Photographers

Photographers Directory

Tita Binz (1903-1970)

Tita Binz was born as Juanita Ladewig in Frankfurt am Main in 1903. Binz was the daughter of the chemist Prof. Arthur Binz and his wife, the writer Juanita Reutlinger. In 1911, her family moved to Berlin. During her school years Tita was already fascinated by photography.

From 1928 till 1930, she did an apprenticeship in Paris at the photo studio of her uncle, the famous photographer Léopold Reutlinger. The renowned Reutlinger Studio was opened in 1850 and had become one of the most prestigious photo studios internationally since then. Later, Binz settled in Berlin. She first earned her living as an assistant in photo studios, but in 1938 she opened her own studio, Foto Binz, located on the chic Kurfürstendamm. Her studio had five employees.

From the start, Foto Binz specialised in portrait photography. Tita Binz portrayed actors, scientists, artists as Käthe Kollwitz, authors, but also military and politicians. The newspaper Berliner Tageblatt praised her for 'her talent to show the personality of the person she portrayed'. One of the first clients of Foto Binz was the publisher Film-Foto-Verlag, formerly Ross Verlag. Since 1937, Ross Verlag was no longer in the control of its Jewish founder, Heinrich Ross. The National Socialists had forced Ross out through their Arisierung (Aryanization) program (no Jews could own a business.)

Interestingly enough, the Nazis retained the Ross Verlag name until 1941, next to the new name Film-Foto-Verlag. Film-Foto-Verlag became known for its postcards of film stars who figured in the German and also in the fascist Italian cinema during the years just before and during World War II.

Tita Binz was also asked by Film-Foto-Verlag to portray soldiers who were holders of the Ritterkreuz (the Knight's Cross) for their R series of military propaganda postcards. The Nazi regime needed more propaganda and therefore the R series was started in 1939.

At his blog, Pantorijn writes: “It is at this point that two different worlds seem to run together at least in pictures. The actor, the hero of the silver screen and the soldier, the hero of the theatre of war were both raised in the same way. (…) it was not only the image itself but also the design of the postcard that ensured that these two worlds together began to look like one another. It was decided that the lay-out for actors also had to be used for the knight cross bearers.” Pantorijn illustrates this with the example of film star Hannes Stelzer, a popular Ufa hero during the Nazi period. In 1941 he starred as a Luftwaffe pilot in the propaganda film Stukas (1941). Director of the film was Luftwaffe Major Karl Ritter and director and star worked five times together.

Binz did never photograph the Waffen-SS. Pantorijn: 'This might be due to the fact that she was friends with Hans Oster, a convinced opponent of the Nazi regime. She knew by that friendship also the 'conspirators' Erwin von Witzleben and Erich Hoepner who she portrayed all three. These pictures were not made for Film-Foto-Verlag.'

Immediately after World War II ended in 1945, Tita Binz left Berlin. Until 1949, she lived and worked in Heidelberg. That year, she moved to Mannheim.

Tita Binz died in 1970 in Mannheim at the age of 67. In the collection of the Deutsches Historisches Museum (DHM) are her portraits of Konrad Adenauer, Luise Rinser, Viktor de Kowa, Otto Hahn, Gustav Heinemann, Theodor Heuss, and many other celebrities. (Source: filmstarpostcards.blogspot.com)

Images within the Brief History collection include: Heinz Guderian (General of WWII),

Hans Retzlaff (1899-1989)

In 1929, when the trained banker Hans Retzlaff lost his job as a result of the Great Depression, he turned to photography, a skill he taught himself. Following initial activity as a photojournalist in Berlin, he specialized in ethnological subjects for which he travelled throughout Germany and the neighbouring countries. He marketed his photos on a mass scale in the form of postcards he published himself and in magazines such as Atlantis: Länder, Völker, Reisen.

Starting in 1933 he also published photo books, among them Bildnis eines deutschen Bauernvolkes: Die Siebenbürger Sachsen (Portrait of a German Peasantry: The Transylvanian Saxons, 1934), Das Burgenland: Deutsche Grenze im Südosten (Burgenland: Germany’s South-Eastern Frontier, 1939), and Arbeitsmaiden am Werk (Labour Service Girls at Work, 1940). He placed his photos at the service of National Socialist propaganda. His portrait series of craftspersons and other groups of the population are deliberate manifestations of the racial-ideological conception of a biologically determined community. Along with other photographers such as Heinrich Hoffmann, Erna Lendvai-Dircksen, and Walter Hege, Retzlaff was also involved in the making of the inflammatory pamphlet Der Untermensch (The Subhuman). His Berlin studio and archive were destroyed by bombing in 1945. In the post-war period he founded an image archive for art and culture in Tann in the Rhön Mountains.

Source: sammlung.staedelmuseum.de

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