John Heartfield

(1) the number of the montage in this book;

(2) in boldface, the title by which the montage is generally known;

(3) additional text on or part of the montage;

(4) the periodical (in italics), followed by the volume number, the issue number, the date (where ascertainable), the page number(s), and (in square brackets) the montage number for that year and the last two digits of the year, corresponding to Friedrich Pfäfflin 's bibliography in Krieg im Frieden (Munich: Hanser Verlag, 1972), pp. 113-35; and

(5) remarks about the subject matter of the montage. Cover illustrations are identified as such. In some cases, a copy of the 1st edition no longer exists or was not available for photographing, hence a later edition has been used. Plates 19, 20, and 24 were reproduced from microfilm because original copies of those issues of AIZ were not obtainable. In order to retain the authenticity of the originals, there has been some loss of quality in reproduction. Some previously published unauthorized reproductions were not photographed from the originals and therefore differ considerably from the versions included here.

1. Those who read bourgeois newspapers will become blind and deaf. Away with these debilitating bandages! A-I-Z, IX, 6 (9 February 1930), p. 103 [1/30]. Vorvärts and Tempo were organs of the Socialist Party (SPD). During this period, as George Orwell later pointed out, "anyone who advocated a united front of Socialists and Communists was denounced as a traitor, Trotskyist, mad dog, hyena and all the other items in the Communist vocabulary. Social democracy was declared to be the real enemy of the working class."

2 Solar eclipse over the "liberated" Rhine Hindenburg: "Well done, friend Braunl" A-I-Z, XI, 31 (2 August 1930), p. 603 [6/30], In the summer of 1930 the Allied Rhineland Commission prematurely evacuated the second and third zones of the occupied Rhineland. The Social Democrats (Prussian Prime Minister Otto Braun, right) and the regime of Chancellor Heinrich Bru'ning (based mainly on parties of the Center) under President Paul von Hindenburg (left) came to an understanding, while the Communists and Nationalists formed the main opposition.

3. 6 million Nazi voters: Fodder for an enormous mouth "And this is the fish I elected!" A-I-Z, IX, 40 (4 October 1930), p. 783 [8/30]. In the elections of 14 September 1930, the Nazis—the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP)—received 6.4 million votes (18.3% of the total), increased their Reichstag membership from 12 to 107, and thus formed the second largest political bloc in the new Reichstag.

4. The dead Parliament That's all that's left of 1848! A view of the Reichstag session, 13 October 1930. A-I-Z, IX, 42 (18 October 1930), p. 823 [10/30]. To combat deflation, Chancellor Brüning put through his unpopular austerity budget by using his emergency powers under Article 48  of the constitution, which permitted him to govern by decree in an emergency and to use the armed forces for the restoration of public safety and order." When the Reichstag condemned government by emergency decree, Brüning dissolved it. This established authoritarian presidential government -- clearly oriented toward the Right -- and led eventually to the terrorist thrust for power of Hitler's minority government in 1933.

5. A new year! A year like all the others were? No!! This must not be! To forge a new world from want and grief, strike, proletariat! A-I-Z, IX, 52 (27 December 1930), p. 1023 [12/30]

6. The Crisis Party Congress of the SPD Social democracy does not want the collapse of capitalism. Like a doctor it wants to heal and improve it. (Fritz Tarnow, chairman, Woodworkers Federation) The veterinarian of Leipzig: "Of course we shall draw the teeth of the tiger, but first we must feed him and nurse him back to health." A-I-Z, X, 24 (15 June 1931), p. 477 [2/31]. The Social Democrats tolerated the "emergency majority" of the Brüning regime and, according to the Communists, the SPD subordinated the "true principles of the class struggle" under the slogan, "All, but not Hitler."

7. Black or white — in struggle united! We know only one race, we recognize only one enemy — the exploiting class. A-I-Z, X, 26 (4July 1931), p. 517 [3/31]. In Scottsboro, Alabama, nine black men between the ages of 13 and 20 were picked up on 25 March 1931 and accused of raping two young white women. Their cause was taken up by various Communist-dominated organizations, and on 13 and 14 June 1931, on International Workers' Aid Day in Germany, hundreds of thousands demonstrated against American racial "justice." (The last surviving "Scottsboro boy" was given a full pardon in 1976.) This issue of A-I-Z was a special combined issue on racial injustice. Heartfield used the same montage for a poster in 1961.

8. War and corpses — the last hope of the rich A-I-Z, XI, 18 (27 April 1932), pp. 420-21 [1/32]. For the fifteenth anniversary of the May uprising against World War 1, Russia, 1917. The rallying cry of the German Communists for the presidential elections of 1932 was "Who votes for Hindenburg votes for Hitler. Who votes for Hitler vottes for war." The decoration worn by the hyena is the World War I flying medal, the "Blue Max," whose original motto, "Pour le Mérite," Heartfield changed to "Pour le Profit." A swastika replaced the decoration when this montage was used as a poster in Spain in 1934.

9. In this sign shall you be betrayed and sold! A-I-Z, XI, 27. (3 July 1932), p. 627 [2/32]. Heartfield here associated the Nazi Party with capital.

10. Adolf the superman Swallows gold and talks junk A-l-Z., XI, 29 (17 July 1932), p. 675 [4/32]. With the financial help of Count Harry Kessler, a wealthy liberal, enlarged versions of this photomontage were pasted up all over Berlin in August 1932.

11 His Majesty Adolf I lead you on to glorious bankruptcy! A-I-Z, XI, 34 (21 August 1932), p. 795 [6/32] Adolf Hitler, with the upturned moustache and plumed helmet and uniform of Kaiser Wilhelm II, alludes to the Kaiser's pledge: "I lead you on to glorious times." This photomontage was used as the cover for Picture Post, London, 23 September 1939.

12. Should men fall again that shares may rise?! A-I-Z, XI, 35 (28 August 1932), p. 819 [7/32]. Hitler proclaimed peaceful goals while he was backed by big business and high finance.

13. The meaning of the Hitler salute: Motto: Millions stand behind me! A little man asks for large gifts A-I-Z, XI, 42 (16 October 1932), p. 985 (cover, 1st edition) [11/32]. Hitler was backed, incognito, by big businessmen and industrialists who saw in him the man who would smash the Socialists and Communists.

14. Hitler and Hummel the same rubbish [on legs:] Liars have short legs [verse:] A man arrived from Austria promising the people a Third Reich. "I'll lead you out of the emergency!" "Heil Hitler! Strike the reds dead!" A man arrived from Africa who'd never been there, a sorely tried patriot. "Heil Daubmann! Strike the Frogs dead!" Imposter Daubmann had bad luck, he moved a bit too impudently. The German hero crowned with glory called himself Hummel and lied for money, too. Great Adolf still mouths the stupidest nonsense under the sun. Capital still supports the saviour from the Brown House. Hitler, a second Hummel, has cut himself off from the Nazi rubbish. He makes himself out to be a Socialist at the same time that he serves the rich. A-I-Z, XI, 45 (6 November 1932) p. 1065 (cover, 1st edition) [13/32]. Hummel, an imposter whose real name was Daubmann, was honoured as the last priso ner of war from a French war prison. Hitler, a private first-class in World War I, was born, as we now know, Adolf Schicklgruber.

15. Rearmament is necessary! [First corpse:] Yes, yes, the profit from our bones is coming to an end. [Second Corpse:] Don't worry, there'll be reinforcements. A-I-Z, XI, 46 (13 November 1932), p. 1091 [14/32]

16 6 million Communist votes "Papen, what are you doing?" "I'm draining the Bolshevik swamp "[small type:] "No means can be too severe to eradicate Bolshevism from Germany, root and brancn!" (from Papen's radio speech of 4 November) A-I-Z, XI, 47 (20 November 1932), p. 1113 (cover 1st edition) [15/32]. In the Reichstag elections of 6 November 1932, the Communists gained, while the Nazis and Social Democrats lost, but Chancellor Franz von Papen could not get the support of a majority in the Reichstag. His attempt to prorogue the Reichstag failed, and on 17 November he resigned at the insistence of General Kurt von Schleicher, who himself was named chancellor on 2 December.

17. The moral of Geneva Where money lives, peace cannot survive! [small type at upper left:] In Geneva, site of the League of Nations, workers demonstrating against fascism were machine gunned down: 15 dead and more than 60 wounded lying on the plaza. A-I-Z, XI, 48 (27 November 1932), p. 1137 (cover, 1st edition) [16/32]. The dove of peace is transfixed by the fascist bayonet before the League of Nations building. On the flag the white cross has been replaced by a swastika. The bayoneted dove appears on Heartfield's best-known later work, Never again! (1960), and in a third version (1967).

18. Prospects for the death business Prayer of the arms industry: "The more Chinese fall, the better our chimneys will smoke. A thousand dead Chinese meet our costs. A hundred thousand dead Chinese mean a profit. Ten million dead Chinese could end the crisis. Lord, stand by us, lords of the earth, that the fire in the East burns brighter! AIZ, XII, 4 (22 January 1933), p. 75 [2/33]. Possibly an allusion to the fighting of the Red Army under Mao Tse-tung against Chiang Kai-shek, as well as an appeal to the union delegate elections of March 1933 in which the Nazi factory cell organization under Robert Ley was a candidate.

19. Through light to night Thus spake Dr. Goebbels: "Let us start new fires so that those who are blinded don't awaken. "On 10 May all the unpopular books in Germany were burned. AI7., XII, 18 (10 [sic] May 1933), p. 321 (cover, 1st edition) [5/33]. On 10 May 1933, Propaganda Minister Goebbels personally directed the burning of thousands of books in Berlin; books were also burned in other cities and university towns of the Reich. Among the books on the pyre are works by Becher, Ehrenburg, Hasek, Lenin, Thomas Mann, and Plievier; in another version, works by Kisch, Marx, and Remarque also appear. Also burned were works by foreign authors, including Havelock Ellis, Freud, Gide, Helen Keller, Jack London, Proust, Margaret Sanger, Upton Sinclair, H. G. Wells, and Zola.

20. Hitler's program Hitler in his program speech of 1 May: The people have been successfully swindled, now the houses must be daubed! [small type:] Hitler's program of 1 May: "To do away with unemployment, we'll put houses in order again." AIZ, XII, 19 (18 May 1933), p. 339 [6/33]. A play on Hitler's attempts to be a painter and on the word "schmieren," which can mean both "swindle" and "paint without skill."

21. With his call he'll gas us all The man who swore to uphold the German Constitution now speaks of peace. He will keep peace as he kept his oath. AIZ, XII, 21 (1 June 1933), p. 371 [8/33]. Hitler's assertions of peace contradicted his program of war preparation. On 3 February 1933, in a secret speech to commanders of the Reichswehr, Hitler outlined his foreign policy: New "Lebensraum in the East" was to be "ruthlessly" germanized.

22. War A painting by Franz von Stuck. Brought up to date by John Heartfield. AIZ, XII, 29 (27 July 1933), p. 499 [16/33]. At the second International Disarmament Conference of 1933, Germany requested permission to expand its military force from 100,000 to 200,000 men. The application was rejected, and Germany withdrew from the Conference in October.

23. A new chair in the German universities Profound thoughts on nationalism A Professor Vitlawopsky of the University of Heidelberg has just asserted that human corns—but only German ones—can predict the future. When the discovery of this genial researcher became known Hitler ordered 1,300 chiropodists to be sent to concentration camps. Original photo from the Teutonic backwoods by John Heartfield. AIZ, XII, 34 (31 August 1933), p. 579 [21/33]. The Reichstag fire of 27February 1933 was a pretext for the establishment of concentration camps to be used for "protective custody."

