Introduction

The artist Annette Kelm photographed the covers of those books that were banned and publicly burned in 1933 for her series Die Bücher. The photographs shown at the Projektbüro DFI e.V. form a counternarrative to the images created by the perpetrators.

 

When the National Socialists carried out the first book burnings in the spring of 1933, the individual titles remained largely invisible within this propagandistic staging. In Kelm’s series, they not only become visible again, they also unfold a new visual intensity through her presentation. 

 

Kelm uses the conditions and possibilities of photography to show how the medium directs attention, assigns meaning, and makes history visible. Her images guide the gaze not only toward what is depicted, but also toward the way in which the depiction comes into being. Photographic images are never neutral; they establish perspectives and shape how historical reality is perceived. Kelm’s series offers an alternative form of visibility to the established imagery of depicting history. It is not the staging of the fire that stands at the center, but the books themselves — preserved objects with their own history and temporal depth.

 

In the photographs, the books appear as vulnerable testimonies — objects that carry traces of their use and their history. In the enlarged and precisely executed images, the smallest material signs become legible: folds, abrasion, edges, or slight discolorations. Subtle shadows and minimal elevations create an objective plasticity; the surface reveals itself as a three-dimensional object.

 

Each of these books was meant to be destroyed and yet continues to exist. Here, the books do not appear as annihilated or lost objects, but as carriers of this history. In this way, they regain something of the force and dignity that the National Socialists sought to take from them forever. It may not console, and it certainly does not heal, yet it may still be understood as a tender act of historical justice.

 

The series was created in 2019 as part of the project Tell me about yesterday tomorrow at the NS-Dokumentationszentrum München, curated by Nicolaus Schafhausen and Mirjam Zadoff.