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Lehigh Preserve Institutional Repository Lehigh Preserve Institutional Repository Contested Politics and the Communist Visual: A Critical Analysis of John Heartfield's Photomontages at the End of the Weimar Republic Kauffman, Justin Pierce 2014 Find more at https://preserve.lib.lehigh.edu/ This document is brought to you for free and open access by Lehigh Preserve. It has been accepted for inclusion by an authorized administrator of Lehigh Preserve. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Contested Politics and the Communist Visual: A Critical Analysis of John Heartfield’s Photomontages at the End of the Weimar Republic by Justin Kauffman A Thesis Presented to the Graduate and Research Committee of Lehigh University in Candidacy for the Degree of Masters of Arts In History Lehigh University August 15, 2014 Copyright Justin Kauffman ii Thesis is accepted and approved in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Arts in History. Contested Politics and the Communist Visual: A Critical Analysis of John Heartfield’s Photomontages at the End of the Weimar Republic Justin Kauffman __________________________ Date Approved _________________________ Dr. John Savage Advisor _________________________ Dr. Michael Baylor Co-Advisor ________________________ Dr. John Smith Department Chair Person iii I wish to express my sincerest gratitude to Professor John Savage and Professor Michael Baylor, my thesis advisors, for their patient guidance, encouragement, and constructive feedback during both the research and writing stages of this process. I would also like to thank Professor Roger Simon for his aid in helping me receive my degree. iv Table&of&Contents& Copyright*page*............................................................................................................................................*ii* Approval*page*.......................................................................................................................................................*iii* Acknowledgements*.......................................................................................................................................*iv* List*of*Figures*...................................................................................................................................................*vi* Abstract*..........................................................................................................................................................*1* Thesis*.........................................................................................................................................................................*2* Bibliography*...................................................................................................................................................*55* Vita*......................................................................................................................................................................*59* v Figures: Figure 1. Die letze Weisheit der SPD: “Nieder mit dem Marxismus!”, 1931. Figure 2. “Faschismus der Todfeind der Arbeiter!,”1929. Figure 3. “Krieg dem imperialistischen Kriege!,” 1931. Figure 4. “Tod oder Brot,” 1930. Figure 5. Vandervelde oder Die vollkommene Schamlosigkeit, 1930. Figure 6. 6 Millionen Naziwähler: Futter für ein groβes Maul, 1930. Figure 7. Noch is Deutschland nicht verloren!,1930. Figure 8. Zum Krisen-Parteitag der SPD, 1931. Figure 9. Die Rote Einheit macht euch frei!, 1932. Figure 10. S.M. ADOLF, 1932. Figure 11. Hitler und Hummel der gleiche Rummel, 1932. Figure 12. Vereint kämpfen!, 1933. vi Justin Kauffman, History, Lehigh University Abstract of Master’s Thesis, Submitted August 15, 2014: The aim of this thesis is to examine a conflict of Communist politics in the last pre-Nazi years of Germany’s Weimar Republic through the photomontages of Communist Party member John Heartfield. The research investigates a moment when a radical Communist artist sacrificed his commitment to party line to reach the leftist masses with his propaganda. In the first part of the thesis, a background on Heartfield is provided to in order to present a trajectory leading up to his propaganda work for the Die Arbeiter-Illustrierte- Zeitung (AIZ or Worker’s Illustrated Magazine). Following this background, the discussion delves into an analysis of the photomontage in 1930 and 1931 starting with a brief comparison to election posters of the Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands (Communist Party of Germany or KPD). This section uses the photomontage visuals and articles written about the medium in order to outline the aesthetic and practical value of the photomontage as an appealing, widespread form of propaganda. In the final part of the thesis, an analysis of Heartfield’s photomontages from July 1932 until February 1933 is presented along with the context of political conflict in the KPD. This section starts by exploring the moment in July 1932 when Heartfield went against the KPD party line with a montage that proposed a united front coalition with Social Democrats. In conclusion, the thesis argues that Heartfield’s decision to go against party line contributed to the political conflict among German Communists in 1932. Heartfield was willing to undermine short-term changes in KPD policy for the immediate need of reaching his broad audience with what he considered the correct political message. 