24. Goering the executioner of the Third Reich On 21 September, in Leipzig, four innocent men, along with the agent provocateur Lubbe, will go before a court of justice. They are victims of the most horrible betrayals of justice. The real Reichstag arsonist, Goering, will not appear. Cover illustration for The Brown Book of the Hitler Terror. Goering's face comes from an actual photograph and has not been retouched. AIZ, XII, 36 (14 September 1933), p. 609 (cover, 1st edition) [25/33]. On 27February 1933, the Reichstag building was set on fire. The Nazis claimed that Marinus van der Lubbe, a young Dutch Communist, had been induced to set the building on fire as a signal for a general Communist uprising. They also seized, as his "co-conspirators," Ernst Torgler, a Communist deputy, and three Bulgarians — Georgi Dimitrov, a leading Comintern activist, and Blagoy Simon Popov and Vassily Tanev. The Communist Party was outlawed and thousands of its leaders were arrested and interned. From Paris, Willi Münzenberg organized a Reichstag counter-trial — public hearings in Paris and London, which called attention to what was happening in the Third Reich — and issued two Brown Books dealing with the Hitler terror and the burning of the Reichstag. See Fritz Tobias, The Reichstag I-'ire (London: Seeker & Warburg, 1963; New York: Putnam, 1964).

25. German acorns 1933 AIZ, XII,37 (21 September 1933), p. 627 [26/33]. The camouflaged war preparations of Nazi Germany: Hitler waters the roots of an oak tree which bears a fruit of shells and iron helmets marked with the swastika.

26 The arson trial in Leipzig They twist and turn and call themselves German judges AIZ., XII, 41 (19 October 1933), p. 691 [28/33], The Reichstag fire trial was poorly conducted by the judges, who were subservient to Hitler, and many of the state's witnesses transparently perjured themselves. This montage, with the caption Swastika Vipers, was also printed on an "agitational" postcard.

27 Hitler tells fairy tales The Third Reich is a pacifist Reich Her soldiers are not soldiers but the angels of Hitler's eternal peace, only their wings are camouflaged. AIZ, XII, 42 (26 October 1933), p. 720 (cover, 4th edition) [29/33].

28 Like brothers like murderers Berlin, 19 October The Italian Fascist party has had a prize dagger delivered to Hitler's representative Rudolf Hess. The Black Shirt to the Brown Shirt: "You deserve the dagger! You have surpassed us in assassination." AIZ, XII, 43 (2 November 1933), p.736 (cover, 4th edition) [30/33]. Julius Streicher (left), Nazi district leader of Franconia and editor of the anti-Semitic Nazi newspaper Der Stürmer (1923-45), is shown standing on a section of the montage depicting a bloody corpse (taken from a Stuttgart police photograph dating from several years earlier).

29. The judge The culprit AIZ, XII, 45 (16 November 1933), p. 755[31/33]. In the Reichstagfire trial, Georgi Dimitrov, one of the five accused, brilliantly conducted his own defense. At the end of his cross-examination of Hermann Goering on 4 November 1933, Goering said, "You wait till we get you outside the power of this court!" On 23 December, however, Dimitrov, Popov, Tanev, and Torgler were acquitted. The court concluded, nonetheless, that Communists were guilty of setting the fire, and on 10 January 1934, Marinus van der Lubbe was executed. In this photomontage, Heartfield made it clear whom he considered to be the real culprit.

30. The executioner and Justice. Goering at the Reichstag fire trial: "For me the law is a full-blooded affair." AIZ, XII, 47 (30 November 1933), p. 787 [32/33].

31. The Reichsbishop drills Christendom "You over there! The cross more to the right!." AIZ,XIII,3(18January 1934), p.35 [3/34], After the new Reich Church was formed, a new Reichbishop was to be elected at the Synod of Wittenberg in September 1933. Hitler forced the appointment of his advisor on church affairs, Ludwig Müller In a proclamation made in the Berlin sports arena on 13.November 1933, the "German Christians" under Muller demanded the complete nazification of the Protestant church and its creed. An emergency committee of clergymen led by Martin Niemöller reacted with strong denunciations from the pulpit.

32. Vienna ... The old expression from the Paris Commune is again applicable: Make way for the worker! Death to the executioners!" AIZ, XIII, 8 (22 February 1934), p. 113 (cover, 1st edition) [8/34]. In February 1934, Austrian Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss, using government troops, ruthlessly suppressed an uprising of Socialists (mostly working class Austrians) in Vienna and wenton todissolve the Social Democratic Party.

33. In Vienna the double-headed eagle was introduced The Old World had its vultures of bankruptcy Austria has one with two heads AIZ, XIII, 9(1 March 1934), p. 144 (cover, 4th edition) [9/34]. Dollfuss and his vice-chancellor Emil Fey, who had organized the repression of the Socialists, established "holding camps" for those who were against their regime.

34. The old slogan in the "new" Reich: Blood and Iron A17., XIII, 10 (8 March 1934), p. 147 [10/34]. Bismarck's slogan "Blood and Iron" lives again in the Nazi state. The executioner's bloodstained axes form the Nazi swastika.

35. Hjalmar or The Growing Deficit "I shall certainly not let it fall!" [small type, upper left.] The press announces that to strengthen the confidence of the most powerful circles, Dr. Hjalmar Schacht, president of the Reichsbank, has proposed that his name be changed to Hjalmar Helfersich [helps himself]! AIZ, XIII, 14 (5 April 1934), p. 224 (cover, 4th edition) [14/34], To finance the rearmament, the Reichsbank, under Schacht, had issued promissory notes which gave extensive credit to armaments manufacturers. By 1938, 12 billion Reichsmarks (62% of the state's expenses) were invested in armaments.

36. If you want orders for arms, allocate the funds to the peace conferences The choir of the arms industry! "A mighty fortress is our Geneva" AIT., XIII, 15 (12 April 1934), p. 240 (cover, 1st edition) [15/34]. In October 1933, Germany had withdrawn from the Geneva International Disarmament Conference and at the same time had left the League of Nations. The bombs forming the cathedral in Heartfield's photomontage are labeled with the names of firms involved in armaments manufacture: Bethlehem Steel, Krupp, Schneider-Creuze, and Vickers.

37. Mimicry After all the efforts to infiltrate Nazi ideas into the workers' community were found to have been unsuccessful, Goebbels has convinced the Führer that when he addresses workers in future, he should wear a Karl Marx beard, [small type in upper left corner:} Press report of 8 April 1934 :"This year's May Day posters of the National Labor Front will show the head of Goethe, the eagle with the swastika and the Bolshevik symbol, the hammer and sickle, so as to win over for the regime any workers tending to opposition." AIZ, XIII, 16(19 April 1934), p. 241 (cover, 1st edition) [16/34].

38. On the intervention of the Third Reich against the International Caricature Exhibition at the Manes Gallery in Prague The more pictures they remove, the more visible becomes the reality! AIZ, XIII, 18 (3 May 1934), p. 288 (cover, 4th edition) [17/34], In several verbal notes, the German ambassador in Prague, Dr. Koch, protested the exhibition of Heartfield's photomontages and caricatures of his Fuhrer. As a result of the intervention, some of the exhibits were removed.

39. As in the Middle Ages ... so in the Third Reich AIZ, XIII, 22 (31 May 1934), p. 352 (cover, 4th edition) [21/34]. The upper part of the composition, a bas-relief deriving from the old collegiate church in Tübingen, shows a supplicant broken on a wheel. The man on the swastika in the lower part is the young actor Erwin Geschonnek.

40. Dialogue in the Berlin Zoo "Herr Streicher writes that Jews are animals and so on — Will they soon be put into the zoo?" Then said the wise marabout: "Phoo! They'll be put on the church spires that's much cleverer. " Then the monkey: "But tell me why." "The Jews are the best lightning conductors." AIZ XIII, 23 (7 June 1934), p. 368 (cover, 4th edition) [22/34]. Der Stürmer, Julius Streicher's anti-Semitic newspaper, was the forum for the presentation of the Nazi "final solution to the Jewish question.

41. The Venice Pact [addressed to the pigeons:] "An end to the cooings about peace! Attention! Break ranks!". AIZ., XIII, 26 (28 June 1934), p. 416 (cover, 4th edition) [25/34]. In June 1934, Hitler and Mussolini met for the first time in Venice.

42. Loyalty for loyalty Greetings from the Führer AIZ., XIII, 28 (12July 1934), p. 448 (cover, 4th edition) [27/34]. Ernst Röhm, a close collaborator of Hitler's from the "time of struggle" in the early 1920s and chief of staff of the SA (Sturmabteilung — storm troops), was arrested by Hitler personally on 30June 1934 in Bad Wiessee and was shot in a Munich prison without legal proceedings. Many others were also liquidated on that day, including other SA leaders, former Chancellor Kurt von Schleicher, and Dr. Erich Klausener, leader of Catholic Action.

43. 30 June 1934 Heil Hitler! AIZ., XIII, 29 (19 July 1934), p. 464 (cover, 4th edition) [28/34]. On 13 July 1934, in a Reichstag speech, Hitler justified himself by accusing Rohm and other opponents of the regime of having been traitors.

44. Hitler presses for war! Fascism is his final salvation — war his final way out! AIZ, XIII, 30 (26 July 1934), p. 465 (cover, 1st edition) [29/34]. With the announcement that on 23 June 1934, foreign airplanes had dropped leaflets over Berlin with messages against the regime, gas and air defensive exercises were officially explained. Thus Hitler justified his rearmament.

45. German natural history German Death's Head moth (Acherontia atropos Germanica) in its three stages of development: caterpillar, pupa, and moth. Metamorphosis Metamorphosis" means: 1. In mythology: the transformation of men into trees, animals, stones, etc. 2. In zoology: the development of many animal forms through a larva and pupa stage, for example, caterpillar, pupa, butterfly. 3. In the history of the Weimar Republic: Ebert, Hindenburg, Hitler. AIZ., XIII, 33 (16 August 1934), p. 536 (cover, 4th edition) [33/34]. Friedrich Ebert was president of Germany, 1919-25 Paul von Hindenburg, president since 1925, died 2 August 1934, and Hitler combined the offices of chancellor and president; henceforth he would be known as FUhrer and Reichschancellor. All officers and men in the armed forces were required to swear an oath of allegiance to Hitler.

46. Five million nays still too light! Blood and tears weigh, tool AIZ, XIII, 35 (30 August 1934), p. 553 (cover, 1st edition) [35/34]. On 19 August 1934, 38 million Germans voted approval of Hitler's usurpation of complete power. Fewer than 5 million voted "No."

47. Twenty years later! [Vertical text from bottom to top:] Even three-year-old children playing at war must be taught how to handle weapons and sabers and be instilled with the feeling that war is both welcome and lovable." (from a Japanese newspaper, Harbin Shimbun). AIZ, XIII, 37 (13 September 1934), pp. 592-93 [37/34]. A reprint, with revised text, of Heartfield's Ten years later! (1924), which Wieland Herzfelde and others regarded as Heartfield's first real photomontage.

