illustration of a chinese communist soldier armed with a thompson submachine gun 


chinese soldier 

illustration of a chinese nationalist army officer 

chinese officer 

Original Caption:
Junger Soldat, Westerwald 1945 [Young Soldier, Westerwald 1945]

This picture was taken by August Sander, easily one of the most influential photographers of the 20th century. Born in 1876, he spent the years from 1901 until his death in 1964 photographing primarily ordinary people and countrysides. 
His style typically consisted out of showing ordinary people - farmers, workers, low-level officials, etc - posed in their natural environment and looking straight at the camera.
During the Nazi-Era, Sander's work became more and more restricted, mainly because his work showed common, often worn out and simple folk - not the strong blond Ubermensch German the Nazis tried to propagate as a standard. 
Furthermore, his son, a member of the German Socialist Worker's Party was arrested in 1934 and convicted to 10 years of jail. Sander's book 'Face of the Time' was confiscated and all printing blocks destroyed. By fleeing Cologne in 1942, Sander was able to save most of his negatives from certain destruction.

After the war, Sander spent most of his time photographing the destroyed Germany, primarily Cologne. His archive contains over 40,000 images from the period between 1902-1964.

MfG Schuultz