Exemplary safeguarding of German pictorial history 1945-1960
Current status Completed. Research in the image database of the Deutsche Fotothek
Description Together with the Kulturstiftung der Länder (Cultural Foundation of the Federal States), the Kulturstiftung des Bundes (Federal Cultural Foundation) supports 26 projects in the programme for the conservation and restoration of endangered movable cultural property (KUR) with objects of cultural-historical significance that are in urgent need of conservation and/or restoration. Within the framework of its KUR project, the Deutsche Fotothek realised the preservation and complete publication of 111,000 film negatives documenting the historical situation in Berlin, Dresden and Leipzig after 1945 and accompanying the political, cultural and urban development in the following years of change and the reformation of German life until around 1960. The processed film negatives are acutely threatened by material decay that has already begun and come from the extensive photographic estates of Hildegard Jäckel, Richard Peter Sr, Abraham Pisarek and Roger and Renate Rössing. Since it is not possible to preserve the original film material, the aim was to use suitable digitisation processes to meet the conservation requirements of a form of preservation whose quality derives equally from the artistic significance of the individual photograph and from the surviving density of the visual documentation.
Duration 2008-2010
