not live in a workers' and peasants' state, but in the class state of the Weimar Republic. The correspondence between workers and the city council member, between the latter and other local officials, which took place through the late fall of 1928, shows clearly how little the bourgeoisie was interested in developing and maintaining worker photography. Due to many hesitations and excuses, the decision was continuously postponed. Once the matter was brought to the city council, it was »democratically« rejected.

The protocol of one of these meetings is particularly interesting. While the communist faction supported the petition, the social democrats sided with the bourgeois faction. Their argumentation even gave the bourgeois factions the desired reasoning to reject the petition of the worker photographers supported by the communists. Thus, the speaker for the committee explained to the meeting of the city council that »a representative of the social democrats expressed the opinion in the committee: Once we make a room available to this worker photographer society at the expense of the city, any rabbit breeder society could come along as well to ask for such a room... The petition made in the committee by the communists requires examination, and also consideration, but in order to be of consequence the petition should be rejected.«

This procedure is remarkable because it clearly outlines the class position of the worker photographers. They belonged to the class conscious, revolutionary proletariat and had nothing in common with the social democrats' revisionist agendas for worker education. It is astonishing how little is known today about this movement, after more than thirty years - about a movement which was fiercely rejected by the bourgeoisie, a movement whose significance even the social democrats could not deny later on and which found public recognition even among bourgeois photographers.

It is not an accident that the literature on photography has until today not taken on the history of worker photography. This literature, until a few years ago regarded as a bourgeois monopoly, supported the class aims of the ruling bourgeoisie. It was in their interest to deny anything within photography that did not serve the bourgeoisie or that was even used in the battle against the ruling bourgeoisie. In this way, and not accidentally, an air of forgetting surrounded a highly contemporary chapter of the history of photography. Fascism and war destroyed many valuable documents of worker photography.

Many a worker photographer may have fallen under the guillotine of the blood judges, and others have fallen since. Those few who are still alive do not make a big fuss about their work and their struggles. This is actually regrettable, for how much could they teach us!

The Association of German Worker Photographers was founded in August 1926, led by the editors of the AIZ (Workers' Illustrated Newspaper). The magazine The Worker Photographer appeared as the organ of the Association. Aside from technical articles, which served to qualify amateur photographers of the working class, articles appeared which treated the ideological fundamentals of photography. In addition, workers were able to publish successful photographs of their life in this, that is »their« magazine. The necessity of the founding was laid out in an article in the AIZ of August 24, 1926. Here it says: »So far worker photographers exclusively practiced their secondary occupation for the pleasure of a small circle of relatives and acquaintances. The development of the press today gives them the task to communicate their photographs as worker photographers to the masses of the working class… The workers' press cannot do without workers' correspondents. Similarly, the illustrated newspapers (AIZ, The Red Star) can definitely not do without the collaboration of the working people. A strong organization of worker photographers must now counter the bourgeois photography correspondents.«

Taking into account the social situation under bourgeois rule during the Weimar Republic and the then erratic development of photographic technology and chemistry, it becomes clear that the creation of a strictly organized worker photography was not only possible during these years, but even necessary. For decades, there was only a bourgeois amateur movement. For decades, the proletariat was excluded from the photography movement, given their lacking of financial possibilities. Now the photography industry began to search for new customers for their products. The amateur movement, guided by the bourgeoisie expanded and increasingly accommodated workers. Were they meant to become bourgeois as photographers? In addition, the bourgeois press carelessly used photography in this sense. The proletariat was forced to recognize the significance of photography for the class struggle.

