Das Pure Leben (m. Fotoarbeiten von Sibylle BERGEMANN, Christian BORCHERT, Arno FISCHER, Ute & Werner MAHLER, Roger MELIS, Helga PARIS, Evelyn RICHTER, Helfried STRAUSS, Ulrich WÜST among many others)

Background information, content

"Under the motto 'Pure Life,' originated by Arno FISCHER, the doyen of East German photography, Mathias Bertram draws a comprehensive balance of East German photorealism in two coordinated yet independent volumes. Far from the propaganda that dominated the official imagery of the GDR, the total of 350 carefully selected photographs by 60 renowned photographers show the everyday life of East Germans in a sober and unadorned way, but also not without cheerfulness.  At the same time, they impressively demonstrate the high aesthetic quality of East German photography.
25 years after the Peaceful Revolution, an extraordinary 'graphic novel' has been created, which tells of 'real life in the wrong' between the Erzgebirge and the Baltic Sea with almost epic breadth.  The first part, 'The Early Years', covers the period from 1945 to 1975 and includes photographs by Ursula ARNOLD, Sibylle BERGEMANN, F. O. BERNSTEIN, Thomas BILLHARDT, Christian BORCHERT, Gerd DANIGEL, Dieter DEMME, Arno FISCHER, Wolfgang GREGOR, Harald HAUSWALD, Erich HÖHNE, Harry HARDENBERG, Bernd HEYDEN, Konrad HOFFMEISTER, Gerhard KIESLING, Eberhard KLÖPPEL, Ute MAHLER, Werner MAHLER, Karl-Heinz MAI, Roger MELIS, Helga PARIS, Richard PETER sen,  Evelyn RICHTER, Erich RINKA, Roger and Renate RÖSSING, Thomas SANDBERG, Ludwig SCHIRMER, Wolfgang G. SCHRÖTER, Erich SCHUTT, Uwe STEINBERG, Helfried STRAUSS, Horst STURM, Norbert VOGEL, Brigitte VOIGT, Gerhard WEBER, Katja WORCH and Ulrich WÜST." (© Lehmstedt Verlag, 2014)

In the press

"A photographic collection that is second to none! Far from any propaganda and recognizable to many, the photographs document everyday life in the GDR as it really was." (© Irmtraud Gutschke, in Neues Deutschland, March 3, 2016)
"Works by the crème de la crème of East German photography characterize these two excellent volumes." (© F. F. dabei, 2015, no. 2)
"And once again it is the Leipzig-based Lehmstedt Verlag that saves these precious gems of photography from oblivion." (© Wolfgang Blieffert, in: Hessische / Niedersächsische Allgemeine, December 13, 2014)
"The double volume recapitulates the decades, stages, aggregate states of a state that at least made possible a formal-aesthetically and thematically independent image culture." (© Hans-Michael Koetzle, in Photo International, No. 1, 2015)
"The photographers, one thinks to discover when cursorily leafing through, were much more honest than all the painters who dressed up the ghastly grayness of this country with perfect accuracy. Just one photo of Helga PARIS or Gundula SCHULZE ELDOWY, and one knows in which world their protagonists moved. There could hardly be a better documentation of 'pure life' in the GDR."(© Rüdiger Dingemann, in: Perlentaucher, December 11, 2014)
"Less pure life, more pure East German photography is what these two books offer, over which one bends in wonder." (© Christian Eger, in: Mitteldeutsche Zeitung, December 11, 2014)
"What is to be viewed here has nothing exhibiting, nothing decorating. GDR art photography took the liberty of solitary views; these images didn't have to please anyone, neither the photographed nor those who watched over the official image its inhabitants gave in the country's media." (© Gunnar Decker, in Neues Deutschland, November 29, 2014)
"Neither transfiguring in any direction nor black-painting is the compilation of these two volumes. They fill a gigantic gap in knowledge in the reappraisal of everyday GDR history and yet can just as easily be received simply as artistic photography." 
          (© Tatjana Mehner, in: Ostthüringische Zeitung, November 12, 2014)
"The holdings and surpluses in these extraordinary volumes on the pictorial memory of the GDR are considerable. It makes for viewing like neo-realist cinema." (© Jürgen Verdofsky, in Badische Zeitung, Nov. 8, 2014)
"A large-scale, epically broad photo novel that, should it be classified literarily, is committed to a realism that can be read from many perspectives." (© Annett Gröschner, in: Die Welt, November 8, 2014)
"Memories of life in the GDR look different, are fading, and a generation has long since grown up that has none of its own. These two books gather authentic snapshots of that time by renowned photographers and become a history lesson in pictures." (© Uta Trinks, in: Freie Presse, Chemnitz, November 7, 2014)
"If pictures really do say more than a thousand words, then in these two photo volumes!" (© Ulrich Faure, in: Buchmarkt, November 2014)
"The poignant thing about the pictures is that they do not superficially show the political events of the time, but their effects on people. History can only be understood from everyday life.  'Pure Life' is an important document for this. At the same time, the photo volumes, like all good works of art, mean more than that. The illustrations not only show life, they live themselves - in the eye of the beholder, who will not be fobbed off with snapshots of arbitrariness." (© Kerstin Hensel, in: Sächsische Zeitung, November 1, 2014)
"Lehmstedt Verlag has published many great photography books in recent years, and now with the two volumes 'Das pure Leben' something like the quintessence, quasi the long-awaited German novel of the century is available." (© Jana Hensel, in: Der Freitag, October 30, 2014)
"Snapshots that preserve a piece of history and tell pictorially about the people, their hopes and disappointments in a perished country."(© Ida Kretzschmar, in: Lausitzer Rundschau, Oct. 25, 2014)
"House editor Mathias Bertram takes stock for the first time and ventures into an anthology of East German author photography dedicated to the entire GDR period." (© Brigitte Preissler, in. Prenzlauer Berg Nachrichten, October 23, 2014)
"It is precisely such photos taken away from the official visual aesthetic that show socialist Germany in an authentic light. They show: as perfidious as the SED state was in monitoring its citizens - at the same time, there was also an everyday life that was largely untouched by it."(© Peter Maxwill, in: Spiegel online, October 9, 2014)
"The b/w photos tell of a life in intermediate tones, unadorned, often with a touch of melancholy, clear, hard or tender, never transfiguring.Pure life, yet unwashed.Insights into the everyday, the private or the curious, always into the significant."(© Peter von Becker, in: Tagesspiegel, Oct. 8, 2014)
"The wonderful thing about these two volumes is that whoever looks at them can once again smell, taste and feel the little Germany that has gone under. Each of these pictures tells a story of everyday life and living in the GDR." (© Renate Meinhof, in: Süddeutsche Zeitung, October 7, 2014)
"Fantastic b/w photo volumes have been made by Leipzig-based Lehmstedt Verlag for a long time. But there has never been so much shading in the GDR gray.25 years after the fall of the Wall, there is a submerged country to discover.Tender, enraptured - and yet not transfigured. As if neorealismo came from the East." (© Marc Reichwein, in: Die Welt, October 4, 2014)
"Photos that instantly burn themselves into the memory." (© Udo Scheer, in: Thüringische Landeszeitung, October 3, 2014)
"Whoever acquires Das reine Leben possesses a balance sheet of East German photorealism and a compendium in nuce.  To leaf through these volumes is to go on a journey full of adventures and surprises, from which one returns moved and touched." (© Jochen Kienbaum, in: lustauflesen.de, October 3, 2014)
"A treasure trove for photo lovers in the East and West of the Republic alike - pure East German photorealism." (© Uwe Dammann, in: Weser-Kurier, October 2, 2014)
"Lehmstedt Verlag takes care of the photographic heritage not only of the GDR in anniversary years. These two volumes also take you on a long journey - from which you return touched."(© Janina Fleischer, in: Leipziger Volkszeitung, September 26, 2014)
"We don't see the whole GDR here, but we do see pure life in this country in all its ambivalence.Those who want to remember are just as right here as those who want to experience how it could be, this smaller Germany."(© Axel Seitz, in: NDR, Radio Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, September 17, 2014)         
"The edition delivers something rare: an unadorned, realistic picture in a convincing composition." (© Karin Großmann, in: Sächsische Zeitung, September 13, 2014)
"The photos captivate with their artistic quality and the almost poetic view of the world - which is not a romantic one, rather a loving, skeptical, sometimes ironic one. In this way, the actual inhabitants of the GDR become visible, the people, as they nevertheless live a fulfilled life in the sometimes violently worn and meager conditions, sometimes in a setting that visibly conceals the decay, often with an impressive talent for improvisation, and again and again as familiar as the figures from the propaganda never are. Here they play no role in the theater of the powerful. Here they are completely themselves.          With these two illustrated volumes, Lehmstedt Verlag has indeed presented the first grandiose "graphic novel" about the GDR, sober and unembellished, but also not without hilarity." (© Ralf Julke, in: Leipziger Internetzeitung, September 12/14, 2014)

