Heinz Krüger (photographer)

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Heinz Krüger (born November 17, 1919 in Falkensee ; † June 25, 1980 at Wesenberg am Großer Pälitzsee ) was a German photographer and photo reporter .

Life

Heinz Krüger was married to Gerda Krüger. The marriage produced a daughter. Gerda Krüger helped develop the pictures and helped her husband to create a detailed photo archive, including creating a chronological, typed finding aid .

Training and military service

Heinz Krüger trained as a reproduction photographer in a Berlin printing company from 1934 to 1938 . He then worked in the Ernst Steiniger printing company in Berlin. In the first year of the war, 1939, he was drafted into the Wehrmacht . Initially stationed in Rostock, he later served in air defense units in Denmark and Czechoslovakia . After the war ended, he moved from Berlin to Falkensee to work in the Schirner photo studio.

Free photo reporter

In 1946 he switched to the Berlin agency Puck Studios - Beyond the Usual as a freelance photographer . This first private press service in Berlin quickly became a term for a photography that emphatically captured the spirit and nerve of that time.

From 1949 Heinz Krüger worked as a freelance photo reporter, since 1952 he received orders from the magazine Freie Welt , which had its editorial office in Berlin and a permanent office in Moscow . She was considered the foreign magazines of the GDR . On behalf of the Free World , Krüger took photos in countless kindergartens, schools and companies in the GDR - captured political, social and cultural events of all kinds with the camera. In addition, he made more than 50 reporting trips to almost all of the Union republics of the former Soviet Union , to other socialist countries as well as to West Africa and Cyprus .

Reporting trips

As far as research so far has shown, he undertook many reporting trips with the Free World reporters Hans Frosch and Peter Schön, as well as with Klaus Hurrelmann, Monika Höft, Gisela Reller and Joachim Umann , among others . In September 1971 he traveled with the freelance writer Karl-Heinz Jakobs (1929-2015) to the Soviet Socialist Republic of Kyrgyzstan, today's Kyrgyzstan , in Central Asia. Both knew and respected each other - Jakobs lived in Falkensee from 1971 to 1981. Her travelogue appeared in three extensive parts in the first January issues of the Free World in 1972. The occasion for the report on Kyrgyzstan was the 50th anniversary of the founding of the USSR in 1922.

The three contributions tell of what has been achieved, show achievements in powerful, optimistic pictures by Heinz Krüger. In the last part of the series, Jakobs summarizes what he has experienced - condenses it: “We were at Issyk-Kul for two weeks. We were harvesting poppies and driving in four thousand sheep in a cattle pram on the way to the Rybachye slaughterhouses. The shepherds organized an improvised equestrian game for our sake. We visited kindergartens and sanatoriums. We bathed and relaxed at Issyk-Kul, talked to the oil workers from Orgotschor. ”Jakobs later processed this experience in the travel novel Tanja, Taschka and so on .

Recordings were also made for book projects. As a result of a trip with the Freie Welt editor -in- chief Joachim Umann to the Republic of Guinea , the text and photo book Blende auf für Guinea was published in 1961 . Text and pictures tell of the building of the still young republic. The former French colony only gained independence in 1958, and the GDR sought to establish trade relations with it. The photographs published by Heinz Krüger in the illustrated book deliberately focus on opposites: They are intended to attest to socialist progress and earlier colonial backwardness.

Heinz Krüger was considered pleasant and collegial among colleagues and companions. The authors he traveled with appreciated his drive and precise way of taking photos. When the recordings were difficult and the next appointment was waiting, the authors often had to be patient.

Illustration activity

In addition to the reportage trips, an extensive photographic activity in popular education and family education shaped his work. He illustrated articles with numerous photos, especially for the magazines Elternhaus und Schule and Fröhlich sein und Singen . As part of his extensive illustration work, photos appeared in a series of books on raising the family in several editions by Verlag Volk und Wissen Berlin in the 1960s and 1970s : Das Kleinkind , Das Vorschulkind , Das Schulkind von six to ten , Der Schüler von ten until sixteen .

In 1963 and 1970 numerous photos were taken of Theodor Fontane's walks in Märkische . For the book published by Gotthard and Therese Erler (1971/73) From Rheinsberg to Müggelsee he contributed 45 photos “with great empathy”. The review by Rudolf Mingau goes on to say about the photos: "They confront - where possible and useful - the old motif and new life and offer a valuable addition to the text."

Photo group Signum

Heinz Kruger was one of the photo group Signum on. At the end of the 1960s, its members spoke out against the stereotyped, not very vivid photos of official commissioned photography in the GDR.

