Chapter by chapter, the Yellow Spot, backed up by selections from news-propaganda, steadily builds up a damning indictment of the first three years of Nazi rule in which the early steps to marginalise Jewish economic, social and cultural life within Germany were taken. As well as the Nuremberg Laws, introduced in 1935, which gave official sanction for discrimination against Jews, the book demonstrates that a creeping culture of violent isolation gradually took root in Germany which served to separate Jews from the rest of society. Gradually all aspects of life in Nazi Germany were absorbed by the racist ideology which left no room for those who did not fit into the ideal of ‘Aryan’ perfection. To name but a few aspects highlighted in this book; Jewish children were separated from others in school and demonised, sports clubs had to exclude Jewish members and were forbidden from playing with teams who weren’t completely ‘Aryan’, while all cultural performances, such as the theatre, concerts and films had to be wholly ‘Aryan’ in nature under the new Nazi rules.
Persecution had reached deep into German society by 1936. The ‘Aryan Paragraph’, brought in to exclude Jews from public sector jobs in 1933, was spread throughout all sectors of employment and professions in order to make it impossible for them to earn a living. Perhaps, in light of what was to come, the most disturbing chapter in the book deals with the early concentration camps where Jews and political opponents were kept in ‘protective custody’. (With breathtaking cynicism this excuse was used by the authorities in order provide legitimacy for the imprisonment of people without trial in brutal camps simply because they might be the subject of attacks by local Nazis, outraged at seeing their enemies walking freely on the streets.) The descriptions of the camps, gleaned from smuggled reports, provide an early insight into what would, within a few short years, evolve into sites of horrific mass-murder and genocide.
As well as the text, The Yellow Spot also reprints a small number of photographs that appeared in Nazi publications, most notably Der Sturmer, a violently anti-Jewish newspaper owned by arch-Nazi Julius Streicher, that was an important means of spreading the new racist dogma to the wider public. Much of the material used in the book comes from Der Sturmer and this newspaper’s all-pervasive and poisonous influence on the Nazi education system is well documented in both words and images within the book. Articles and calls for anti-Jewish actions within Der Sturmer were also used by the regime as a way to excuse the violence of local Nazi groups to the outside world and dismiss them as the isolated actions of hotheads, while at the same time providing official deniability for Hitler and his henchmen. Photography was an important part of the anti-semitic propaganda campaign and what the book calls ‘pillory photographs’ became a means of further isolating the Jewish population within Germany. It would appear that photographs were commonly made of people entering Jewish shops or businesses, or even talking to Jews on the street, which were then published in Der Sturmer accompanied by calls for action to be taken against these ‘traitors’ (a clear signal to any Nazi reader that they could attack them with impunity.)
This form of photography became a weapon to enforce Nazi racial policy; by singling out individuals for punishment who do not conform to the new anti-semitic ideology and are still interacting with Jewish people and businesses it was possible to deter others from doing the same. As can be imagined, the fear of incurring the wrath of local Nazi brutality would be enough for many people to shun contact with Jews. Special hatred appears to have been reserved for what were called ‘race-defilers’ by the Nazis; mixed Jewish-Christian couples who were presented as a threat to the purity of the German race. Photographs of Nazi’s parading such couples on the street, placards tied around their necks, exposing them to both public humiliation and violence were further designed to discourage any contact with Jews in Germany. Also shown in the book are photographs of German towns and villages with signs and banners hung over the streets declaring them to be ‘Jew-free’ or that ‘Jews are not wanted here’. These images also provide an example of how a photograph taken for an original purpose, can be used for one never intended by the photographer. In this case the original purpose of these photographs was to enforce anti-semitic racial policies and show their widespread support within Germany, but in the Yellow Spot they become damning evidence against the Nazis and those same policies.
This book provides a chilling insight into the early years of Nazi rule in Germany. The immediate years following the takeover of power by the Nazis can often disappear beneath the sheer horror of the Holocaust, yet it was during this time that the foundations of genocide were laid. In these early years of their rule, Nazi racial policies were spread throughout society and were enforced through the use of brutality and violence towards anybody who didn’t conform. Outward agreeement with Nazi dogma was the only way to avoid coming to the attention of these thugs. This fear led to the passive acceptance of anti-Jewish racism within German society, which in turn enabled more and more extreme measures to be adopted by the Nazis, ultimately culminating in genocide. Photography played an important part in the creation of the Nazi state both through valorising its achievements and demonising those it regarded as enemies. Although the images in this book are few in number and of poor quality their impact is strong. The Yellow Spot provided an insight into the Nazi mindset during the 1930s for anybody who chose to learn about it.
