Willy Römer

Willy Römer (born December 31, 1887 in Berlin , † October 26, 1979 in West Berlin ) was a press photographer . His picture agency was one of the ten most important of the Weimar period. The pictures mainly illustrate life in Berlin from 1905 to 1935. It is thanks to a rare stroke of luck that his extensive picture archive survived the Second World War almost unscathed.

Life until 1935

Willi Römer was born in Berlin on December 31, 1887 and grew up as the son of a master tailor in a craftsman environment on the northern outskirts of Berlin. In 1903 he began an apprenticeship in the first German press agency, the Berliner Illustrations-Gesellschaft ; Various working relationships in Berlin and Paris with a thorough photography training followed. From 1915 to 1918 he was a soldier in Russia , Poland and Flanders . In addition to his military service, he took private photos from the rural and small-town Jewish culture that he got to know in the east.

In November 1918 Römer came back to Berlin and took over the "Photothek" company from a colleague. From then on his recordings appeared under this name. In 1920, Willy Römer joined forces with a partner, Walter Bernstein, who mainly did the commercial part of the joint work. The agency Photothek Römer und Bernstein, founded on March 31, 1920, was soon very successful: at times there was work for four other photographers and several assistants such as secretaries, laboratory assistants and delivery boys. The photo agency delivered its photos by subscription to newspaper publishers in Berlin and throughout Germany, but also to editorial offices abroad, and was one of the ten most important in Germany at the time.

Right at the beginning of the National Socialist tyranny, the company was defamed as a "Jewish company" - Walter Bernstein was of Jewish descent. German press companies were no longer allowed to buy pictures here. This boycott quickly ruined the company, and in the spring of 1933 the company filed for bankruptcy . On September 30, 1935, it was forcibly closed by the Nazis and removed from the commercial register two years later .

Life after 1935

Roman's urn grave in the columbarium at the Wilmersdorf cemetery

For Willy Römer and his family, the forced closure of the company brought with it a considerable social decline. He sometimes worked as a solo photographer, but no precise information for the next few years is available. In 1942 he was obliged to do military service to work as a photographer for the party newspaper of the NSDAP in Posen ( East German Observer ).

In 1945 Römer was back in Berlin. In the post-war period, he first photographed the destroyed city. He tried to gain a foothold again with the production of photo postcards for occupation soldiers and with small photographic jobs as a press photographer; these efforts were just as unsuccessful as attempts to obtain royalties on earlier images published without attribution . Most recently, Römer dealt with the maintenance of his archive. His economic situation did not improve sustainably.

Willy Römer died on October 26, 1979 in West Berlin and was buried in the Wilmersdorf cemetery.

plant

Römer was a well-trained photographer and was thoroughly familiar with the special requirements and workflows of press photography. He mostly used a bulky plate camera measuring 13 cm × 18 cm for glass negatives . This offered the advantage of the large negative format that simple contact copies (without enlargement) were usually sufficient for further work steps. Despite the inferior optics back then compared to today , the photos have a very high level of detail due to the large negative format. On a solidly crafted basis, Romans often achieved images of lasting expressiveness and high formal quality.

Meyers Hof , taken by Willy Römer around 1910

The life's work was mainly created between 1905 and 1935, the focus was in the period from 1919 to 1929. Willy Römer witnessed the Weimar Republic in Berlin and documented the political events from the 1918 revolution to the beginning of the Nazi dictatorship in numerous pictures. The more than 200 recordings from the various phases of the 1918/1919 revolution have a special place. Some of them were used over and over again and thus developed into symbols of these events.

These and other reprints mostly appeared without naming the author and without paying a fee to the author. After the Second World War, in economically difficult times, Römer tried to change that - with very little success.

Press photography , i.e. the quick reaction to current events, was Römer's professional field of work. But his interests went beyond that. He photographed court musicians, street vendors, women in the misery of the inflationary period , children playing, queues in front of the employment office , families on Sundays in the park and other genre scenes. The subject of his observations was Berlin as a big city in a time of great upheaval, not just in politics. High-rise buildings made of steel and glass emerged alongside courtyards and alleys with a medieval feel, archaic handicrafts and industrial mass production coexisted, as did horse-drawn carriages, electric trams and automobiles. As a chronicler , Römer recorded these impressions for posterity, so that today we can get a better idea of ​​Berlin in the interwar period, how much and how diverse life was on the street. He was particularly fond of the craft, from which Römer came from; so he documented many craft trades, of which he was aware that they were dying out, for posterity.

