| Authentic and persuasive: Thomas Hoepker’s photographic reminiscences of East Germany

The charm of the photographs by Thomas Hoepker (*1936 in Munich) lies in their documentary quality, their authenticity, and their testimonial character, for they were produced by an impartial eye. Hoepker was a photojournalist for magazines such as Stern and Geo for many years. In the early seventies he and his wife, journalist Eva Windmöller, were accredited in the German Democratic Republic, and they spent several years reporting on politics and everyday life in East Berlin. In this volume, Hoepker documents life in East Germany from 1959 to the political turn of events in the late eighties: photos of children playing on the Berlin Wall, party rallies, propaganda posters, ramshackle old façades from the Imperial Era and new apartment blocks, Sunday outings and empty supermarket display cases, as well as portraits of artists such as Wolf Biermann tell tales of a vanished nation.

Exhibition schedule: Deutsches Historisches Museum, Berlin May 11–October 3, 2011 | Galerie Christian Hiltawsky, Berlin May 27–July 9, 2011 | Haus der Geschichte, Bonn July 1, 2011–June, 2012 | Gedenkstätte Berliner Mauer, Kapelle der Versöhnung, Berlin July–August, 2011