ABSTRACT
In 1927, on the occasion of the fi ftieth anniversary of the Ullstein Press, Kurt Korff, the editor of Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung (BIZ) from 19051933, made these remarks in his essay entitled, “Die illustrierte Zeitschrift” (“The Illustrated Magazine”).2 Korff’s emphasis on the desired visual climax of documentary photographs was more than simply a stylistic change. This new visual policy, as I would like to call it, meant that not only were images quickly replacing the written word in journalistic endeavors, but the theatricality and entertainment value of the image, indeed the aesthetics of the photograph, “the photographic moment,” created a new sense of reality and quickly determined what was newsworthy. The infl ux and importance of photographic images during the Weimar period, in part authored by the popular press, attested to what Korff identifi ed as a changing public.3 Life in the 1920s had become more hectic and as a result, his customers no longer had the opportunity for leisure reading. This environment, Korff contended, necessitated photographic journalism and a “keener and more succinct form of representation.” If rapid absorption of content was a priority, the content itself appears to have been a secondary concern. Korff admitted, “It was not the importance of the material that determined the selection and acceptance of pictures, but solely the allure of the photo itself.”4 This statement implies that not only was there a new visual standard for popular press photographs during the Weimar era, but there was a revised publication policy that was inherently subordinate to a newly adopted set of visual codes and criteria. The politics of aesthetics that underscore Korff’s comments raise the important question: what
was the press not photographically reporting? That is to say, what was not photographable or at least desirable in photographic form? What was not newsworthy?