Roman's estate comprises around 70,000 photos and 50,000 glass negatives and is currently only being scientifically processed.

reception

After 1980

Willy Römer's work was almost forgotten for a long time. It was not until the 1980s that the active Kreuzberg small publishing house Nishen gradually published parts of Willy Römer's work - as the backbone of a lovingly edited series of old photographs, typically under the name Edition Photothek , as Römer's former company was called.

The inexpensive ribbons are in the form of a booklet and are thematically illustrated according to their title. This gives you a good insight into the social “microclimate” of Berlin between the two world wars: organ grinders , children playing, traffic development, homeless people , allotment garden festivals , musicians and the like. v. a. m. (see also literature )

The Willy Römer archive is located in the photography collection of the art library in the Museum of Photography . The image rights are administered by the bpk picture agency .

Exhibitions

Berlin 2004 Only recently has a comprehensive exhibition with several hundred pictures, including many original prints and some photographic objects, paid tribute to the life's work of Willy Römer and its importance for Berlin . This exhibition was the first major retrospective that showed the life and work of Willy Römer in its entirety and in all aspects and was entitled “On the streets of Berlin”. It took place at a central location in the IM-Pei building of the German Historical Museum in Berlin.

The exhibition board organized a two-day conference on urban photography from 1888–1938 on the political and social documentary work of Willy Römer.

Heidelberg 2006 Exhibition in the Heidelberg President Friedrich Ebert Memorial

• Everyday life and epoch 1918–1948. The photographer Willy Römer.

Warsaw 2009

• Warsaw 1916 on photographs by Willy Römer. February 27 - April 5, 2009 in the House of Encounters with History

literature

• Diethart Kerbs , On the streets of Berlin. The photographer Willy Römer 1887–1979 , Bönen 2004, ISBN 3-937390-31-6
  Catalog for the exhibition of the same name in the German Historical Museum Berlin (October 27, 2004 to February 27, 2005)
• Enno Kaufhold, Berlin in the cosmopolitan years. Photographs by Willy Römer 1919–1933 , Berlin 2012, Edition Braus, ISBN 978-3-86228-025-4
• Willy Römer in the Edition Photothek , Berlin-Kreuzberg:
  • "Leierkästen in Berlin 1912–1932", Volume 1, 1983
  • "Children on the Street", Volume 2, 1983
  • "Ambulantes Gewerbe, Berlin 1904–1932", Volume 3, 1983
  • “January Fights Berlin 1919”, Volume 5, 1984
  • "From horse to car", Volume 7, 1984
  • "Civil War in Berlin, March 1919", Volume 9, 1984
  • “Harvest Festival in the Allotment Garden 1912–1927”, Volume 10, 1985
  • “Hafenleben Berlin 1904–1932”, Volume 13, 1985
  • "Jugglers, bear guides, musicians", Volume 15, 1986
  • “Courtyards and alleys in old Berlin”, Volume 19, 1987
  • (et al.) "Berlin from above", Volume 22, 1988
  • "From the old handicraft: nail smiths, scissors grinders, file cutter ...", Volume 23, 1988
  • “Apprentices in the Years 1926–1936”, Volume 26, 1991

Journal article

• Diethart Kerbs: Kalte Zeit: About the second half of life (1933-1979) of the Berlin press photographer Willy Römer
  In: Photo history , Marburg, ISSN  0720-5260 , Vol. 24 (2004), 94, pp. 68-70

Web links

• Literature by and about Willy Römer in the catalog of the German National Library
• ZUM education server for the exhibition (illustrated)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Willy Römer's estate at Fotoerbe
2. ^ The photography collection of the art library. Retrieved November 26, 2019 . 
3. ↑ Willy Römer in the bpk picture agency. Retrieved November 26, 2019 .