MILLER, Lee - Köln im März 1945

Background information

In March, the then war correspondent and now world-famous photographer Lee MILLER photographed post-war Cologne. The employee and lover of MAN RAY created icons of photo history together with this and she accompanied the fighting troops of the US Army in 1944/45. She photographed the cities, places and people just liberated in Dachau, Bergen-Belsen, Frankfurt and Cologne on behalf of Vogue magazine.

Content

The pictures in 'Cologne in March 1945' are historically and artistically spectacular documentary recordings. Lee MILLER's pictures convey such immediate impressions as if you were there now, here and today and reflect faces in moments that represent a turning point in their lives for these people. At the same time, the photos are harrowing, sad, joyful, life-affirming, desperate, or optimistic despite an extremely difficult time. Regardless of whether Lee MILLER photographed people who have just come out of the Klingelpütz or are going to the Agnes Church in this world photography event. Most of these photographs of Cologne were previously unpublished. They were only discovered after the art historian Dr. Kerstin Stremmel published in the Lee Miller Archive in Chiddingly (UK) These pictures in particular by Lee MILLER are an exceptional work that thrives on the close connection between Cologne history and international art: around 80 motifs that the Cologne city area immediately after the liberation through American troops document, from the destroyed cathedral to many individual streets to liberated forced laborers from the Klingelpütz.

About the photographer, Lee MILLER (1907–1977)

Photo books by and about Lee MILLER