In 35 years of work he created an important stock of images from the fields of politics, business and culture. His commissioned photos largely correspond to the politically desirable photography in the GDR. But everyday life can also be read from his pictures. There are numerous recordings that did not correspond to the staged socialist imagery.

Reception, development, exhibition projects

The Falkensee Museum has been preserving Heinz Krüger's estate since 2005. His wife and assistant Gerda Krüger gave the museum her husband's extensive stock of images with more than 27,000 photo prints and many negatives from the fields of politics, business, sport, culture and popular education. It was to remain in Falkensee, the city where Heinz Krüger lived and to which he was photographically connected.

As Bert Krüger reports in the museum papers, an indexing of the content was initially out of the question for reasons of time and technology. The first steps consisted in maintaining the existing order. The first inspection resulted in approx. 12,000 photo prints and a multiple of negatives in 6 × 6 format, as well as a small number of 35mm negatives and color slides. All are provided with a consecutive number and can be assigned times and locations with the aid of the finding aid .

In 2007 the Falkensee Museum hosted its first exhibition of photos from the estate with views of the city of Falkensee. Since 2010, the museum's permanent exhibition has been showing more about Heinz Krüger's biography and selected photos are presented.

Holdings already recorded from the Heinz Krüger photo archive. To see: Kyrgyz shepherds on Issyk-Kul, September 1971. Photo: Bert Krüger, Museum and Gallery Falkensee

Just one year later, Sebastian Schuth from the Potsdam University of Applied Sciences recorded all the photo prints formally in an Excel table as part of an internship. His work formed the basis for importing the data into the FirstRumos museum database . In figures, that was 2,310 basic data sets, behind which more than 27,000 photo prints are hidden. The long-term goal of the museum is the digital recording of the entire decayed photo archive.

As part of the educational museum offer “Search for traces of the GDR. Active learning in the Falkensee Museum ”, funded by the Havelland district, a manual was drawn up in 2014 and the digitization of selected photographs that tell of everyday life in the region during the GDR era began.

Exhibition project Brandenburger Notes: Fontane - Krüger - Kienzle

The exhibition project Brandenburger Notes: Fontane - Krüger - Kienzle , on the occasion of the 200th birthday of the writer Theodor Fontane , succeeded in digitizing further pictures by Heinz Krüger in the Museum Falkensee as part of Fontane.200 , a program series funded by Kulturland Brandenburg .

The exhibition stages black and white photos by Heinz Krüger and the Berlin photographer Lorenz Kienzle, corresponding to Fontane's texts and sketches in the hikes through the Mark Brandenburg . A special feature here is that Kienzle, who also selected the images from the Krüger archive, worked with previously unpublished passages from Fontane's notebooks in preparation for the exhibition.

The book Brandenburger Notizen: Fontane - Krüger - Kienzle was published by Verlag für Berlin-Brandenburg in 2019 to accompany the exhibition in collaboration with and with an afterword by Gabriele Radecke .

Awards

Exhibitions (selection)

  • Photo reporter Heinz Krüger - documentary snapshots of the years 1949–1979. Falkensee Local History Museum, 2006–2007
  • Archive window. Alone, alone - the silence sings. Eva and Erwin Strittmatter . Academy of the Arts Berlin, 2014
  • Brandenburg notes: Fontane - Krüger - Kienzle . Exhibition Museum and Gallery Falkensee, 2019

Works

In magazines (selection)

  • When Easter approaches, many animals grow up . Cover picture of parents and school , issue 4, 1957.
  • Everyday life in the valley - Issyk-Kul, the Kyrgyz sea. A child is born ; together with Karl-Heinz Jakobs, in: Freie Welt , January 1, 1972.
  • Everyday life in the valley - Issyk-Kul, the Kyrgyz sea. A house is being built ; together with Karl-Heinz Jakobs, in: Freie Welt , January 3, 1972.
  • Everyday life in the valley - Issyk-Kul, the Kyrgyz sea. A tree is planted ; together with Karl-Heinz Jakobs, in: Freie Welt , January 5th, 1972.
  • with Gisela Reller in Free World , No. 21. Berliner Verlag, Berlin 1980. ISSN 0427-5217.

