Proquest Dissertations

UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY The Travelling Lens: Munkacsi's Travel Reportages and Weimar Identity by Robert A. MacDonald A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTERS OF ARTS DEPARTMENT OF GERMANIC, SLAVIC AND EAST ASIAN STUDIES CALGARY, ALBERTA APRIL 2010 © Robert A. MacDonald 2010 Library and Archives Bibliotheque et 1*1 Canada Archives Canada Published Heritage Direction du Branch Patrimoine de I'edition 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington Ottawa ON K1A 0N4 OttawaONK1A0N4 Canada Canada Your file Votre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-64169-9 Our file Notre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-64169-9 NOTICE: AVIS: The author has granted a non L'auteur a accorde une licence non exclusive exclusive license allowing Library and permettant a la Bibliotheque et Archives Archives Canada to reproduce, Canada de reproduire, publier, archiver, publish, archive, preserve, conserve, sauvegarder, conserver, transmettre au public communicate to the public by par telecommunication ou par I'lnternet, prefer, telecommunication or on the Internet, distribuer et vendre des theses partout dans le loan, distribute and sell theses monde, a des fins commerciales ou autres, sur worldwide, for commercial or non support microforme, papier, electronique et/ou commercial purposes, in microform, autres formats. paper, electronic and/or any other formats. The author retains copyright L'auteur conserve la propriete du droit d'auteur ownership and moral rights in this et des droits moraux qui protege cette these. Ni thesis. Neither the thesis nor la these ni des extraits substantiels de celle-ci substantial extracts from it may be ne doivent etre imprimes ou autrement printed or otherwise reproduced reproduits sans son autorisation. without the author's permission. In compliance with the Canadian Conformement a la loi canadienne sur la Privacy Act some supporting forms protection de la vie privee, quelques may have been removed from this formulaires secondaires ont ete enleves de thesis. cette these. While these forms may be included Bien que ces formulaires aient inclus dans in the document page count, their la pagination, il n'y aura aucun contenu removal does not represent any loss manquant. of content from the thesis. ••I Canada ABSTRACT Travel was particularly important in the construction of German national identity from the mid 19th to the mid 20th century. Due to political and economic instability, travel was not a possibility for many Germans living in the Weimar Republic. Representations of travel found in photography in Martin Munkacsi's reportages for the Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung such as "Kaffee-Tragodie: Eine Milliarde Pfund Kaffee ins Meer geworfen!" ("Coffee Tragedy: One Billion Pounds of Coffee Thrown into the Sea!") and "Berlin-Rio in vier Tagen: Mit dem fahrplanmaBigen Zeppelin nach Sudamerika" ("Berlin-Rio in Four Days: With the Regularly Scheduled Zeppelin to South America"), and the context of lost experience gave the photos new meaning through ersatz travel. Munkacsi's travelling lens created and commented upon discourses of German national identity such as masculinity, whiteness, economics, and an Orientalist gaze through the ersatz reality of the photograph and its representation of the foreign. 11 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis would not have been possible without the assistance and support of many people and organizations. Firstly, I would like to thank my family and friends, especially my parents, my sister, and my fiancee, for putting up with me while I worked and offering their support and encouragement whenever I needed it. I owe a further debt of gratitude to my supervisors, Dr. Michael Taylor and Dr. Florentine Strzelczyk. Without their guidance, their experience, and their willingness to help whenever I needed them throughout the process of research and writing I would not have been able to come so far. I would also like to thank Herr Stephan Kuhr of the Axel Springer Infopool and Dr. Katrin Bomhoff of ullstein bild, both in Berlin. Without their kind assistance, I would not have been able to access the copies of the Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung or original Munkacsi prints that were necessary for the successful completion of this thesis. I also gratefully acknowledge the support of the Department of Germanic, Slavic and East Asian Studies and the Faculty of Graduate Studies at the University of Calgary, as well as the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. in TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract ii Acknowledgements iii Table of Contents iv CHAPTER ONE: Mr. Munkacsi Goes to Berlin 1 Berlin andthe BIZ - "The Finest Picture Magazine in the World" 7 Munkacsi and New Photography 12 "Think while you shoot!" or Think While You View? 17 CHAPTER TWO: Being There vs. Seeing There 25 The German Question - Weimar National Identity 30 Summary 37 CHAPTER THREE: Coffee and the Colonialist Eye 39 Bailing and Burning 41 A Sea of Caffeine-poisoned Water 45 The Masculinity of the Foreign 48 Coffee Tragedy! 