48. The thousand-year Reich [text at right:] "The German lifestyle is definitively fixed for the next millennium." — "In the next thousand years, no revolution will occur in Germany." — Adolf Hitler, Nuremberg Party Congress [5 September 1934] AIZ, XIII, 38 (20 September 1934), p. 616 (cover, 4th edition) [38/34]. In Heartfield's house of cards, each of which is a separate photomontage, the industrial magnate Fritz Thyssen is at the top and Hitler, as a drummer, is at the bottom.

49. Quiet rules again in Barcelona Poison gas brought the first real togetherness! [newspaper extract:] Yesterday evening, war broke out again all over Spain, particularly in Catalonia. General Batet threatened to use poison gas against the rebels. — Prague Evening News, Monday, 8 October 1934. AIZ, XIII, 42 (18 October 1934), p. 680 (cover, 4th edition) [42/34]. in October 1934, after Gil Robles, the leader of a union of Catholic parties, entered the cabinet of the Republican Lerroux, Catalonian and Asturian workers who rose against the regime were bloodily repressed by General Franco.

50. A dangerous stew German picture puzzle 1934 You should all eat a one-pot meal, [upside down] then we can cover you with one pot, steel.AIZ, XIII, 45 (11 November 1934), p. 736 (cover, 4th edition) [45/34]. The eating of stews (one-pot dishes) once a week was one of the ways in which Germans were supposed to economize and so contribute the money they saved to various Nazi "charities."

51. Gestapo letters to German women Murder and then mockery! [left, above:] Again and again, in the Third Reich, without warning or explanation, the wives of innocent men who had been shot received packages or letters from the secret police containing the ashes of their husbands. This happened, for example, to the wife of a Catholic leader, Dr. Klausener. A1Z, XIII, 48 (29 November 1934), p. 784 (cover, 4th edition) [48/34].

52. "The battle of work" "When we have possessed the Saar, the murder storm will goon for hours and hours." AIZ, XIII,50(13 December 1934), p. 816 (cover, 4th edition) [50/34]. This refers to the imminent vote on the Saar in January 1935.

53. Rochling's arithmetic [on blackboard:] Hitler=enslavement of the people Enslavement of the people=increased profits Increased profits=my ideal Therefore: Hitler=my ideal! [below:] The masters calculate: The people will vote the status quo! [small type:] Hermann Rochling, iron kind of the Saar, convinces Thyssen and Krupp of the necessity for the Anschluss of the Saar to the Reich. That does not prevent him from furnishing France, the "hereditary enemy," with armor plate and investing capital in French enterprises. AIZ, XIII, 51 (20 December 1934), p. 817 (cover, 1st edition) [51/34].

54 O littleGerman Christmas tree, how bent your branches seem to be! [below:] Darré, the minister of food, decreed that from Christmas 1934 the growing of the Christian fir tree on German soil was forbidden as an alien intruder. In future only the standard brown Valhalla species DRGM allowed. AIZ., XIII. 52 (27 December 1934), p. 848 (cover, 4th edition) [52/34].

55 The three wise men from "Sorrowland" And they imagine: That will continue for twenty-five thousand years! AIZ, XIV, 1 (3January 1935), p. 16 (cover, 4th edition) [1/35] Allusion to the Three Wise Men. Epiphany: 6 January.

56 Hitler's dove of peace "The Saar being happily disposed of, now I let my hawk [German: Habicht] move southward." [newspaper clipping:] Habicht active again. Vienna. (Havas.) The Neue Wiener Tagblatt reports that Habicht has returned to Munich and has taken over the position of Bundesinspektor of the Austrian National Socialists. AIZ, XIV, 5 (31 January 1935), p. 80 (cover, 4th edition) [5/35]. Theodor Habicht, leader of the illegal Nazi Party in Austria, had been recalled from office after the murder of Austrian Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss on 24 July 1934, for which the Nazis were responsible, but he resumed his work from Munich in January 1935.

57. Fantasy of two Eastern Pact hunters Reichs hunting master Goering to Polish Foreign Minister Beck: "Leave me the neck of the bear, Herr Colleague; and I will leave you the rump." [small type, upper right:] Following the example of Herr von Papen, who recently led a "hunt" in Hungary, Goering is undertaking a "diplomatic hunt" in the primeval forests of Bialowieza in Poland. AIZ, XIV, 6 (7 February 1935), p. 96 (cover, 4th edition) [6/35], To improve bilateral relations between the Reich and its neighbors, "hunting excursions" were undertaken.

58. The Nazis play with fire "When the world is in flames, we shall prove that Moscow was the arsonist." AIZ, XIV, 9 (28 February 1935), p. 129 (cover, 1st edition) [8/35]. For the second anniversary of the Reichstag fire.

59. Diagnosis "Now why does he show this curve of the spine?" "That's the organic result of the eternal 'Heil Hitler!'" AIZ, XIV, 12 (21 March 1935), p. 192 (cover, 4th edition) [10/35].

60. A place in the sun "I will establish for my people a place in the sun!" Mussolini AIZ XIV 41 (10October 1935), p. 656 (cover, 4th edition) [18/35]. In October 1935, two Italian armies were defeated in Ethiopia but the League of Nations sanctions were ineffective, and Ethiopia was conquered by the Italians with German economic support.

61. Dagger of honor "In the spirit of the Fuhrer" Konigsberg, 17 October — On 14 April 1935, an SA officer stabbed a worker in a tavern because the man had "insulted" his uniform. The murderer was cleared from all prosecution on the following grounds: "The uniform, the national emblem of the Party, needs exceptional protection. An SA officer in uniform must not engage in any scuffle in which he might be thrashed and his uniform soiled. Not in vain has the Führer granted SA officers daggers. They are political soldiers and must handle themselves as such. Therefore, an SA man should use his dagger for protection, and it should be understood that for a soldier himself that his self-defense must not be weak, but energetic. This coincides completely with the spirit of the Fiihrer: To defend with weapons reckless insults to the uniform." [on dagger blade:] Blood and Honor! AIZ, XIV, 44 (31 October 1935), p. 704 (cover, 4th edition) [20/35].

62. Program for the Berlin Olympiad 1936 [left to right, above:] Swinging the ax Head-rolling Hurling the javelin Tug of war [bottom:] Fencing [also means Begging] Riding [financial crises] Rump-bending Concluding grand artillery fireworks display AIZ, XIV, 48 (28 November 1935), pp. 760-61 [23/35]. The Nazi propaganda machine took great care in its preparations for the Olympic Games of 1936, which were held in Berlin in August of that year. Anti-Semitic signs were temporarily removed from public places; the harrying of the churches was temporarily halted; and the number of prisoners in concentration camps was reduced.

63. Hitler tells fairy tales II ... and then the poor German Michel cried so long that all the world believed: " Help, help, I'm encircled!" AIZ, XV, 10 (5 March 1936), p. 160 (cover, 4th edition)

64. They judge the people, so long a s the people don't judge them! [small type:] During the Richardstrass'e trial, the Nazi "people's court in Berlin sentenced to death five accused (of whom three were anti-Fascists and two were state's evidence for the prosecution). The judge's summation conceded that the guiit of the accused could not be proved. Nevertheless, under a category of special law calling on the "people's feelings," five death sentences! A1Z, XV, 11 (12 March 1936),  (cover, 4th edition), [10/36].

65. A voice from the swamp "Three thousand years of consistent inbreeding prove the superiority of my race!".AIZ, XV, 12 (19 March 1936), p. 179 [11/36].

66. To the unknown comrades Dedicated to all the unknown anti-Fascist heroes who laid down their lives in the struggle for a peaceful and free Germany! AIZ., XV, 25 (17 June 1936), p. 400 (cover, 4th edition) [21/36],

67. Normalization "We'll do away with this little difference." [small type:] The German colony in Austria should be given an opportunity for social activity. This sign is the Austrian "Kurkencross" AIZ, XV, 31 (29 July 1936), p. 496 (cover, 4th edition) [26/36]. An agreement between the German Reich and Austria on 11 July 1936 was supposed to regulate anew the relationships between the two states. But the Nazi pressure on the Austrian regime remained as strong as before.

68. Liberty fights in their ranks In this photomontage, the famous painting by Delacroix Liberty Guiding the People (July 1830) and an original photograph from Madrid, July 1936, were used. Die Volks-Illustrierte, [I], 1 (19 August 1936), p. 16 (cover, 4th edition; after confiscation, there was a second edition) [29/36]. The Spanish Civil War broke out in July 1936, and loyalist troops fought against the armies of Generals Franco, Queipo de Llano, and Mola, who were supported by the Nazis and Italian Fascists. Heartfield has added press photo material of the defense of Madrid to Delacroix's famous painting Liberty Guiding the People, of the Paris barricades of 1830.

69. The path free for peace! At the Brussels World Peace Conference Photomontage after an official poster of the French Ministry of Education on "Freedom Day"in St. Cloud, 9 August 1936 Die Volks-Illustrierte, [I], 3 (2 September 1936), p. 37 [31/36]. The World Peace Conference took place 3-6 September 1936.

70. Once again first in the world . . . Report of the brown alchemist: "My Fuhrer, I have succeeded in producing from meat-ration cards an extract nutritionally superior to the best beef." Die Volks-Illustrierte, [I], 8 (7 October 1936), p. 128 (cover, 4th edition) [35/36].71. Madrid 1936 [in Spanish and German:] "They shall not pass! We will pass!" Die Volks-Illustrierte, [I], 15 (25 November 1936), p. 240 (cover, 4th edition) [40/36]. The siege of Madrid began in November 1936, and many newspapers reported the "capture" of the city on 8-9 November; but, in reality, Madrid was occupied without a struggle on 28 March 1939.

72. The mothers to their sons in Franco's service "I bore you under Morocco's palms ... I sent you to school in Hamburg ... I hugged you, my son, in Rome ... And today? You speak different languages, You cannot ask one another Why you are serving Or whom you are sent to fight. So we, your mothers, must tell you: We grieve for you, our sons, No, we did not raise you to be murderers. You are being misused. You have been betrayed! The enemies you are sent out against Are enemies of the poverty which oppresses us all, Are enemies of the war which threatens the world. They send you out to smash liberty in Spain So that we shall remain in chains. You dare your lives. Dare more! Dare to think! Refuse to kill your brothers. A curse on your obedience, your false courage. Know you not what to do?! Your weapons are sticky with our blood ..." Wieland Herzfelde. Die Volks-Illustrierte, [I], 19 (23 December 1936), p. 301 [43/36].

73. Blood for iron Die Volks-Illustrierte, [It], 4 (27 January 1937), p. 61 [3/37]. A comment on German aid to Franco. By 31 March 1938, the Wehrmacht's military expenses for the Spanish "maneuvers" amounted to 338 million Reichsmarks. The Reich was interested in investments in Spain and in increasing the delivery of Spanish ore.

74. Picture without words . . . Let our readers supply a text. We shall award a book to the one who sends in the best text — it can be simply a title line or a poem or a little story. Die Volks-Illustrierte, [II], 9 (3 March 1937), p. 141 [7/37]. Five books were distributed as prizes. Most of the proposed texts were in verse form.

75 The seed of death Where this sower scatters afar, he reaps hunger, fire, and war. Die Volks-Illustrierte, [II], 15 (14 April 1937), p. 237 [11/37].

76. The voice of liberty in the German night—at radio frequency 29.8 [small type at upper left:] Homage to the clandestine broadcaster who every evening, despite the Gestapo, pursues the struggle for peace, liberty, and democracy. Die Volks-Illustrierte, [II], 16 (21 April 1937), p. 245 [12/37].