Hence, the movement of worker photographers originated in objective conditions. It was only possible on the basis of the organized, class struggling proletariat, which consequentially continued the legacy of Marx, Engels, and Lenin. In this sense, Fritz Langenbuch was right when looking back in the May 1928 issue of the Worker Photographer, writing that all associations of workers and worker newspapers are not »made« but originate out of the necessity of political life. »Made« meant the way in which bourgeois newspapers and magazines came about based on a rich flow of capital. The Association for Worker Photographers and their organ, The Worker Photographer had,« by contrast, »neither money nor advertisements from the beginning on, as is common. They only had the new idea which corresponded to the struggle for the future, the grand goal, the camera as a weapon.«

Due to the class situation, the photographs created by the conscious proletariat became, in many cases, accusations against the ruling bourgeois order. No. 129 dating from November 1926 of Industry Protection, the magazine of the Association for the Protection of German Industrials, contained an article dealing with worker photography. It equated the practice of the worker photographers with industrial espionage. It tried to put them on the same level as criminal derelicts and advised company owners to prohibit photography on their premises. This fact proves that photography was a means of proletarian class struggle. It proves how right the workers were in using photography in their struggle for freedom and against unbearable exploitation. It proves how effective their photographic creations became in a very short period of time.

Despite the resentment of the bourgeoisie, No. 5 of The Worker Photographer could already report a significant expansion of the association. At this moment, local groups already existed in Berlin, Elberfeld, Halle, Leipzig, Dresden, and in many other cities. Taking stock, the AIZ wrote on February 24, 1927: »The worker taking photographs today operates side by side with the political writer and speaker. His productions belong to the epistemological and cultural equipment of the working people, just like the daily newspapers and the spoken word. With his camera, the worker photographer grasps the salient images from his social, economic, and political life. His language is plastic in its truth and objectivity.«

Worker photography was also respected within the local press. It made an effort to instruct photographers in their ideological efforts. Felix Lange wrote in the Saxon Worker Newspaper of April 28, 1928, appearing in Leipzig: »If he (the worker) wants to use his achievements to the benefit of his class comrades, the selection of motifs is and remains most important. It is particularly important to capture the effects of bourgeois politics and capitalist rationalization... As much as possible, the struggle of the working class must be captured on plate, as expressed in meetings, demonstrations, strikes, etc. We must honestly state that photography cannot sink to the level of a mere hobby. Instead, we must exploit photography consciously in the struggle for the demands of the working class. The behavior of the employer associations proves that we are on the right track. They are sickened, because they do not want anyone to look at their cards…« Only a few years passed, and worker photography had gained respect and reputation, in addition to the hatred of the class enemies.

The local groups organized widely received exhibitions. Expert circles recognized the Worker Photographer. The bourgeois Frankfurt Newspaper confirmed that the Worker Photographer was way beyond the level of a mere society organ. Even the Leipzig People's Newspaper, which so many times had stabbed the struggling workers in the back through its blatant reformism, had to admit on April 12, 1928: »The Association of Worker Photographers has existed only for one and a half years and already today has gained worldwide reputation and shows worldwide effects. Its aspiration to teach the worker more than mere snapshots, to teach him to handle the camera correctly in any situation, has transformed photography from a privilege of well-to-do circles into a weapon in the ideological struggle of the proletariat. The photograph becomes a political report within the class struggle if the class conscious worker securely manages to capture the world in his camera.«

Hence the worker photographers went from triumph to triumph, despite all resistance. When the Dresden group showed its first exhibition on the occasion of its first anniversary, it already had forty members. Two thousand visitors saw the exhibited images. The obvious tendency in all works revealed that these worker photographers were completely conscious of their task.

»Corresponding to the character of its members,« the then bourgeois Dresden News wrote, »images of work filled the space. Scenes of work on the street, the home industry or in the factory were captured by the camera. Many a photograph taken inside and difficult to produce testified to the abilities of the photographer. One part of the exhibition showed images of the prevailing hardship, especially of housing shortage. Numerous images of the life of a child, sports events, recreation hours, and hiking days were cheerful. An essential part of the photographs was of virtually artistic perfection.«

It is still too early to make definite judgments about the artistic merits of worker photography, because very little of the transient material that has survived the night of fascism has been accumulated. But it can be said already today: Given the consistency of social insight, and given the resulting content and photographic form, worker photography reached an artistic peak. This put it in a position equal to the great traditions of the democratic bourgeoisie which was still dedicated to humanist traditions. Worker photography surpassed it by far, however, in terms of its truth content. We must know that the proletarian past bears an essential part of the legacy of photography that we must preserve and appropriate. We face the task of filling this great gap in the history of photography, before even more documents are buried.