56 Burning Coffee for Heat? 58 The Power of Coffee 61 CHAPTER FOUR: First Contact 66 Role Model for the Republic? 69 A Year in Three Days 73 Flight and the Imperial Gaze 80 White Men Looking Down on the World 82 Looking Down at the Past 85 Contact Zone? 88 ...Or Moderated Contact Zone? 91 Encounter with the "Natives" 92 The Imperial Eye and the "Native" Foil 98 CHAPTER FIVE: The Travelling Lens 101 REFERENCES 107 APPENDIX A: "Ostein im Suden" ("Easter in the South") Ill iv APPENDIX B:"Kaffee-Tragodie" ("Coffee Tragedy") 112 APPENDIX C: "Berlin-Rio in vierTagen" ("Berlin-Rio in Four Days") 115 v 1 Chapter One: Mr. Munkacsi Goes to Berlin The day is Sunday, March 24, 1929. The first signs of spring are beginning to show, after a long, cold winter - in fact, the coldest winter since the Prussians first began to keep meteorological records for Berlin (Wehler 2003, 258). At a newsstand on Unter den Linden, today's newspapers and magazines have just been put out on display, including the new copy of the Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung (BIZ), a favorite magazine among Berliners. As usual, the cover on this week's BIZ is a full page photo, though for a Berliner just coming out of a long, cold winter, this particular cover may have drawn particular interest. The cover photo is of a well-dressed man and woman, both on camelback, being led by a host of local cam el-drivers in front of a building of foreign design bearing the name "Royal Hotel." The photo is very bright, with intensely-cast shadows falling over the sand at the feet of the camels and their tenders. The camels seem to smile, whilst their European riders look somewhat uncomfortable, but intense; as they balance on the backs of their camels, the camel tenders grimace in the sunlight. Particularly notable is the caption beneath the picture that reads, "Ostern im Suden: Vor dem Royal-Hotel in der Oase Biskra (Nordafrika). Zum Trost fur die, die nicht reisen konnen: Unser Photograph schreibt uns: "Hier ist es hundekalt!" ("Easter in the South: In front of the Royal Hotel in the Oasis of Biskra (North Africa). As consolation for those who cannot travel, our photographer writes us: 'It's freezing here!'") (Munkacsi, "Ostern im Siiden" 1929). The photographer mentioned by the caption is given name credit on the 2 lower right hand corner of the page, under the photo: Martin Munkacsi, the new rising photojournalistic star at Berlin's Ullstein Verlag (Hardt 2000, 71).l In the late summer of 1928 (or late 1927, depending on the source one consults), a young Martin Munkacsi left his native Hungary and a successful job writing and photographing for the magazines Az Est, Pesti Napolo, and Szinhdzi Elet in Budapest to seek employment in the bigger and better markets of Berlin (Osman 1978, 6, Kaufhold 2006, 187). Unfortunately, individual details of Munkacsi's life such as these are sometimes difficult to piece together; for, as his daughter Joan Munkacsi once said, "My father never let the truth get in the way of a good story" (Morgan 1992, 4). Many other sources have similarly noted that Munkacsi liked to be vague and even start rumours surrounding the details of his life. Nevertheless, there are some facts that are either known or agreed to be true, and will be related below. Martin Munkacsi was born on May 18, 1896 in Kolozsvar, Hungary (now Cluj Napoca, Romania) to a working class family. Munkacsi was a passionate, natural athlete, and excelled especially at soccer (Osman 1978, 6, Morgan 1992, 4). However, Munkacsi was also very enthusiastic about work and education; he read avidly, and wrote for local publications. At age 16, Munkacsi followed the trend of rural Hungarians moving to the cities, and left his hometown for Budapest to seek work (Ewing, "Munkacsi" 1978, 4, Morgan 1992, 5). In Budapest, he worked initially as a writer for the three publications listed above, until he taught himself photography with a home-built camera. His first photos 1 There are several ways to spell Munkacsi's name. Either one uses the correct Hungarian spelling, in which case it would be spelled Munkacsi, or one uses the German and English spelling, Munkacsi, which omits the accent on the a. For my purposes, I have chosen to use the latter option. 3 were published in Az Est and Theatre Life magazines (Morgan 1992, 5). Although he worked as a sports photographer and writer for the Az Est, Pesti Naplo, and Szihndzi Elet, his breakthrough as a photojournalist did not come until 1923, when a snapshot he had taken of an old man fighting with a soldier proved the old man's innocence of murder in court (Osman 1978, 6, Morgan 1992, 5).

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