77. The peaceful fish of prey "I abhor collective security! I invite the small fish individually to conclude bilateral pacts with me." Die Volks-Illustrierte, [II], 19 (12 May 1937), p. 307 [15/37], Hitler repudiated the 1934 nonaggression pact with Poland, the 1935 German-British naval agreement, the 1936 agreement with Austria, and various other bilateral pacts, and he invaded Czechoslovakia after the Munich agreement of 1938.

78. Death to the octopus of war! Only when we have destroyed him "will the sun always shine" VI, [II], 32 (11 August 1937), unpaged [22/37]. On the twenty-third anniversary of the beginning of World War I, Japanese troops were fighting in China, German and Italian troops in Spam. The quoted clause comes from The Internationale.

79. Warning Today you see a film of war in other countries. But remember, if you don't unite to resist it now tomorrow it will kill you, too! VI[II]. 41 (13October 1937), unpaged (cover, 4th edition) [26/37]. An audience looks at a scene of horror caused by Japanese air raids in Manchuria. Some thirty years later, Heartfield changed the caption to read: "Today you see a film of war in far-off Vietnam ..."

80. Illustration from Grimm's fairy tale about the cat and the mouse. [small type:] Once upon a time a cat and a mouse decided to live as friends. As a joint provision they acquired ajar of lard and hid it behind a house. One day, the cat became hungry and said, "Dear little mouse, you must watch the house alone; I have been invited to a baptism." She snuck up to the jar and licked off the top layer of lard. When she came back, the mouse asked, "What's the name of the child?" "Top layer off," answered the cat. The mouse was alarmed about this but made no comment. Soon thereafter, the cat had to go to another baptism. This time, she licked the lardjar half empty. "What's the child's name?" asked the mouse again. "Half gone," said the cat. The mouse was alarmed, but let it go. Again the cat had a craving and took leave, under the pretext that for the third time she must be a godparent. This time she licked the jar completely clean. When the little mouse again asked about the name of the child, the cat replied, "All gone." "Oh my, what a terrible name that is! It makes me anxious and afraid," wailed the little mouse. Then the cat snapped, "Sign a document for me saying that I can make 'all gone' of you, or ... I'll gobble you up, my dear little mouse!" And if the mouse hasn't died, it's still alive today. And whoever doesn't believe it will pay dearly. Die Volks Illustrierte [III], 9 (2 March 1938), unpaged (after confiscation, 2nd edition) [2/38]. During Austrian Chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg's forced visit to Berchtesgaden on 12 February 1938, Hitler demanded amnesty for Austrian Nazis and forced Arthur Seys-Inquart in as Austrian minister for home affairs. German troops occupied Austria on 11 March 1938.

81. The fox and the hedgehog. An animal fable after la Fontaine. Said the fox to the little hedgehog. "Trust me, and pull in your quills. I would never bite you! You disturb te peace withoutany Provocation and I feel myself threatened. I want only to.... kiss you!" Die Volks Illustrierte24 (15June 1938) unpaged [7/38]. The threat to Czechoslovakia by the German Reich and by Konrad Henlein's "German Sudeten Home Front."

82. This is the salvation that they bring! Volks-Illustrierte. [111], 26 (29 fune 1938), unpaged [8/38]. An article in the journal Biologie und Rassenforschung [Biology and Race Research], Berlin, pointed out the advantage of bombardment from the standpoint of racial selection and social hygiene, particularly as regards the "Lumpenproletariat." In this manner will society "be rid of these elements." A reference to the use of German airplanes in the Spanish Civil War. "Heil" means "succor" or "salvation."

83. War Sudeten Germans, you'll be the first! Die Volks-Illustrierte, [III], 37 (14 September 1938), unpaged (cover, 4th edition) [11/38]. The Munich pact of 29 September 1938, permitting the annexation of the Sudetenland by the German Reich, meant that war could no longer be prevented. On 15-16 March 1939, German troops occupied the rest of Czechoslovakia. On 1 September 1939, Germany attacked Poland and in so doing unleashed World War II. 

1891

(19 June) Helmut Herzfeld born in Berlin, the first of the four children of Franz Herzfeld (1862-1908), Socialist poet, dramatist, and prose writer, formerly of Diisseldorf, and Alice Stolzenberg Herzfeld, a textile worker whom he met at a meeting of strikers, where she was a speaker.

1895

Franz Herzfeld, who writes under the pseudonym Franz Held, is sentenced to a year's imprisonment for blasphemy. To avoid prison, he and his family move to Weggis in Switzerland.1896Expelled from Switzerland because a newborn son, Wieland, might become a charge of the state, the Herzfelds settle in a mountain hut in a forest clearing at Aigen, near Salzburg in Austria.

1898

Abandoned by their parents, the Herzfeld children are taken in by the village burgomaster, Ignaz Varnschein, and his wife Klara, who soon thereafter move into Salzburg. Helmut ("Muti"), a red-headed stutterer, is the only Protestant member of the family; the Varnscheins bring up the other children as Catholics.

1905

(April) Helmut leaves school. He and Wieland settle in Wiesbaden, where Helmut is apprenticed to a bookseller, Heinrich Heuss.

1907-8

Works in the studio of Hermann Bouffier, a painter.

1908

Unknown to his children, Franz Herzfeld dies in an asylum.

1909-12

At the Kunstgewerbeschule [School of Applied Arts] in Munich, Helmut studies with Maximilian Dasio, Julius Dietz, and Robert Engels. From an early age, Wieland writes poetry.

1912

Helmut works as a designer in the paper plant of the Bauer brothers in Mannheim. (30 May) On the occasion of Franz Herzfeld's 50th birthday, a publisher issues the selected works of Franz Held, for which Helmut designs his first book jacket.

1913

Moves to Berlin and studies with Ernst Neumann at the Kunst- und Handwerkerschule [Arts and Crafts School] in Berlin. He is followed to Berlin by Lena, daughter of his landlord in Mannheim, a young teacher who later becomes his wife (for ten years) and the mother of his two children, Tom and Eva. Associated with artists working for Sturm and Aktion.

1914

(July) Awarded the first prize of the Werkbund exhibition in Cologne for a design for a mural. Else Lasker-Schüler writes the poem, "Wir drei" ["We three"] (Wieland, I, Helmut). Beginning in November, Wieland Herzfeld serves with the German Army along the Western front, but deserts from time to time and returns to Berlin to engage in anti-war work.

1915

Drafted into the infantry, but succeeds in evading military service. Meets Georg Gross, whom he regards as the only artist who matters, and destroys all his own work as insignificant for the time they live in.

1916

Anglicizes his name to John Heartfield in protest against the anti-British hate campaign and applies unsuccessfully to have his new name legitimized. Since there is a ban on new publications, Wieland buys the nghts to a defunct school magazine, Neue Jugend [New Youth]; at the suggestion of Else Lasker-Schuler, he changes his name to Wieland Herzfelde, because "Herzfeld sounds like a slow train, but Herzfelde like an express. " (October) Georg Gross changes his name to Georg Grosz, later to George Grosz.

1917

(February-March) Neue Jugend is issued by Malik Verlag, a firm newly formed by the brothers Herzfelde/Heartfield, which becomes famous, over the years, for publishing the work of Grosz and the writings of many left-wing novelists, poets, and playwrights, and for which Heartfield designs the book jackets. The name of the firm is "borrowed" from Else Lasker-Schiiler's story "Der Malik." Heartfield works as a scenic designer for the Griinbaum brothers, film producers, and as a film director for UFA.

1918

With Grosz, works on a "trickfilm," satirizing the German Army. (31 December) With Herzfelde, Grosz, and Erwin Piscator, joins the newly formed German Communist Party (KPD). From then on, until 1933, produces writings, designs, posters, and other materials for the KPD.

1919

Activities in the strike protesting the murder of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht lead to his dismissal by ,UFA. Co-founds Berlin Dada group Is named Monteur-Dada. Collaborates with Herzfelde in publishing the agitational paper Jedermann sein eigner Fussball [Everyman his own football], which is banned. Works on masks and marionettes and (with Grosz) on collages and programs for the cabaret Schall und Rauch [Sound and Smoke], which opens in December. Der Kunstlump, an article by Grosz and Heartfield, appears in the paper Der Gegner [The Antagonist].

1920

With Herzfelde and Grosz, edits the satirical magazine Die Pleite [The Failure]. (April) With Grosz and Raoul Hausmann, edits dada 3. Until March 1922, works on Der Gegner. (June) Exhibits at the International Dada Fair in Dr. Otto Burckhard's gallery. He and Grosz are photographed with the slogan "Art is dead. Long live Tatlin's new machine art!" With Grosz, prepares collages for the title-page of the catalogue and for various works issued by Malik Verlag.1921-23Scenic director of the Max Reinhardt theaters in Berlin.

1921-32

Book jackets and production for Malik Verlag: at first, photos and type, later photomontages.

1923-27

Editor of the satirical magazine Der Knüppel [The Cudgel].

1924

(4 August) The first photomontage on Contemporary History: Fathers and sons (or Ten years later), for the display window of the Malik Bookshop on the tenth anniversary of the beginning of World War I.

1927

(February) First publication about Heartfield in Cebrauchsgraphik [Applied Graphics], Berlin.

1928

Participates in the international arts and crafts exhibition Film und Photo, Stuttgart. Is prosecuted over his book jacket for Erotik und Spionage in der Etappe Gent, by H. Wand.

1929

Photos and photomontages for Deutschland, Deutschland  ueber alles, by Kurt Tucholsky. (May) First ABRKD exhibition, Kapital und Arbeit, Berlin. (September) Participates in the Novembergruppe exhibition, Berlin.

1929-33

Photomontages for A-I-Z and AIZ.

1931-32

Visit to the USSR. Exhibition in Moscow.

1933

(16 April) Members of the SA occupy his apartment, and he flees to Prague.

1933-38

Resumes his work for Malik Verlag and for AIZ and, later, Die Volks-Illustrierte.

1934

Deprived of German citizenship. (April-May) Participation in International Caricature Exhibition, Manes Gallery, Prague, protested by German ambassador. Solidarity expressed by Czech and French painters and writers. Exhibition in Strasbourg.

1935

(April-May) Exhibition at Maison de la Culture, Paris.

1936

(March) At the insistence of the German ambassador, two of Heartfield's montages are removed from the International Photo Exhibition of the Manes Gallery, Prague.

1937

Designated a corresponding fellow of the Manes Gallery. (18 August) Article in VI about the Degenerate Art exhibition in Munich (October) Participates in the 50 Years of Manes exhibition and again his works are confiscated.

1938

Hitler regime demands Heartfield's extradition to Germany. (7 December) Heartfield flies to London. (December) Exhibition at ACA Gallery, New York.

1939

(January-February) Participates in the Living Art in England exhibition, London Gallery, Cork Street, London. (April) Wieland Herzfelde goes to America. Heartfield participates in activities of the Freier Deutscher Kulturbund [Free German League of Culture], London, where he meets his third wife, Gertrud — his second wife, Barbara, a journalist and translator, having left him, while he was in Prague, to go to Paris and later to settle in Argentina. (Autumn) In three internment camps. Severely ill. (December) One Man's War Against Hitler exhibition, Arcade Gallery, Bond Street, London. Illegal exhibition in Basel.

1941-50

Book jackets and illustrations for the London publisher Lindsay Drummond and later for Penquin Books.(January-February) Exhibition in Amsterdam. (April-May) Militant Art exhibition in Basel.