In books (selection)

  • Heinz Krüger and Joachim Umann: aperture open for Guinea , VEB FA Brockhaus Verlag, Leipzig 1961.
  • Lothar Klunter and Just Wagner (eds.): Celebrities. Photos. Thoughts , VEB Fotokinoverlag, Leipzig 1969, pp. 24, 38, 60–61, 66, 68, 69.
  • Gotthard u. Therese Erler (Ed.): Theodor Fontane - From Rheinsberg to Müggelsee. Markish walks Theodor Fontanes. With photos by Heinz Krüger. Aufbau Verlag, Berlin and Weimar 1971.
  • Gisela Reller: This side of the polar circle and beyond. With the South Ossetians, Karakalpaks, Chukchi and Eskimos. New Life Publishing House, Berlin 1985.
  • Heinz Hoffmann and Rainer Knapp (eds.): Photography in the GDR - A contribution to the history of images. Fotokinoverlag, Leipzig 1987, ISBN 978-3-73-110036-2 , pp. 53, 174.
  • Peter Walther: Childhood Images. Everyday photography in Brandenburg since 1848. Published on behalf of the Brandenburg Literature Office and the House of Brandenburg-Prussian History by Peter Walther, Lukas Verlag, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-86-732149-5 , pp. 274-279.

literature

  • Finding aid , Photo Archive Heinz Krüger, Archive Museum Falkensee.
  • Sebastian Schuth, Handout for the digitization of the Heinz Krüger photo collection , 2014.
  • Bert Krüger: Finding a beginning. The digital indexing of Heinz Krüger's photo archive . In: Museum Association of the State of Brandenburg e. V. (ed.): Museum sheets. Announcements from the Brandenburg Museum Association , No. 26, June 2015, pp. 42–45. ISSN 1611-0684.
  • Lorenz Kienzle: Brandenburger Notes. Fontane - Krüger - Kienzle , Verlag für Berlin-Brandenburg, Berlin 2019. ISBN 978-3-947-21542-3 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Bert Krüger: The camera was always there - the digital indexing of Heinz Krüger's photo archive . In: Friends and sponsors of the Museum and Gallery Falkensee eV (Ed.): Heimatjahrbuch für Falkensee and the surrounding area (2016) . Falkensee 2016, p. 94-104 .
  2. ↑ The finding aid is part of the Heinz Krüger photo legacy, Museum and Gallery Falkensee.
  3. ↑ Bolko Bouché: A life in pictures. In: moz.de. March 19, 2014, accessed May 9, 2019 .
  4. ↑ The former journalist Gisela Reller describes numerous encounters with Heinz Krüger in her blog. For example in an article about Adygeja , which is illustrated with numerous Krüger photos. Gisela Reller: Adygen. In: reller-rezensions.de. Retrieved March 29, 2019 .
  5. ↑ Rudolf Mingau: Theodor Fontane: from Rheinberg to the Müggelsee. Markish walks Theodor Fontanes. Review . In: Theodor Fontane Archive (ed.): Fontane sheets . tape 6 , no. 14 . Potsdam 1972, p. 452 .
  6. ^ Mathias Bertram: The pure life. Photographs from the GDR. The late years 1975–1990 . Ed .: Mathias Bertram. 1st edition. Lehmstedt Verlag, Leipzig 2014, ISBN 978-3-942473-91-0 , p. 9 .
  7. ↑ See also the mention of Heinz Krüger in footnote 71 in: Wiki for the press in the GDR
  8. ↑ Naima Wolfsperger: The digital look back. In: Potsdam's latest news. March 14, 2019, accessed May 9, 2019 .
  9. ^ Fontane and Krüger: Photographer opens exhibition. In: Märkische Allgemeine Zeitung. March 14, 2019, accessed March 16, 2019 .
  10. ↑ Maurice Wojach: Brandenburg forays with an old plate camera. In: maz-online.de. June 27, 2019, accessed June 27, 2019 .
  11. ↑ Short report by Bernd Dreiocker: Culture in Brandenburg - current. Markish changes. In: RBB Kulturradio. March 19, 2019, accessed March 29, 2019 .
  12. ^ Judith Meisner: Exhibition: Fontane's Notes as Guide. In: Märkische Allgemeine Zeitung / maz-online.de. March 18, 2019, accessed May 9, 2019 .
  13. ↑ Marlies Schnaibel: Flood of books in the character of Fontane. In: maz-online.de. June 25, 2019, accessed June 27, 2019 .
  14. ↑ For the exhibition, photos by Heinz Krüger were used, which were taken in 1963 and show Erwin Strittmatter in his place of residence Schulzenhof.
  15. ↑ Archive window. Alone, alone - the silence sings. Eva and Erwin Strittmatter. In: adk.de. Academy of the Arts Berlin, accessed on May 8, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Kruger, Heinz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German photographer and photo reporter
DATE OF BIRTH November 17, 1919
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH June 25, 1980
Place of death at Wesenberg