Der Staat Ohne Arbeitslose (The Land Without Unemployment) – Ernst Glaeser, F.C. Weiskopf, Alfred Kurella
Photography was an important tool in the consolidation of the Soviet state in the two decades following its establishment. Not only was it a vital tool for the dissemination of propaganda amongst a population that had low literacy levels, it also had the added cachet of being modern, which was something the Soviets keenly promoted to emphasise the contrast between their new egalitarian regime and the backward feudalism of the Tsar. Modernity was synonymous with progress and it was hailed as being the solution for all ills. The equation was simple; everything modern was good (factories, steel production, cars, industrial farming, power plants, aircraft, photography, movies) while everything old was bad (kulaks, exploitation, small farms, illiteracy, peasants, landlords, private property, imperial titles). The new modern USSR was also supposed to usher in the creation of a new ‘Soviet man’ who was destined to inhabit this centrally planned utopia of the future.
This book ostensibly purports to show the great strides made by the Soviet Union during the first three years of the Five-Year plan (1928-1933) during which the collectivisation of agriculture and a drive for industrialisation was supposed to make the country a world power and prove that communism was a viable economic system. The central idea behind this was to make farming more efficient and produce a surplus of food which could then be used to subsidise industrial development, regarded as a true measure of progress and power by Stalin. Having lots of food available meant that wages could be kept low and a lot of people could be freed up to work in factories rather than tilling the land. Industrial development, particularly heavy industry and steel, was seen as the only way for the Soviet Union to become a modern world power as well as build a true communist society. That was the theory; in practice it proved to be a catastrophe.
However we have to look at this book in the context of the time. Communism appeared to offer a serious alternative to capitalism during the 1930s, a time when European and American society was undergoing a deep systemic crisis thanks to the financial meltdown of the Great Depression. Mass unemployment, particularly amongst working class populations, in these countries reached dangerously high levels with the consequent increase in poverty and the ever present threat of social breakdown. Into this mix the Soviets step in with their propaganda which appears to show a working alternative to capitalism in which everybody has a fulfilling job and a decent standard of living because this society is supposedly fair and equal as there is now no exploitation by greedy bosses anymore. Obviously this only works if the flow of information about conditions in the USSR is tightly controlled to stop anything emerging that might tarnish the rose-tinted view being presented abroad. But for many impoverished and desperate unemployed people in Europe and America Soviet propaganda presented a very seductive vision of an alternative system that appeared to offer a real solution to the plight of poverty and destitution that faced so many during that dark decade.
All the great names of Soviet photography in the 30s make an appearance in the book which consists of a procession of (uncredited) images divided up into chapters depicting the successes made in developing the Soviet Union; oil, coal, industry, agriculture, education, the military, literacy and the modernisation of Central Asia. The sequencing is, to my mind, rather haphazard with images being stuffed into pages with little thought as to how they work together. It’s rather hit and miss; sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. But overall, the sheer number of smiling proletarian workers, collective farms and factories on these pages convey very effectively the message that the USSR is a happy place to live. However, in terms of 1930s Soviet propaganda design the book is quite restrained; apart from the cover (which may have been the work of John Heartfield) there are no attempts at montage and the images are, for the most part straightforward and unambiguous. (It should be pointed out that this book was printed by a German publisher rather than an official Soviet state agency so that may have influenced the design.) A few constructivist images do make it into the book but these are swamped by the sheer volume of the straight pictures which diminishes their visual power and effect. In many ways the layout and design of this book is quite similar to L’Italia Fascista in Cammino, another 1930s photobook which was meant to whitewash the excesses of another coercive system and delude gullible foreigners.
Women are heavily represented in the images, in depictions of factories, fields and everyday life. Although relatively unremarkable by today’s standards, female participation in areas traditionally regarded as male-dominated occupations was trumpeted by the regime as evidence of true equality in contrast to the grudging granting of votes to women by most of Europe and the US in the early part of the 20th century. The Soviets were also keen to rebut some of the anti-communist propaganda being bandied about which said that sexual relations had also been collectivised, assisted by the fact that on-demand abortion was legal until 1936 in Russia, something that was not going to go down well in conservative societies abroad where traditional family values were held dear. Feminine beauty is also emphasised in a number of the images as another charge made against the Soviet regime was that it produced ugly, brutalised women by forcing them to work in heavy labour (an image of a swimmer is even captioned: “Communism is not a menace to Beauty”).
It appears that this publication is playing it very safe. Interestingly, Stalin himself doesn’t make an appearance in the book (Lenin also only makes a brief appearance through a handwritten note and a statue), which by the standards of the time, is astounding. All of this would indicate to me that the publishers wanted to produce something that would reach as wide an audience as possible and that there would be nothing in the book that could be used to criticise the central message of happiness-through-communism. Although the Stalin cult was all pervasive at home it appeared to be permissible to tone it down for a foreign audience and instead focus on the happy contented lives of ordinary people being led under his benovlent reign.
The overall narrative produced by these images is very simple; life is much better under communism than capitalism. This core message is hammered home to the viewer through the sheer brute force of an overwhelming number of images designed to prevent any alternative reading of this book. It is remarkably effective in doing this.
