Erich Andres

Erich Andres (b. 1905 Leipzig, d. 1992 Hamburg) was a German war photographer and photojournalist.

Biography

From 1921-1923 Andres was apprenticed to a typesetter in Dresden during which time he started to take photographs of landscapes, people, traditional costumes and folk customs with a home-made camera.. In 1923 and unemployed he moved to Hamburg where he found work typesetting in a printery while freelancing as a photographer; the Berliner Illustrierte Zeitung published his pictures of travel through southern Europe in 1927/28. In 1928/29 he also hiked through Yugoslavia, Greece and Italy. In the Great Depression he again found himself unemployed. His pictures of Hamburg's unemployed, of the workers' council meeting in Hamburg's trade union building, and workers' self-help were published in the Hamburger Echo and in Volk und Zeit, and in photo series entitled “Crisis” from November 1930 he pictured his own unemployment card. His first major photo reportage was in 1931 to the multi-ethnic state of Albania, then coming increasingly under the influence of Mussolini. Andres planned to publish the pictures as a book entitled People of Albania with publisher Reimar Hobbing, but the project was not realised. He started working full-time as a photojournalist in 1932.

National Socialist era

Andres continued work as a photographer during the Nazi era and his officially-accredited documentation of the 1936 Berlin Olympics won him several awards. In 1937, with permission of the Ministry of Propaganda, he documented the Spanish Civil War for the fascist insurgent side. Though he recorded republican prisoners-of-war at forced labour in the Toledo palace, his representation of the hardships of the general population during the civil war did not present the expectation of the Ministry. Andres was drafted into military service 1939 to 1945, undertaken in the naval propaganda corps. On home leave in June 1943, he married Hildegard Hänisch in Dresden where he photographed, against strict government prohibition, the destruction and over 50,000 civilian deaths that resulted from the Allied aerial bombardment of Hamburg. The results were combined with writer Hans Erich Nossack's contemporaneous diary entries as the 1993 book Der Untergang.

Recognition

One of Andres' photographs, of girls in traditional costumes dancing a 'Ring o' Roses', was selected by Edward Steichen for the world-touring Museum of Modern Art exhibition The Family of Man, that was seen by 9 million visitors, and for its catalogue. His photography of the destruction of Hamburg by Allied aerial bombardment provides a rare German perspective and have since been published in book form and exhibited.

Publications

• Nossack, Hans Erich, Andres, Erich (1993). Der Untergang Hamburg 1943 (in German). ISBN 978-3-8225-0236-5. OCLC 165500202.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Andres, Erich, Orendt, Stefan (1992). Albanien [1931, 1957, 1990 ; ein Fotolesebuch (in German). ISBN 978-3-86163-031-9. OCLC 246656795.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Andres, Erich, Zimmermann, Jan, Junius-Verlag (2018). Tod über Hamburg Fotos und Notizen aus dem "Feuersturm", 25. Juli bis 1. August 1943 (in German). ISBN 978-3-88506-835-8. OCLC 1083825121.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Andres, Erich, Zimmermann, Jan, Beutler, Willi, Lüden, Walter, O'Swald-Ruperti, Ruperti, Scheerer, Theo, Schmidt-Luchs, Hugo, Schorer, Joseph, Junius-Verlag (2017). Hamburg - Krieg und Nachkrieg Fotografien 1939-1949 (in German). ISBN 978-3-88506-802-0. OCLC 990201787.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Andres, Erich; Wisser, Horst (1998). Kindheit in Hamburg: in den 50er Jahren (in German). Gudensberg-Gleichen: Wartberg. ISBN 978-3-86134-479-7. OCLC 48119507.
• Andres, Erich, Gemeinnützige Wohnungs- und Siedlungsbaugenossenschaft "Süderelbe" (1972). 25 Jahre "Suüderelbe" 16. Sept. 1947-1972 (in German). Hamburg: Hammonia-Verl. OCLC 248709423.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Zimmermann, Jan, Andres, Erich, Beutler, Willi, Lüden, Walter, Oswald-Ruperti, Ruperti, Scheerer, Theo, Schmidt-Luchs, Hugo, Schorer, Joseph, Junius-Verlag (2017). Hamburg Krieg und Nachkrieg (in German). ISBN 978-3-88506-802-0. OCLC 1073858921.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

Publications about

• Andres, Erich, Müller, Ulli (1994). Erich Andres, der Mann mit der Leiter 50 Jahre unterwegs mit dem Hamburger Fotoreporter (1920-1970) (in German). Hamburg: Dölling und Galitz. ISBN 978-3-926174-52-9. OCLC 845480996.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)