Inhalt: | Recognized as one of the founding fathers of the documentary style, August Sander is the creator of many iconic twentieth-century photographs. Towards the end of the First World War, while working from his studio in Cologne, Sander began what would become his life’s work: a photographic portrait of German society under the Weimar Republic. He called this endeavor People of the 20th Century. While his first publication was banned from sale in 1936 by the National Socialist government, in around 1938 Sander began taking identity photographs for persecuted Jews. During the Second World War he photographed migrant workers; Sander included these images, as well as some taken by his son Erich from the prison where he would die in 1944, in People of the 20th Century, along with portraits of national socialists made before and during the war. Sander was unable to publish his monumental work during his lifetime, but his descendants champion his vision to this day. These photographs are published together for the first time here, along with contact prints, letters and details about the lives of those photographed. They are portraits of dignified men and women, victims of an ideology taking their rightful place as “People of the 20th Century” in defiance of Nazi efforts to ostracize them. „Ungeachtet einer hochemotionalen Seite des Themas, scheint sich der Künstler Zurückhaltung im bildnerischen Zugriff verordnet zu haben. Weder macht er aus den jüdischen Menschen geknechtete Opfer noch aus den Täten Hyänen. Sanders Juden strahlen gefasste Würde aus, während die Männer in Uniform als reichlich normale Bürger in die Kamera blicken: Biedermänner, deren Potential als Brandstifter die Geschichte allerdings schon damals offenbarte. Diese dokumentarische Haltung macht das Unternehmen insgesamt stimmig und verleiht ihm à la longue politische Wucht. Schnell war sich die Jury einig: In der Brisanz des Themas, seiner gelungenen konzeptionellen Umsetzung im Verein mit einer handwerklich überzeugenden Übersetzung in ein Buch hat dieser bei Steidl erschienene herausragende Band den diesjährigen Deutschen Fotobuchpreis in der Kategorie „Fotograf (Monografien)“ ungeteilt verdient“ (Deutscher Fotobuchpreis 18 |19, Kategorie: Fotograf (Monografie), Laudatio zur Preisverleihung am 16.11.2018, Laudator: Hans-Michael Koetzle) |
