The Question
Celebrating victory — often depicted in a graphic and crude manner — is one of the most recurrent motifs in amateur soldier photographs of World War II, the largest global conflict to date and the first that was widely documented. Taking trophies from the battlefield is a universal and timeless human practice; as object and medium, however, photographs add an entirely new dimension to this phenomenon. Soldiers created and circulated photographic displays of triumph, transforming the experience of armed conflicts into a shared, intimate and eminently visual event.
The collaborative interdisciplinary research project Trophy Photographs: Performative Transgressions of Ordinary Soldiers in World War II considers “trophy photographs” taken by Axis and Allied soldiers in a transnational perspective as a distinct photographic genre and social practice that shaped not only the servicemen, but also their larger societies. Comprising 15 scholars, collectors and artists with diverse backgrounds, interests and specializations, the research team argues that trophy photographs hold historical, sociological and political meaning and reveal new aspects of essential social and cultural practices of warfare. Their inherently performative quality and evocative power transform trophy photographs into a weapon in their own right, with far-reaching consequences even today.
The Approach
The team’s collective effort to understand the history and meaning of trophy photographs in World War II requires reconsideration of the complex relationships between artifacts and actors; photographers and spectators; and past, present and future societies. As products of the interaction between their content (diegesis, or the space of the image) and their context (extradiegetic circumstances, or external and historical factors that can and do change), photographs not intended as trophies can become them.
Meanwhile, those photographs created to commemorate triumph might unintentionally become documents of atrocities. It is therefore necessary to explore the legacies of trophy photographs, as they construct alternative realities that soldiers and their communities later perceive as truth. Capable of keeping the past alive, trophy photographs often trigger contradictory memories and narratives, providing a sense of pride while also transmitting trauma across generations.
By examining World War II-era photographs and historical visual practices, the Trophy Photographs researchers are developing hermeneutical tools to dissect trophy photographs of past, current and future conflicts. The primary goal of this collaborative research is the creation of a photo textbook written for a broad audience that explores and reflects on the interplay between scholarly inquiry and the ethics of showing. This transdisciplinary approach aims to better comprehend present-day amateur war photographs circulating on social media and to generally deal with warfare in a more critical and conscious manner.
The Trophy Photographs project is being led by Elissa Mailänder at Sciences Po Centre for History in Paris, France, and the Centre Marc Bloch in Berlin, Germany, and by Tom Streuber at Tom, Dick & Harry GmbH in Berlin, Germany, and the Centre Marc Bloch. The research team includes Petra Bopp, Martin Dammann, Margaret Hillenbrand, Marianne Ingleby, Iain Johnston, Daniel H. Magilow, Regina Mühlhäuser, Malu Mühmer, Ulrich Prehn, Mary Louise Roberts, Sven Saaler, Yuki Tanaka, Jan Wenzel and Jialin Christina Wu.