1 Figure 1. Die letze Weisheit der SPD: “Nieder mit dem Marxismus!”, 1931. John Heartfield’s last piece that appeared in Die Arbeiter-Illustrierte-Zeitung (AIZ or Worker’s Illustrated Magazine) in 1931 was the one shown above. The sarcastic work titled “Die letzte Weisheit der SPD: ‘Nieder mit dem Marximus!’” (The Final Wisdom of the SPD: “Down with Marxism”) contained an image of Karl Marx being apprehended by the Weimar police. Willhelm Sollmann, a Social Democrat from Köln, could be seen on the right wearing a police helmet and grabbing Marx by the arm (Figure 1).1 Heartfield altered a line directly from The Communist Manifesto for the piece, saying, “Wir haben nicht unsere Ketten zu verlieren, sondern unsere Futterkrippen und 1 Figure 1. John Heartfield, Die letze Weisheit der SPD: “Nieder mit dem Marxismus!,” AIZ 10, no. 27 (1931), in John Heartfield, John Heartfield, AIZ - Arbeiter-Illustrierte Zeitung, Volks Illustrierte, 1930-38, ed. David Evans and Anna Lundgreen (New York: Kent Fine Art, 1992), 73. From this point forward, when a shortened footnote reads “Heartfield, Heartfield,” it is referring to the secondary introduction of the photomontage compilation written by David Evans or the supplemental analysis that accompanies each montage. Shortened footnotes that read “Heartfield,” with a German-language title are referring to the photomontages themselves, also found in this compilation. When “in Heartfield, Heartfield” appears at the end of a full footnote, it is referring to the place that the actual photomontage can be found in the above compilation. 2 Ministersessel” (We have not our chains to lose, but our feeding troughs and ministers’ seats).2 This piece was an aggressively cynical criticism of the Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (Social Democratic Party of Germany or SPD). Examining propaganda like this at the height of the late Weimar crisis provides the historian with a window into the political contradictions of the Communist left that reached their culmination in the summer of 1932; the piece was attacking the SPD, a political party that many of its viewers belonged to. This discrepancy between readership and bitingly sarcastic propaganda is a paradox that needs to be explored further. This visual form was an application of the photomontage, an artistic medium that had been explored by modernists after World War I and into the 1920s. The term “photomontage” was first used by the Berlin Dadaists to refer to “their collages of printed ephemera and photographic fragments.”3 This piece follows these aesthetic patterns, as the images of Marx, Sollman, and the police are all cutouts from separate publications; Heartfield juxtaposed them in one piece to make this politically aggressive statement about the SPD. This image is also striking, because the AIZ had a significant SPD-based readership. The illustrated magazine was known for targeting a mass base audience of Berlin’s leftist parties, and now, for the first time, it was using this montage form to reach this readership with aggressive propaganda. The photomontage above is reflective of the struggle in Die Internationale Arbeiter-Hilfe (International Workers’ Aid or IAH) during the late Weimar years to reconcile the popularity of Heartfield’s artistic innovations in its propaganda with 2 Heartfield, Heartfield, 72. 3 Heartfield, Heartfield, 10. 3 political allegiance to the Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands (Communist Party of Germany or KPD). Similar to this image, Heartfield’s photomontages in the AIZ from 1930 through the end of the Weimar Republic were driven by conscious efforts to shape politics with this growing montage form. In fact, Heartfield had always prioritized the political function of the art over the art itself. As an active member in the Berlin Dada movement, Heartfield rejected the concept of art form as a facet of bourgeois experience accessible to only the upper classes.4 Heartfield yearned for a differentiated art that would reach a larger audience and convince them of the value in Communist doctrine. His artistic inclinations combined with his desire to make a political impact on
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