The German Historical Museum shows ~ Photographs of the Berlin Blockade in 1948-9 by Henry Ries |
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| Thursday, 12 June 2008 06:45 |
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BERLIN - The currency reform and subsequent blockade of West Berlin carried out by the Soviet Union was a key event which resulted in the partition of Berlin, Germany and Europe. Photographs of the Berlin Blockade in 1948-9 by Henry Ries opens at the German Historical Museum. In 2007, the German Historical Museum acquired the photographic legacy of Henry Ries, whose photographs of the Berlin Blockade and the reaction of the Western Powers, the Berlin Airlift, occupy an important place in his work. The division of the occupation zones into two separate economic and political systems had been becoming increasingly palpable since 1947. In 1949, this resulted in the foundation of the two German states and the GDR's closure of the interior borders, finally culminating in the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961. Henry Ries was born in Berlin in 1917. In 1937, Ries, who was Jewish, fled Germany for New York, where he embarked on his career as a photographer. In 1945, he returned to Europe as a soldier, where his first job was as a photojournalist for the OMGUS Observer. He went on to work as a photographic correspondent for the New York Times in Europe from 1947 onwards. He witnessed the first decisive years of the Cold War during his time in Berlin. In the 1950s, he returned to New York, where he pursued a varied photographic career. Ries died at his home in New York State in 2004.  The Berlin Blockade of 1948 / 1949 is at the heart of the exhibition. Henry Ries’ works form the exhibition’s main focus, and are supplemented by documents and artifacts from the German Historical Museum’s collections to create a complete picture of the years 1947 to 1949. Visitors also gain an insight into the different stages of Henry Ries’ life, and his photographic interpretation of post-war Europe is broadened by the inclusion of his photo reportage series from Austria, France, Italy and Spain. In 1939 Adolf Hitler gave orders to have the army museums in Berlin, Munich and Dresden taken over by the Wehrmacht. From this time on the spirit of German heroism, such as the National Socialists understood it, was propagated in the Zeughaus. Parades and commemorations in the open courtyard were part of the German war propaganda until 1944. From 1952 to 1990 the "Museum for German History", founded by the Central Committee of the SED (Socialist Unity Party), was located in the Zeughaus. The aim of the museum was to convey the Marxist-Leninist concept of history. As the central museum of history in the German Democratic Republic it undertook extensive activities to collect and display historical material. In September 1990 the museum was dissolved by the last government of the GDR. Its collections and properties, including the Zeughaus, were transferred into the hands of the German Historical Museum, founded three years earlier by the Federal Republic of Germany and the Land Berlin. Visit the German Historical Museum at: www.dhm.de/ENGLISH/ Click on logo below to add this article to your favorite Social Website ~ |
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