1949

(April) In Southampton, on his way back to Germany, Wieland Herzfelde is briefly reunited with his brother.

1950

(31 August) John and Gertrud Heartfield return to Germany by way of Prague and settle in Leipzig. Together with his brother, works for publishers and organizations in the GDR. Designs scenery and posters for the Berliner Ensemble and the Deutsches Theater in Berlin.

1956

Returns to Berlin. Nominated by Brecht to membership in the Deutsche Akademie der Künste. (German Academy of Arts). Honorary member of the German Association of Graphic Artists and the Czechoslovak Artists Association.

1957

(August-September) Retrospective exhibition in the Deutsche Akademie der Kunste; later in Erfurt and Halle. Visits China. German National Prize for Art and Literature.

1958

Awarded medal: Fighter Against Fascism 1933-45.

1958-59

Exhibitions in Moscow, Peking, Shanghai, and Tientsin.

1959

Film: John Heartfield, an Artist of the People.

1960

Professorship at the Deutsche Akademie der Kunste conferred.

1961

Peace Prize of the GDR. Exhibition in the Pavilion der Kunst, Berlin.

1962

Exhibition in Weimar. Severely ill.

1964

Exhibitions in Warsaw, Cracow, Prague, Bratislava, Brno, and Kosice.

1965

Exhibitions in Budapest, Rome, and Modena.

1966

Exhibitions in West Berlin and Munster. Participates in the exhibition "Der Malik-Verlag 1916-1947," Berlin.

1967

Exhibitions in Frankfurt am Main, Stockholm, and Lund. Visit to London to arrange for exhibition. Receives Karl Marx Order.

1968

(26 April) Dies in Berlin. The Deutsche Akademie der Kunste establishes an archive of his work, directed by his widow Gertrud.Since 1968Exhibitions of his works have taken place in East and West Germany, Great Britain, Denmark, Bulgaria, Switzerland, Czechoslovakia, Norway, and the USSR.

PETER SELZ

In the early months of World War I, the Kaiser and his militaristssucceeded in persuading patriotic Germans to greet each other on the street with "God Punish England." This particular kind of chauvinistic idiocy caused the young painter and graphic designer Helmut Herzfeld to change his name forthwith to John Heartfield. The Kaiser's officials naturally refused to legalize this "un-German" appeal for change of name, but "the name Heartfield proved to outlast the Kaiser's empire" — so wrote Wieland Herzfelde, the artist's brother and life-long collaborator, in the first important monograph on John Heartfield.(1) Heartfield was born in Berlin in 1891, son of a Socialist poet. Abandoned by his parents at an early age, the boy was brought up by various relatives and in sundry institutions. By 1910 he had found his way to becoming an art student in Munich, and he soon grew to know the radical thinkers and artists, before a wide gulf began to separate the artistic and political revolutions.In the search for new forms to express a new conviction, Heartfield and his friends discovered photomontage. Originally, it seems that soldiers on the Western Front, unable to get their reports of butchery past the censors, turned to pasting together photographs and cutouts from illustrated papers to tell their tale of horror to their families and friends but "the name Hertzfeld proved to outlast the Kaiser's empire"—so wrote Wieland Herzfelde, the artist's brother and life-long collaborator, in the first important monograph on John Heartfield.(1)Heartfield was born in Berlin in 1891, son of a Socialist poet.

Abandoned by his parents at an early age, the boy was brought up by various relatives and in sundry institutions. By 1910 he had found his way to becoming an art student in Munich, and he soon grew to know the radical thinkers and artists, before a wide gulf began to separate the artistic and political revolutions.In the search for new forms to express a new conviction, Heartfield and his friends discovered photomontage. Originally, it seems that soldiers on the Western Front, unable to get their reports of butchery past the censors, turned to pasting together photographs and cutouts from illustrated papers to tell their tale of horror to their families and friends back home. Using this ingenious technique, as well as the collage of the cubists, Heartfield and his close friend George Grosz invented the new technique of photomontage. A dozen years later George Grosz recalled to Erwin Piscator: "When John Heartfield and I invented photomontage in my South End studio at five o'clock on a May morning in 1916, neither of

Reprinted from The Massachusetts Review, Vol. IV, No. 2 (Winter 1963),(c) 1963 The Massachusetts Review, Inc. (1)Wieland Herzfelde, John Heartfield: Leben und Werk (Dresden: VEB Verlag der Kunst, 1962; 2nd, revised edition, 1971).

us had any inkling of its great possibilities, nor of the thorny yet successful road it was to take. As so often happens in life, we had stumbled across a vein of gold without knowing it."(2) It is possible that Grosz took too much credit in this matter. Grosz, Raoul Hausmann, and Hannah Hoch were experimenting with photomontage in Berlin and so was Alexander Rodchenko in Moscow. But the invention was probably Heartfield's and the technique remained central to his work. He, who had little understanding of painting, pursued this new medium and developed it into a major art form.Active in the revolutionary atmosphere of the German capital at the time of the disintegration of the German empire, the Berlin Dadas adopted an activist political position different from that of the original Zurich cohort or of the slightly later group in Paris. While the Dadaist Tristan Tzara continued to announce, "Dada ne signifie rien, " Hausmann and Richard Huelsenbeck were calling for "the international revolutionary union of all creative and intellectual men and women on the basis of radical Communism." The new art and the new political system were to go hand in hand, and "the simultaneist poem was to be introduced as a Communist state prayer."(3) All the Dadaists, however, agreed on the need to attack and disrupt the staid morality and the cheap sentimentality of the bourgeoisie. They were anti-war and anti-establishment, and as art was clearly part of the corrupt bourgeois world, they were also anti-art. Yet no matter how nihilistic their activities may have appeared, their attitude was actually highly constructive and therefore moral.The Berlin Dada group — Hausmann and Huelsenbeck, Heartfield and Herzfelde, Grosz and Hoch, Walter Mehring and Johannes Baader — became part of the general revolutionary struggle in postwar Germany.

Many of them believed in the political as well as the esthetic revolution. But Dada itself remained "a matter of the spirit and as such could accept no master, neither the aristocrat nor the proletarian;"(4) therefore, "the more these people were thrown into the revolutionary movement of the proletariat, the more they lost their identity as dadaists."(5) Heartfield himself, in association with his brother Herzfelde and with George Grosz, published the clandestine avant-garde periodical Neue Jugend [New Youth] and used entirely new typographic ideas in which old engravings and various types were thrown together with a Joycean free-association—a technique which was later employed successfully at the

(2) George Grosz, "Randzeichnungen zum Thema," Blaetter der Psicatorbuehne (Berlin, 1928).

(3) Richard Huelsenbeck, "En Avant Dada: A History of Dadaism [1920]," in Robert Motherwell (ed.), The Dada Painters and Poets (New York: Wittenborn, 1951).

(4)"Richard Huelsenbeck, "Dada Manifesto 1949," ibid.

(5)Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Vision in Motion (Chicago: Theobald, 1947), p. 318.

The Face of Fascism Cover of a booklet, Italien in Ketten [Italy in Chains], issued by the KPD (German Communist Party), July 1928.

Bauhaus and finally adopted widely by commercial artists, but which was brilliantly original in 1917.During the twenties Heartfield did book jackets in both typography and photomontage for the Malik Verlag, a Berlin publishing house headed by his brother, which published the best of the world's left-wing literature from Upton Sinclair to Maxim Gorky and Ilya Ehrenburg, as well as portfolios of lithographs by George Grosz. Heartfield worked for various radical periodicals and contributed regularly to the Communist Arbeiter-Illustrierte-Zeitung [ Workers' Illustrated Paper}. He was also active in stage design, at first working for the famous Max Reinhardt and later for Erwin Piscator's more experimental proletarian-revolutionary theatre. He became a great friend and disciple of Bertolt Brecht's and accepted many of Brecht's tenets. As Germany suffered from inflation, depression, and immediate threat of fascism, Heartfield's art increasingly showed an aggressively political nature and "The consciously placed photography in the service of political agitation. "(6) As the political situation in Weimar Germany grew more acute, Heartfield's art grew more acrid and simultaneously more mature. In 1928 he created The Face of Fascism, a montage which spread all over Europe with tremendous force. A skull-like face of Mussolini is eloquently surrounded by his corrupt backers and his dead victims.

The peculiar character of Heartfield's art is evident in a photomontage such as this and can be distinguished clearly from all other types of collage. The Cubists had revived the 18th century technique of collage for reasons of formal structure and also in order to postulate questions about the nature of reality. Kurt Schwitters' Merz-collages salvaged the discards from the trashcan, commenting on the jetsam of civilization. They "established disparaged values," as Jean Dubuffet might have said, and became important to later artists concerned with junk culture. Heartfield, in contrast, worked rationally and purposefully in his search for photographic cut-outs which he assembled so as to evoke the most highly charged thematic associations in the spectator. In this respect his art is more clearly in line with Futurist collage than with the largely accidental work of some of his former Dada colleagues like Jean Arp and Max Ernst. Heartfield utilized photomontage for purposes of bitter social protest and political propaganda. As Daumier had done a century earlier with lithography, John Heartfield turned to the newest, the least traditionally encumbered medium to comment on his time with powerful anger and great artistic talent. "The intolerable aspect of events is the motor of his art," said the writer Oskar Maria Graf about his friend Heartfield, and, indeed, this was how he created, in 1932, the most memorable images of Hitler swallowing gold coins and cackling hollow sounds in Adolf, the superman [10], or raising his arm in the Nazi salute with "Millions" standing behind him [13]. A little over a year after Hitler's assumption of power we see the Fiihrer holding a Nazi version of the hammer and sickle as he speaks to German workers, while his propaganda chief Goebbels drapes the beard of Karl Marx around him [57]; or again, in 1936, Hitler sharpens his knife to kil l the Gallic cock while he smirkingly poses as the innocent vegetarian. Like emblems of old, these photomontages merge in a powerful fusion of picture and motto, and like emblems they became engrained in the mind and eye of a generation.After the burning of the German Reichstag, a crime almost certainly engineered by Goering and Goebbels in order to incarcerate the Communists, John Heartfield made the brutally powerful montage of Goering the executioner of the Third Reich [24], the human bloodhound with his axe standing in front of the burning parliament. Soon thereafter Heartfield executed another masterpiece on the same theme, showing the mutilated and broken figure of Justice who, in place of blindfolded eyes, has a bandaged head in order to illustrate Goering's words from the Reichstag fire trial: "For me the law is a full-blooded affair" [30]. Plate 61 refers to another trial in which a brownshirt was acquitted by a German court of justice for stabbing a worker to death with the SA's "Dagger of Honor" because the worker had dared insult his uniform. In The old slogan in the "new Reich": Blood and Iron [34], the swastika is formed by four blood-soaked axes. Like Eisenstein's films, Heartfield's photomontages use diametrically opposed images to provoke a conflict in the spectator whichwill give rise to a third synthetic image that is often stronger in its associations than the sum of its parts. To form another swastika he has a brutal looking Nazi screw additional pieces of wood to Thorwaldsen's Cross of Golgotha For the Establishment of the State Church. Heartfield's poignant caption reads: "The Cross was still not heavy enough."One of his strongest works of warning is the photomontage of the skeleton hand with bomber planes issuing from its five fingers, raised hugely over the destroyed city with bodies of dead children in the foreground [82]. This work was horribly prophetic when first published during the Spanish Civil War in 1938. Later on, during the Allied bombings of German cities Heartfield reissued it under the heading of "The Benefit Accomplished by Air Raids from the Point of View of Racial Selection and Social Hygiene," with a cynical clipping from a current number of the Berlin Journal for Biology and Race Research: "The densely populated sections of cities suffer most acutely in air raids. Since these areas are inhabited for the most part by the ragged proletariat, society will thus be rid of these elements. One-ton bombs not only cause death but also very frequently produce madness. People with weak nerves cannot stand such shocks. That makes it possible for us to find out who the neurotics are. Then the only thing that remains is to sterilize such people.

