Katalog

73 The Influence of Exile and Politics on the Photography of Fred Stein T H E R E S I A Z I E H E “Dresden cast me out; that’s how I became a photographer.” 1 In this way Fred Stein described the link between his forced emigration and his subsequent decision to turn his hobby into his profession. Among German political emigrants at this time, a strik- ing number regarded photography as a promising line of work. 2 Photography needed no special training if you had some technical and artistic knowhow. The boom in pho- tojournalism held out the real possibility of making money. Photography also helped many emigrants to find their bearings in a new, frequently alien culture and a way to investigate their new social environment. The camera became a tool of translation for foreigners and outsiders, forcing its users to look more closely, more intensely and, to a large degree, more critically. It helped them to better process new impressions, incor- porating them into their own experience. Siegfried Kracauer described the particular relation between perception and foreign- ness in these terms: “As a stranger he may indeed perceive anything because nothing he sees is pregnant with memories that would narrow his field of vision.” 3 In addition, language barriers were considerably lower for photographers than, for example, for writers. As a transnational language of image-making, photography could easily be continued in another country. The experience of emigration and exile led to crucial turning points in photographers’ lives and work, and their photographic expression. As Ilse Bing put it: “We arrived in the United States as refugees and had to establish a new life. Of course, living in New York I had new influences and different experiences. Above all, the atmosphere, the light etc. changed my perception, while not destroying my German-French way of seeing. If I was asked, I would answer: I’m an international cocktail.” 4 Fred Stein’s trajectory first took him to Paris, and subsequently to New York. Many other photographers took the same path, with the passage between the two cites taking on particular significance for the history of twentieth century photography. Paris remained still the global art capital well into the 1930s. Among the many artists work- ing in the French capital were photographers like Man Ray, Brassaï, André Kertész, Germaine Krull, Lee Miller, Dora Maar, Ilse Bing, Robert Capa, Gisèle Freund and Erwin Blumenfeld, making the city a genuine multinational crucible of photography. The outbreak of the Second World War brought about an abrupt change in the intellec- tual and cultural atmosphere, giving rise to a massive exodus, largely to the United States. Emigrants from Nazi Germany, who had consciously chosen Paris as a city close