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01. UNEMPLOYMENT
01.03.01 / Queue of unemployed people stamping in the yard of the Hanover Employment Office (Votes Hitler)
This picture with the diagonally intersecting, ascending snake of the unemployed and this wall inscription seems like a synopsis of the time shortly before the seizure of power. [...] The queue of the unemployed captured photographically by Ballhause reflects the situation of the unemployed in Germany and in Hanover in several ways. We see the unemployed not in front of the employment office as they were in the 1920s, but in a courtyard of the former barracks complex, which had been opened in view of the enormous number of people waiting, endangering traffic on Königsworther Platz. The fact that the unemployed formed such long queues at all was due to the general increase in the number of unemployed in the crisis year of 1932, who had to report to the labour office every day since 1930, separated according to workers, employees, men, women and young people. Only the stamp that one received there entitled one to receive the benefit [...]. In addition to this, all unemployed persons were obliged to report to their competent employment agency at least once a week [translated from German].
(Boström, Jörg: Arbeitslos – Die Wirtschaftskrise in den Fotografien Walter Ballhause, in: Das Jahrhundert der Bilder 1900 bis 1949: Paul, Gerhard/ed., Göttingen 2009, pp. 404–411)
[Photo taken: Employment Office, Königsworther Platz 1, Hanover, March/April 1932]
(Boström, Jörg: Arbeitslos – Die Wirtschaftskrise in den Fotografien Walter Ballhause, in: Das Jahrhundert der Bilder 1900 bis 1949: Paul, Gerhard/ed., Göttingen 2009, pp. 404–411)
[Photo taken: Employment Office, Königsworther Platz 1, Hanover, March/April 1932]
01.03.02 / Queue of unemployed stamping in the yard of the Hanover employment office
[Photo taken: Employment Office, Königsworther Platz 1, Hanover, May 1932].
01.04 / Unemployed people in front of the employment office - stamped for doing nothing
[Six unemployed people] on a street bench, four are looking out of the picture to the right, but one is holding his head in his hands and looking at the ground, the other two are sitting in the opposite direction. At the top left, the wheel of a cart pulled by a man, of whom only the legs can be seen. Tram tracks running parallel to the upper edge of the picture, cobblestones, an empty square. The point of view is that of a viewer looking down from above, but from a natural perspective, that of one who is standing. The unrelated sitting, staring, the isolation clearly reflect the lot of the unemployed. The picture remains without a horizon, but the expectation of the men looking out of the picture is towards such a horizon. In terms of content, in terms of composition, the picture speaks about change. It goes beyond social documentation when it adds to the factual the necessity of a search for perspective, a possibility of change [translated from German].
(Beicken, Peter, in: Solidarisches Sehen oder Weimars Ende in Hannover. Der Arbeiterfotograf Walter Ballhause, in: Die Horen, 27th year, vol. 2 (1982), Issue 126, pp. 63–70)
[Photo taken: Labour Office, Königsworther Platz 1, Hanover, July/August 1930]
(Beicken, Peter, in: Solidarisches Sehen oder Weimars Ende in Hannover. Der Arbeiterfotograf Walter Ballhause, in: Die Horen, 27th year, vol. 2 (1982), Issue 126, pp. 63–70)
[Photo taken: Labour Office, Königsworther Platz 1, Hanover, July/August 1930]
01.05 / Unemployed spectators during road construction in front of the employment office
Picture 18 of the commissioned reportage "One in a million. 22 pictures from the everyday life of the unemployed locksmith Karl Döhler in Hanover".
[Photo taken: Königsworther Platz, in the background the employment office, Hanover, June/July 1932]
[Photo taken: Königsworther Platz, in the background the employment office, Hanover, June/July 1932]
01.06 / Unemployed spectators on changing tires
[Photo taken: Hanover, May 1932]
01.07 / Unemployed carpenters meet
[Photo taken: Neues Rathaus, Trammplatz 2, Hanover, between March and June 1933]
01.08 / Killing time
[Photo taken: Neues Rathaus, Trammplatz 2, Hanover, March 1933]
01.09 / Slept through the time
[Photo taken: Neues Rathaus, Trammplatz 2, Hanover, March 1933]
01.10 / The time doze off
[Photo taken: Hanover, July 1930]
01.11 / The extra income of the unemployed (Imi advertisement)
"The people covered by the advertisements were unemployed. They were trying to earn a few pennies on top of their support. Why did they make themselves available? Because they were not recognised and could not expect any reduction in their benefits. To the owner, this seemed very expedient, because this kind of lively advertising gave him the opportunity to continue his business, because it was the time of mass bankruptcies."
(Walter Ballhause 1987, in: Interview with Ernst-Michael Stiegler (excerpts published in: Niedersachsen 6/87, p. 296 ff.))
When there is advertising in costume, one is far removed from the experiments of the Bauhaus artists: the image tells the viewer that no better work could be found. This masquerade is like a mockery.
(Fries, Fritz Rudolf, in: Überflüssige Menschen. Fotografien und Gedichte aus der Zeit der großen Krise, Leipzig 1981, p. 272)
[Photo taken: Hanover, March/April 1932]
(Walter Ballhause 1987, in: Interview with Ernst-Michael Stiegler (excerpts published in: Niedersachsen 6/87, p. 296 ff.))
When there is advertising in costume, one is far removed from the experiments of the Bauhaus artists: the image tells the viewer that no better work could be found. This masquerade is like a mockery.
(Fries, Fritz Rudolf, in: Überflüssige Menschen. Fotografien und Gedichte aus der Zeit der großen Krise, Leipzig 1981, p. 272)
[Photo taken: Hanover, March/April 1932]
01.12 / Hopeless old employee
[Photo taken: Neues Rathaus, Trammplatz 2, Hanover, March 1933]
01.13 / Turn your fingers
[Photo taken: Hanover, March 1933]
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