Thereby the purity of the race is guaranteed."These photomontages are far removed from the early work of the Dada rebellion. They are images of piercing simplicity created from a deep conviction in order to be political weapons. They fulfill what Picasso once considered to be the purpose of painting: they are indeed "instruments of war for attack and defense against the enemy. "(7) Recognizing the power of Heartfield's weapons, the Nazis early determined upon his arrest, but in the spring of 1933 he escaped to Prague, where he immediately carried on his work of accusation against the Nazi terror. In fact, a good many of his most powerful political posters were made during his years of exile there.

(7)Picasso's written statement of 24 March 1945, quoted in Alfred H. Barr.Jr., Picasso: Fifty Years of His Art (Ncw York: Museum of Modern Art, 1946), p. 248.

An international incident was precipitated when the leading Czech artists' association exhibited his work in Prague in 1934, causing the Nazi government to demand the withdrawal of many of his political posters [see 38]. Herzfelde's monograph documents this case in fascinating detail. The Czech government maintained its principles of free expression as long as it could, but its final capitulation to Hitler's demands was certainly prophetic of later events. Heartfield's case, however, had become a matter of international morality, and Paul Signac as head of the Independants in Paris wrote to his friends in Prague in May 1934:

  I join you in protesting against the unjust and stupid persecution to which my colleague John Heartfield has fallen victim. My whole life long I have been fighting for the freedom of art and therefore I do not need to stress the fact particularly that I am with you wholeheartedly.I am prepared to contribute my share in organizing a French exhibition of our friend's works. I hope that many French artists will join you and help you. From all sides the tide of reaction is rising. The club is poised for battle against the freedom of the spirit. Let us unite to defend ourselves.(8)  

:John Heartfield is one of those who expressed the strongest doubts about painting, especially its technical aspects. He is one of those who recognized the historical evanescence of that kind of oil-painting which has only been in existence for a few centuries and seems to us to be painting per se, but which can abdicate at any time to a technique which is new and more in accord with contemporary life, with mankind today. As we know, Cubism was a reaction of painters to the invention of photography. The photograph and the cinema made it seem childish to them to strive for verisimilitude. By means of these new technical accomplishments they created a conception of art which led some to attack naturalism and others to a new definition of reality. With Leger it led to decorative art, with Mondrian to abstraction, with Picabia to the organization of mundane evening entertainment.

(8)Paul Signac, quoted in Herzfelde. n. 59.

  But toward the end of the war, several men in Germany (Grosz, Heartfield, Ernst) were led through the critique of painting to a spirit which was quite different from the Cubists, who pasted a piece of newspaper on a matchbox in the middle of the picture to give them a foothold in reality. For them the photograph stood as a challenge to painting and was released from its imitative function and used for their own poetic purpose. . ..John Heartfield today knows how to salute beauty. He knows how to create those images which are the very beauty of our age since they represent the cry of the people—the representation of the people's struggle against the brown hangman with his craw crammed with gold pieces. He knows how to create these realistic images of our life and struggle arresting and gripping for millions of people who themselves are a part of that life and struggle. His art is art in Lenin's sense for it is a weapon in the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat.John Heartfield today knows how to salute beauty. Because he speaks for the countless oppressed people throughout the world, and this without depreciating for a moment the magnificent tone of his voice, without debasing the majestic poetry of his tremendous imagination. Without diminishing the quality of his work.Master of a technique entirely of his own  invention, a technique which uses for its palette the whole range of impressions from the world of actuality; never imposing a rein on his spirit, blending his figures at will, he knows no signpost other than dialectical materialism, none other than the reality of the historical process, which he, filled with the anger of battle, translates into black and white.(9)  

'Louis Aragon, "John Heartfield uncl die revolutionare Schonhcit," published originally in C'Ommune (Paris, May 1935) and translated into German in Herzfelde, pp. 310-13.  

When he returned to East Germany in 1950, he was welcomed with a retrospective exhibition, but he remained more an honored memento of the past than a man engaged in current struggles and problems. During the rest of his life he kept busy doing stage designs, posters, and book jackets. While he was celebrated as a cultural leader, his chief idiom, photomontage, was still suspect during the 1950s among the more orthodox advocates of socialist realism, who criticized it as an avant garde art form of the 1920s. Exhibitions of his great and acid pre-war work, which had chronicled the bloody rise of Fascism and had affected the thought and actions of hundreds of thousands of people, were held in Moscow and Peking, where they "were widely acclaimed.But the problems of working in the East German situation were not unlike those which had been faced by his friend Bertolt Brecht. Heartfield was an artist whose significant work was accusing, aggressive, and often violent; he was a master of a visual metaphor with which he effectively mocked the enemy. How was a man who was motivated by the struggle against brutality and injustice to function in the supposed euphoria of a socialist society?Only on rare occasions, as in the great peace poster Never again! of 1960, did he parallel the power of his earlier work—a power which was achieved by means of the inventive use of subject matter and the absolute clarity of metaphor working together to engender a violent emotion in the audience.

Heartfields Photomontages and Contemporary History WIELAND HERZFELDE

John Heartfield's creative career began in 1917. Before that he had produced drawings, watercolors, and oils in Wiesbaden, posters, fabric patterns, and other typographical, decorative, and commercial designs in Munich, Mannheim, and Berlin. If he signed any of these at all, it was with his official name, Helmut Herzfeld.

His encounter in Berlin with Georg Gross, who was two years his junior, prompted him to destroy all his previous work. It had been of a conventionally academic character and in no way expressed his anger against the philistines, the military establishment, and—since the outbreak of the war in 1914—the authoritarian German state. It bore no comparison with the caustic pictures and drawings of his new friend, and Heartfield undertook, spontaneously and with passionate enthusiasm, to propagate Gross's art. The periodical Neue]ugend [New Youth'] (1917) and the publishing firm Malik Verlag (1917-38) enabled Heartfield to succeed in this enterprise.

The friendship was mutual. Both anglicized their names in 1916. Gross transformed Georg into George and henceforth spelled his surname with sz (instead of 55) so that it was pronounced with a short vowel (as in the English "boss"). Helmut called himself John Heartfield to express his protest against the way German chauvinists greeted one another: "God punish England!"

In 1928 Grosz wrote in the Blatter der Piscator-Btihne [Papers of the Piscator Stage]: "When John Heartfield and I invented photomontage in my South End studio at five o'clock on a May morning in 1916, neither of us had any inkling of its great possibilities, nor of the thorny yet successful road it was to take." In my opinion, as a matter of fact, it would have been better if Grosz had employed the term "photocollage." What was perhaps the first precursor of photomontage appeared on the title-page of the magazine "Jedermann sein eigner Fussball" [ "Every man his own football"], the only edition of which appeared on 15 February 1919. Even the concept of photomontage did not yet exist at that time.

Between 1916 and 1920, however, a considerable quantitv of photocollages was produced, bearing the rubber-stamped signature "Grosz-Heartfield mont." The syllable mont (abbreviation for "montiert"—mounted, assembled), instead of pinx (for "pinxit" — painted), did not, however, refer to the technique, but to John, whom Grosz and other friends ' called "Monteur" (mechanic, fitter), because of his predilection for wearing a blue workman's suit. To add the final touch to this conceptual confusion, the two friends exhibited, as Berlin Dadaists, at the First (and only) International Dada Fair of 1920, among other things, the weekly editions of Neue Jugend of May and June 1917. In 1917, however, Dadaism had still been unknown in Berlin, and, like the three portfolios that Grosz had published up to that time, all kinds of things were ex hibited, which were for that very reason considered to be Dadaist creations but which in fact- they were not. Dadaism was a kind or cabaret. Various people made their appearance, whose intentions, opinions, and talents differed considerably. What we called the Dada "movement" was no such thing; everything occurred spontaneously, without obligation, without organizations endowed with offices, documents, files, and such.Heartfield the graphic artist and typographer was never completely superseded by the photomontage artist. In 1920-23, for instance, he was the artistic director of Max Reinhardt Productions. Occasionally he cooperated on films. Unfortunately, there is little surviving documentation on his work for Communist Party events, for the proletarian theater movement in Berlin, and for the Piscator productions. Among his collaborators were photographers, because certain photos, which could not have been found in archives, had to be posed.

When Heartfield started to make book jackets with photographs for Malik Verlag and Gustav Kiepenheuer Verlag, he did not do so as a Dadaist, nor did he think of photomontages. He wanted to communicate an image of the author, or of the theme of the book, that anyone could understand. This led to the combination of various photos, and finally to that technique of which he was the only master, and which later became known as photomontage. "Photomontage on contemporary history was a decisive step toward the emancipation of this new and surprising art form, from book jackets, magazine covers, and illustrations, in favor of a stronger statement on topical, political events. Heartfield's first work of this kind bears the caption: Ten years later: fathers and sons [see 47]. Exhibited on 4 August 1924 in one of the windows of the Malik Bookshop to commemorate the outbreak of war in 1914, it was a warning against the increasing influence of certain forces that were preparing for a war of revenge.

Heartfield did not come by his political attitude by chance. Ever since Karl Liebknecht had, on 1 May 1916, in Berlin, appealed publicly for the struggle against the war, he had gained the passionate veneration of rebellious, mostly young, artists. For us, the Russian Revolution of October 1917 was inevitable; it had to come in Germany, too. It was obvious to us that the Bolsheviks, of whom we were hearing for the first time, were fighting the battle of all men worthy of the name. Although we knew nothing more specific, we immediately called ourselves Bolsheviks, and on New Year's Eve 1918 we joined the Communist Party, which had been founded the day before. For us this meant practicing our profession, which we had long regarded as an obligation to resist authority, in a way that benefited the Party and world revolution. But soon the old powers gained the upper hand in the young German Republic.Only in the late 1920s, when the Arbeiter-Illustrierte-Zeitung [ Workers' Illustrated Paper] was being printed in coppperplate, did Heartfield find the medium for the mass circulation of his political photomontages. From 1930 to 1938—including the period after April 1933, when he lived in exile in Prague—he contributed almost regularly to this first great revolutionary weekly, altogether more than 200 pieces which covered matters of immediate, day-to-day interest (much like the poems of Mayakovsky and Weinert). Toward the end of the 1950s they gained a new lease on life in the German Democratic Republic (GDR), for these photomontages were then (and are to this day) as effective—if not even more effective—than at the time they were created.For nearly two decades Heartfield's name seemed to be almost forgotten. During his London exile, 1938-50, he found few opportunities to work as a political artist, and for several years after he settled in the GDR, he had to fall back on working for publishers and the theater. However, after 1957, when he became a member of the Akademie der Deutsche Kunste [German Academy of Fine Arts], which enabled him to give a retrospective exhibition of all his work, he gained an international reputation as a classic creator of a modern art form. Even during the last decade of his life he carried on the fight for the old-new goals.

