BURRI, René - Die Deutschen

Personal statement by Swiss photographer René BURRI

"At the time, Germany was simply the place where, after the war, certain dividing lines became very dramatically apparent. And that was the deciding factor for me not to make a book about France or Italy or something else more pleasant, but to go to the place where certain contrasts clashed." (René BURRI, in: Leica-World, 1997)

Background information, book history 1962-1999, content

"When René BURRI published the first version of this book 'The Germans' in 1962, neither he nor the idea of the photo book were established enough to stand on their own. One half was taken up by Hans Magnus Enzensberger's texts, the other half by René BURRI's photographs. His Swiss passport made it possible for him to travel to both East and West, to see both sides of the divided country. At the time, it was probably one of the last books to reunite Germany - even if only in pictures. And you can see how similar the two parts still were. Because without the caption, it is usually not clear whether the picture was taken in the East or the West. The Swiss Magnum photographer mainly depicted everyday life in Germany (see 'Tauentzienstraße, Berlin/West, 1959', where the bullet holes from the war can still be seen on the wall of the building. Here and there his capacity for ambiguity is visible ('Maschinen-Ausstellung, Berlin/Ost, 1959'), where banners on a ruin thematize the advantages of socialism over imperialism. 'Kurfürstendamm, Berlin/West' already seems to anticipate his magnificent shots of 'Brasilia'. The success of the book edition was moderate, (...) professional, competent photo criticism simply did not exist in the 1960s. No wonder the book was soon sold for a few marks. But René BURRI pursued his project 'The Germans' for many decades. And so, in 1986, the book was republished as 'Die Deutschen. Photographs 1957-1964'. Enzenberger's text takes up just 20 pages. With the fall of the Berlin Wall and reunification, René BURRI was finally able to complete his project and bring the two halves together. In 1999, the 3rd edition of 'Die Deutschen' was published, now with the additional title 'Photographien 1957-1997'. Here now with an explanatory introduction by Hans-Michael KOETZLE and the poems by Enzensberger." (slightly modified and expanded text of the review from: http://www.bilderreisen.at/tipps/lesetipp-details.php?cover=-1097, accessed on 02.04.2018)

About Swiss Magnum photographer René BURRI (1933-2014)

Photo books by and with photographs by René BURRI