It’s always interesting to come across new photographers who don’t appear in the standard histories. One such is Walter Dreizner, born in Wittenberg in 1908. This is his Wikipedia entry.
‘Dreizner completed an apprenticeship as a precision mechanic and then worked for the Reichspost. He began taking photographs in 1926 and his panorama picture “Jahrmarkt Halle” was published in 1933. After his first trip to New York in 1934 he gave regular slide lectures, including on New York, Paris, Hungary, Usedom and the Harz mountains. From 1942 to 1944 he took photographs as a soldier in Paris for a planned illustrated book. “My Photo Album” was published in 1943. From 1944 to 1946 Dreizner was an American prisoner of war. After his return home he created the much acclaimed picture “The Rubble Garden – Courage to Start anew”. From 1950 he was active as a supervisor of amateur photography groups throughout the GDR. In 1972 he initiated the revival of the Company Photography Groups working group of the Central Photography Commission of the GDR Cultural Association.’
‘His Paris pictures were exhibited in Halle/Saale in 1957 and in Budapest and Miskolc in 1960. Dreizner undertook numerous trips abroad, which he documented photographically: in 1956 to Brussels and Paris, in the 1960s to Hungary and again to New York in 1961, 1981 and 1987. In 1960 his book “Die zweiäugige Spiegelreflex” was published, in 1961 his book “Diapraxis” was published, which went through several editions. After 1990 Dreizner worked as a documentary photographer in Halle/Saale. He had personal exhibitions in Coswig, Wittenberg and Köthen.’
It was not through this that I discovered Dreizner, however. Photographs of the German occupation of Paris from 1940 and its subsequent liberation in 1944 are a familiar part of 20th century history. These include the somewhat surreal images of members of the occupying forces behaving like tourist and snapping away at Paris’s historic sights. Patrick Bishop, in his book Paris ’44 – The Shame and the Glory, tells something of the story of a photographer who took a more considered approach, Walter Dreizner. This is how Bishop describes him.
‘Walter Dreizner was sent to Paris in October 1942. … [He] was a keen photographer and spent his spare time wandering round the city with his French girlfriend Raymonde, taking pictures of the sights and in time becoming friendly with prominent local photographers. Some of his shots were artistic studies of the Eiffel Tower and the sunworshippers at the Piscine Deligny floating swimming pool moored on the Sein. But he was an honest chronicler and many of his photos record the misery of everyday life as it went on at the periphery of the occupiers’ vision. One shows a youngish woman bundled in what was once an expensive coat, delving with her bare hands through a rubbish bin in search of scraps of food. In another a shabby old lady pushes a pram loaded with precious firewood.’
‘Paris had become a place of fear for the Germans in the spring of 1944. ‘Private Walter Dreizner was sent home to Halle on leave. The journey opened his eyes. When he left Germany, its citied had been intact and total victory seemed only a matter of time. Now it looked like a nation on the edge of ruin. … He arrived back in Paris on May Day to see the city celebrating … There seemed to be something more than simple gaiety behind the fun. It was as if the crowds were asserting their ownership of the city. Dreizner knew he could no longer wander freely with his Leica and his girlfriend by his side, dropping in on French photographers and artist acquaintances and being treated as if he was a friend.’
Following the Allied invasion in June 1944, in August: ‘”This weather is dangerous” he [Dreizner] wrote in his dairy that night. “It could well mark the point where the Parisians turn on us.” … Dreizner was right. There was a feverish edge to the new vivaciousness. It was born not just out of hope but also out of hunger. In a picture he had taken of sunbathers at the Deligny floating swimming pool, the corrugated ribs of the young men and women stuck out painfully from their swim suits.’
Later, in August, Dreizner records that ‘Everyone who was not a German soldier was a “terrorist” and he used his camera now to record the marks of war on the city. During a break he went up to the observation post on the hotel roof to take pictures of the black pall of smoke rising up from the direction of the Champs-Elysees.’
Dreizner was taken prisoner on 25th August 1944. At that time, his negatives were stored with relatives in Torgau in north western Germany. Russian troops destroyed many of the negatives and some of the pictures that survived show clear signs of mistreatment. This may explain why it is difficult to find quality images of Dreizner’s work. I had hoped to find good examples of his work in Diapraxis, literal translation ‘slide practice’, but it is largely a text based technical guide (reminded me of a 1960s version of the Ilford Manual of Photography).