In the autumn of 1967 Heartfield assisted at the opening of an exhibition of his works—the last during his lifetime—at the Modern Museum in Stockholm. On 9 June 1967 he had written the following remarks for the catalogue: Since we are living in the nuclear age, a third world war would mean a catastrophe for all mankind, a catastrophe the full extent of which cannot possibly be imagined. Before the outbreak of World War II, on 13 October 1937, I made a photomontage entitled Warning [79]. A movie audience was shown looking at scenes of horror caused by a Japanese air raid on Manchuria in the Far East. The caption read: "Today you see a film of war in other countries. But remember: if you don't unite to resist it now, tomorrow it will kill you, too!" The war of extermination against the Vietnamese people, fighting heroically for their existence, made me change the first line to read: "... you see a film of war in far-off Vietnam ..." Now there is war in the Middle East! Shortly before that, a monarchist-fascist putsch smothered every democratic politic al movement in Greece. The flames are licking at your doorstep! Today peace-loving men of all nations must work together even more closely; must mobilize all their resources to strengthen and preserve world peace, since powerful rulers again lust for war. Just as the Fascists used the Spanish Civil War as a training ground for World War II, so today's wars are endangering world peace.

With his famous painting Guenrica, Picasso supported the heroic anti-Fascists in Spain. He followed his predecessor Goya in the struggle against war. He also created the wonderful lithograph of the world-famous soaring dove of peace. So that the dove may never again be impaled on a bayonet (as shown in one of my photomontages) [see 17], all peace-loving men, whatever their political opinions, must close ranks in the fight to maintain peace.

My brother Wieland Herzfelde, my constant helper and comrade-in-arms against exploitation and war, wrote a poem entitled The Soldiers of Peace. It begins:  

We are the soldiers of peace.

No nation

and no race is our enemy,

Peoples, may your children

be saved from war.

Preventing war

shall be our triumph.

To work for this great victory has been the aim of his, and my own, artistic work since our earliest youth.These words, which were to become his farewell, remain valid for us who are living today, as well as for the generations to come.

An Art for the Revolutionary Struggle

HEIRI STRUB

John Heartfield was a very sensitive mdn. A society of blatant social inequalities and organized brutality turned him into a fighter. He lived through two imperialistic wars and already knew, before the first one had gone on very long, that the enemy was in his own land. With the boldness of the mouse who defies the elephant, he challenged militarism and assumed an English name, in defiance of chauvinists.

Many carry revolution within them, but few succeed in finding the right means to fight. Heartfield's weapon was the graphic. From advertisements he knew the mass effect of the printed picture. By way of typography and book production he came to photomontage.

After 1914, official art (which the young Helmut Herzfeld had studied in Munich) was used to depict war subjects, and either glorified or whitewashed the somber events. Heartfield and his friend George Grosz let themselves be photographed at the Berlin Dada Fair of 1920 with the slogan "Art is dead. Long live Tallin's new machine art!"—in adherence to Vladimir Tatlin, the audacious exponent of Russian revolutionary art. The photocollages of Grosz/Heartfield that came out of the Dada era were an homage to the machine age and a rejection of those art renovators who sought the salvation of the world in their souls.

The small collective of Malik Verlag, the publishing house led by Heartfield's brother Wieland Herzfelde, became part of the large collective of the Communist movement.

The rebel Heartfield became a revolutionary. Henceforth he worked to find an easily comprehensible pictorial speech that would need no interpretation. With great humility, he renounced a personal handwriting, although he had the necessary graphic tools, and curtailed the subjective artistic qualities for which "Sunday painters" strive. The style of the camera "picture machine" was not only modern, it addressed everyone in the same manner. The pages on which the montage idea was so easy to read were accepted by the public as documents. Initially, no one asked about the author. The stylistic anonymity that Heartfield sought also had its dialectical inversion: in popularity, he soon surpassed all those who were concerned with their artistic lack of individuality.

The subordination to the great task of the workers' movement, which was self-evident to Heartfield, facilitated the collective work. We know how fond of discussion he was when working out a theme. Even the text of the photomontage was formulated, for the most part by Wieland Herzfelde, after being worked out in conversation. Heartfield willingly passed along his information and experience to colleagues and beginners.

His AIZ pieces and his posters were always part of political actions against Nazism and the danger of war. Before 1933 he went regularly to the Karl-Liebknecht-Haus on Bülowplatz, the Communist Party headquarters, to comment on current business.

Heartfield's work disproved the thesis that "Art and agitation are mutually exclusive." Heartfield always considered his photomontages as artistic achievements. He took in stride the fact that he was not recognized by contemporary art critics. The works he created for dissemination in huge editions had no value in the art market. Directing his political charges at the masses, he could scarcely count on a sympathetic reaction from bourgeois art collectors. The worker, however, for whom he intended his photomontages, understood their revolutionary content, but assigned no artistic value judgment to themWhy, then, did he take such great care with each work?

Why this strong sense of artistic responsibility for ephemeral political propaganda? Artistic quality, for Heartfield, was identical with the clear solution of a concept, with the purposeful accomplishment of the substance and form of an idea. The graphic means, the distribution of space, the proportions, the choice of lettering, the tonal quality or the color of the photograph were subordinated to this. Every detail was a part of the expression.

The photomontage can originate from an "abstract" picture idea as well as from an available documentary picture. The overriding concern for Heartfield, when he had a topical picture in his hand, was what struck him immediately about how to treat the imprisoned surface of reality or what to juxtapose it with in order to get at the true core—for example, Hitler in an X-ray photo, Adolf, the Superman Swallows gold and spouts junk [101]. In other cases he started with the theme. His wonderful pictorial memory led him to the exact pictorial elements, when an idea did not inspire a new start—as in Profound thoughts on nationalism [23]. Many of the figures that became famous, such as Papen with the ladle [16], are partly documentary and partly new treatments.

When I asked him how he had built his photo archive and who had directed it for him, Johnny (as this small vivacious man was called affectionately by all his friends) answered that he lacked time and people for this. Clippings from newspapers and photos lay on top of and under his work table. Or he searched in picture agencies. Historical photo material could always stimulate him to new pictorial ideas. Karl Tucholsky's book Deutschland, Deutschland ueber alles grew in Heartfield's hands not only because he found photos to illustrate Tucholsky's texts but also because Tucholsky wrote texts to pictures that Heartfield found or montaged.

Heartfield's high demands of quality made collaboration with him difficult. His long-time colleague, the photographer Janos Reismann, related how Heartfield constantly demanded new pictures until he saw his idea realized. For two days they built houses of cards for The thousand-year Reich [48] until one of them collapsed satisfactorily. Then, in the photo, Heartfield modified the figures and put in the lettering.

With photographic tricks and painting Heartfield arranged the parts of the photo to fit together seamlessly. With extraordinary care he devised his "adhesive" picture, so that after final retouching it went straight to the printer. Since the AIZ was produced using the highly sensitive copperplate photogravure method, errors were as evident as the artist's real intention. Heartfield's respect for the skills of others was so great that he himself did not do the photography, and he left the retouching to others, but always under his stringent supervision.The argument pursued by some old Dadaists as to who really invented the photomontage is a waste of time.

Since many artists were working simultaneously with collage during World War I, this genre was already in the air. The 19th-century art photographer who shot a group portrait of the volunteer fire brigade and pasted it onto a painted background was already a photomonteur. So it was not a question of patenting the technique, but of the artistic achievement, which in Heartfield's case clearly coincided with the political impact.

It was Bertolt Brecht who in 1951 first expressed what today is recognized by all: Heartfield's photomontages are classic!

John Heartfield is the master of copperplate photogravure, to be compared with the old masters of copperplate engraving, with Diirer in the woodcut, with Rembrandt in etching, with Goya in aquatint, and with Daumier in lithography. They were all humanists, and for their message they used the newest graphic techniques of their time to reach the largest audience, and to extol art.

Heartfield's pieces were disseminated throughout the German- speaking areas in editions of half a million through the AIZ. Every week, anti-Fascists waited impatiently for the next work, for Heartfield's lastest argument.

Today these works are the most valid picture-documents of that powerful struggle between Fascism and democracy, capitalism and socialism, war and peace.

Remarks About Heartfields Photomontages

SERGEY TRETYAKOV

Heartfield's first—Dadaist—photomontages are still marked by their abstract nature. Scraps of photograph and printed text are arranged not so much according to meaning but according to the aesthetic mood of the artist.

The Dadaist period in Heartfield's work did not continue for long. He soon ceased to waste his artistic talents in abstract fireworks. His works became aimed shots. . . . Soon no line could be drawn between his montages and his party work. They are more, they are a history of the Communist Party of Germany. . . .

The photomontages of Heartfield the Dadaist consisted of many small details; the more he developed, the more laconic his language became, the more economic became the construction of his photomontages. ... It is important to note that a photomontage need not necessarily be a montage of photos. No: it can be photo and text, photo and color, photo and drawing.

Heartfield himself said: "A photograph can, by the addition of an unimportant spot of color, become a photomontage, a work of art of a special kind."

The text is indispensable in John Heartfield's montages.A text which does not alter the sense of the photograph does not produce, together with the photograph, a photomontage. . . . But if the photograph, under the influence of the text, expresses not simply the fact which it shows but also the social tendency expressed by the fact, then this is already a photomontage.Reprinted from John Heartfield: A Monograph (Moscow: OGIS State Publishing House, 1936).

Heartfield's Photo-montages of 1930-38

FRIEDRICH PFAFFLIN

At the end of June 1929, the Neuer Deutscher Verlag in Berlin, under the direction of Willi Miinzenberg,(1) published Deutschland, Deutschland ueber alles, a book by Kurt Tucholsky(2) containing many photographs, with a layout by John Heartfield. The book was extremely successful. By the summer of 1930, the company announced that 48,000 copies had been sold.(3)

Muenzenberg also directed attention to the A-I-Z (acronym for the Arbeiter-Illustrierte-Zeitung [Workers' Illustrated Paper]). a weekly published by

(1)Muenzenberg (1889-1940), a founder of the Young Communist League, headed a group of newspapers, magazines, film companies, and book publishing houses. He established anti-Fascist international committees, congresses, and movements—Communist-front organizations which he saw to it were headed, nominally, by "respectable" non-Communists. After the Nazis took power in Germany in 1933, Miinzenberg became chief of the Communist agitation and propaganda department in Paris, where again he founded publications and at least one publishing firm for the dissemination of anti-Fascist material. He broke with the Communist Party in 1938, and in 1940, a few miles from a French internment camp, he was found mysteriously hanged. About Miinzenberg, see Arthur Koestler, The Invisible Writing (London: Collins; New York: Macmillan, 1954), and Ruth Fischer, Stalin and German Communism (Cambridge: Harvard Univer sity Press, 1948), pp. 610-15. [Ed.]

(2)Tucholsky (1890-1935) has been called "the greatest of German satirists since Heine," as well as "the most effective and best hated literary satirist of the Weimar Republic." "Tucholsky fought against the injustices and irreverently pointed out the inanities of Weimar Germany. As Erich Kastner put it, 'A littje fat Berliner . . . tried to stop a catastrophe with his typewri ter."... Deutschland, Deutschland uber alles . . . remains possibly the most scathing denunciation of that philistinism, indifference and brutality which Tucholsky saw in the German character, qualities which he felt led directly to the catastrophe of Nazism. . . . Some two years after Hitler's triumph and the burning of Tucholsky's books, Tucholsky's silence became total. In his Swedish home, he committed suicide by taking poison, a few weeks before his forty-sixth birthday. This final action was the first in a line of tragic suicides by German and Austrian literary figures." Lisa Appignanesi, The Cabaret (London: Studio Visca; New York: Universe Books, 1976), pp. 97-101. See also Harold L. Poor, Kurt Tucholsky and the Ordeal of Germany, 1914-1935 (New York: Scribner, 1968). [Ed.]