About the photographers represented with their works

• Ursula ARNOLD, Sibylle BERGEMANN, F. O. BERNSTEIN, Thomas BILLHARDT, Christian BORCHERT, Gerd DANIGEL, Dieter DEMME, Arno FISCHER, Wolfgang GREGOR, Harald HAUSWALD, Erich HÖHNE, Harry HARDENBERG, Bernd HEYDEN, Konrad HOFFMEISTER, Gerhard KIESLING, Eberhard KLÖPPEL, Ute MAHLER, Werner MAHLER, Karl-Heinz MAI, Roger MELIS, Helga PARIS, Richard PETER sen,  Evelyn RICHTER, Erich RINKA, Roger and Renate RÖSSING, Thomas SANDBERG, Ludwig SCHIRMER, Wolfgang G. SCHRÖTER, Erich SCHUTT, Uwe STEINBERG, Helfried STRAUSS, Horst STURM, Norbert VOGEL, Brigitte VOIGT, Gerhard WEBER, Katja WORCH and Ulrich WÜST

Photo books of the photographers represented in the volume

• ARNOLD, Ursula
  BERGEMANN, Sibylle
  BERNSTEIN, F. O.
  BILLHARDT, Thomas
  BORCHERT, Christian
  DANIGEL, Gerd
  DEMME, Dieter
  FISCHER, Arno
  GREGOR, Wolfgang
  HAUSWALD, Harald
  HÖHNE, Erich
  HARDENBERG, Harry
  HEYDEN, Bernd
  HOFFMEISTER, Konrad
  KIESLING, Gerhard
  KLÖPPEL, Eberhard
  MAHLER, Ute
  MAHLER, Werner
  MAI, Karl-Heinz
  MELIS, Roger
  PARIS, Helga
  PETER sen., Richard P
  RICHTER, Evelyn
  RINKA, Erich
  RÖSSING, Roger und Renate
  SANDBERG, Thomas
  SCHIRMER, Ludwig
  SCHRÖTER, Wolfgang G.
  SCHUTT, Erich
  STEINBERG, Uwe
  STRAUSS, Helfried
  STURM, Horst
  VOGEL, Norbert
  VOIGT, Brigitte
  WEBER, Gerhard
  WORCH, Katja
  WÜST, Ulrich WÜST

About the editor Mathias Bertram (*1960)

Mathias Bertram is a literary historian, publicist and book designer and since 2003 artistic director of Lehmstedt Verlag and editor of more than 25 photo books, mainly on East German photography