(3) A facsimile reprint was issued by Rowohlt Verlag (Reinbeck, near Hamburg) in 1964 and by Verlag Volk und Welt (East Berlin) in 1967. In 1972, The University of Massachusetts Press (Amherst Mass.) issued an English translate by Anne Halley, with an afterword and notes by Harry Zohn. [Ed.]

the same house. Photomontages by Heartfield appeared in Nos. 29 and 31 of 1929, but Heartfield had been influential at the A-I-Z even earlier. Even before his own signed photomontages appeared there, montages whose authorship is not certain were included in the paper from time to time (until 1932); and later on, in 1935, in exile in Czechoslovakia, photomontages by Karl Vanek appeared.

Early in 1930 (Vol. IX, No. 6, p. 15), A-I-Z's editors announced: "From now on, every month a page of John Heartfield will appear." In 1930, there were 12 pages signed by or attributed to him; there were 4 in 1931; 18 in 1932; 35 in 1933; 52 in 1934; 27 in 1935; 44 in 1936; 32 in 1937; 14 in 1938—a total of 238.

Preceding the A-I-Z was Sowjet-Russland im Bild [Soviet Russia in Pictures], a monthly founded in 1921 by the Internationale Arbeiter-Hilfe (IAH) [International Workers' Aid (IWA)] in an edition of 100,000 copies.(4) The paper, renamed Sichel und Hammer [Sickel and Hammer] in mid- 1923, had a circulation of 180,000 at that time. In 1925, Miinzenberg and the Neuer Deutscher Verlag (which he had meanwhile founded) took over the newspaper with the title. Arbeiter-Illustrierte [Workers'Illustrated];it appeared semimonthly in an edition of 200,000. By 1927, the circulation had grown to 220,000, and the A-I-Z, as the title was referred to short and simple was issued weekly. The printing amounted to 350,000 copies in 1929; it was 500,000 copies in 1931-32. The spelling of the title was changed from A-I-Z to AIZ in 1933.

The political effect of the paper can be seen clearly from the growing size of the editions. Its impact was correctly appraised by the Nazis: In 1933, ABZ (Arbeiter-Bilder-Zeitung [Illustrated Workers'Journal]) appeared, financed by the Nazis, which imitated "slavishly in layout and packaging" the successful AIZ.

After Hitler's seizure of power, the last edition of AIZ issued in Berlin appeared 5 March 1933. No. 11/12/13 of 25 March 1933 appeared from exile in Prague, with a drastically reduced circulation. The first issues in Prague were done by letterpress, but from No. 19 onward, the AIZ again was produced in photogravure, as it had been since 1929. (During the emigration years, it also circulated irregularly in a photographed version with the page size greatly reduced.)

The paper's political viewpoint had changed over the years from a party organ that attacked the Weimar Republic government and the Social Democratic Party to an instrument of the anti-Nazi Volksfront- bewegung [People's Movement]. By the autumn of 1935, the AIZ was given the subtitle Das Illustrierte Volksblatt [Illustrated People's Paper], and in 1936, the main title was changed to accord with the new political  

(4) The IAH, founded by Munzenberg in 1921, was "the first Communist organization that penetrated deep into non-Communist circles of workers and intellectuals." Ruth Fischer, op. cit. [Ed.]

viewpoint. Die Volks-Illustrierte[The Peopl's Illustrated] (later VI, subtitled Die Volks-Illustrierte) was issued from 19 August 1936 to 12 October 1938, in Prague. On 10 October 1938, German troops occupied the Sudetenland, and the paper had to move again. On 15 January 1939, in Paris, another attempt was made (Die Volks-Illustrierte/Illustré Populaire), but on 26 February, after the seventh number, this had to be given up.

From the beginning, picture reporting was the heart of the paper, but many well-known left-wing writers contributed, among them Henri Barbusse, Ilya Ehrenburg, Maxim Gorky, Oskar Maria Graf, Heinrich Mann, Anna Seghers, and Arnold Zweig. F. C. Weiskopf was chief editor during the period when the magazine was published in Prague.

Heinrich Mann described the A-I-Z as early as 1926 as follows: "The Arbeiter-Illustrierte-Zeitung is one of the best of current picture newspapers. It is full in its coverage, technically good, and, above all, unusual and new. It brings the proletarian world to view; other illustrated weeklies, strangely enough, don't seem to have the means to do this, although that world is the larger one. Aspects of daily life are seen here through the eyes of the worker, and it is time that this happened. The pictures express complaints and threats reflecting the attitude of the proletariat—but at the same time this proves their self-confidence and their energetic activity to help themselves. The self-confidence of the proletariat in this weary part of the world is most heartening."

John Heartfield in England

RICHARD CARLINE

John Heartfield was unknown in England, except to the very few, when he arrived by plane as a refugee from Prague in December 1938. Within a few months, however, Lilliput published his photomontages with the caption "A Master of Political Art," and his work was shown in a mixed exhibition at the London Gallery in Cork Street. This was soon followed by his exhibition at the Arcade Gallery, entitled One Man's War Against Hitler.Shopping one day with his brother Wieland, who was on his way to America, he was surprised when a salesgirl at Selfridge's produced a copy of Lilliput, asking him to sign it. His whole ambition was to make people fully aware of the menace of Fascism and to expose the Nazi tyranny through his work as an artist. Some weeks later, Picture Post reproduced on the cover his photomontage His Majesty Adolf [11], which showed Hitler wearing the Kaiser s uniform and moustache.

But this hopeful beginning to his career in England, so soon after arriving, came to a halt when war was declared. The powerful contribution he might have made toward the Allied victory through his mastery of satire was not acceptable to the British authorities. They were highly suspicious of art, especially experimental forms of art by a German refugee.Slight and little more than five feet tall, Heartfield displayed the unmistakable traits of genius—single-minded and purposeful. With his intense, unpretentious, and uninhibited personality, he warmed toward everyone he met without regard for class or background. This warmth of feeling extended to all living things. He would talk to animals as if they

Reprinted from Joanna Drew (ed.)John Heartfield 1891-1968: photomontages at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London SW1, 6 October-8 November 1969 (London: The Arts Council of Great Britain,

were humans. In this respect he could have been accepted as an Englishman.On arrival in London, he was lent an upper room in a friend's house in Hampstead. He promptly adopted the cats he found there. One was a stray. He named another "der Japaner" because it reminded him of a Japanese print. After his return to East Germany in 1950, one of the cats, from which he could not bear to be parted, was sent to him by air. It immediately recognized him on its arrival at the airport but, alas, died a few weeks later. The Heartfields could scarcely bring themselves to speak of this sad event.Many of the German refugees found lodgings in Hampstead, and it was there that the Free German League of Culture was founded in 1939. At the opening of its headquarters, with its improvised stage for concerts and theatrical performances, in Upper Park Road, he met his future wife, Gertrud, better known to her friends as Tutti. At one of these performances, Johnny, as he was familiarly called, revealed his talents as a comic actor in dancing The Dying Swan, for which he wore a white frilled ballet skirt. His intense enjoyment of comedy and satire had underlain all his activities since his association with the Dadaists in the 1920s.

Johnny did not confine himself to comic turns. For the revue put on by the Free German League in London in the summer of 1939, entitled Four and Twenty Black Sheep, he wrote a poem, as Wieland has recorded, on the tragedy of the refugees. His friend, the composer Ernst Meyer, set it to music for him. One of the acts in this revue was entitled Hurrah! the butter is all gone. It was based on his early photomontage showing a German family under the Nazi regime eating guns and machinery. The caption read: "Goering stated in his Hamburg speech: 'Iron has made an empire strong, butter and oil have only made the people fat.' "

After war had been declared, John Heartfield worked untiringly for the Free German League's publications. It was obvious that he was deeply concerned and personally involved with Allied victory. Nevertheless, there was the unhappy interlude in the autumn of 1939 when he was removed to an internment camp, together with fellow refugees who had suffered under the Nazis and were now dubbed "enemy aliens." Moved from one camp to another, he had the good fortune to be transferred to hospital after six weeks and, shortly afterward, was released.

Returning first to Hampstead, he later moved with Tutti to Highgate where they had an upper flat in the house of their friend, Dr. Manasse. Here, with a small garden, he was able to satisfy his desire for pets. Somewhat to his landlord's dismay, he bred rabbits. They soon overran the garden. There was the occasion when he mounted a bus with a basket containing the rabbits, which managed to escape among the passengers. While he loved animals, he was not sentimental over them. He could not bear unnecessary waste and when one of his pets died, its skin provided a useful mat for the living room.

Every aspect of nature had its appeal for Johnny. I recall him in the woods at Walsieversdorf in Germany, where he and Tutti had a bungalow. His old spaniel, Adam, accompanied him everywhere; it was a case of love me, love my dog. We would go for long walks in search of toadstools. He had an unerring skill in identifying which were edible or poisonous. We used to look for tracks of wild boar and I remember his delight when somedeer leapt from among the trees into the open pasture. Then we would return for a supper of stewed toadstools. Johnny was a slow eater. It was mentioned that Gladstone was likewise a slow eater. Someone offered the comment that Queen Victoria did not approve of Gladstone. "And I don't think Queen Victoria would have approved of me," was Johnny's rejoinder.

During their twelve years' residence in London, the Heartfields seized every opportunity for walks in the country. Their friends William and Kate Only provided them with part of the garden at the Abbey Arts Centre in Barnet, which they could cultivate at weekends, and they often visited my mother's garden in Hampstead, when the mulberry trees were ripe.

During the war years he sought various ways in which his artistic ability could be put to use. He became an active member of the Artists International Association, contributing to its exhibitions and attending its meetings, especially those organized by his friends Francis Klingender and Millicent Rose at the Charlotte Street Centre. But he had to seek regular employment and this came his way when Lindsay Drummond invited him to design book jackets for his publishing house, a post he retained until well after the war when the firm ceased to exist. For a short while he designed for Penguin Books, but in 1950 his steady improvement in health permitted him to return to his homeland. He had also received invitations from Wolfgang Langhoff and Bertolt Brecht to design theater productions.

John Heartfield always retained his deep interest in England, arising from his essentially international outlook. When the artists of the GDR were invited to join the International Association of Art, with its seat at UNESCO, he gave his full support and was delighted to be chosen president of the GDR Committee.

John did not revisit England until October 1967, when he and Tutti came to stay with me and my family in Hampstead. Here he renewed his fondness for English things. He enjoyed a glass of beer in the pubs, and would wander round the old streets of Hampstead and Bloomsbury, admiring the Georgian architecture he knew so well. He appreciated whatever was new and experimental. Especially memorable was an evening at the cinema, where he insisted on our seeing Those Magnificent Men with Their Flying Machines. This film appealed to him particularly, perhaps because of the scenes in which a squad of German soldiers was humiliatingly scattered by their flying machine running loose. He found this hilariously funny.

But chiefly, he enjoyed meeting young people. He spoke to student audiences at several of the art colleges. He always sought them out at parties and in his incomprehensible English—for some reason he never seemed able to acquire the pronunciation—he would ask: "What are you studying? Are you married? Have you children?" And then after a pause, Have you any dogs or cats at home?"