SPIEGEL ONLINE: Mrs. Beckmann, the war photographer Susan Meiselas said: "The camera is an excuse to be where you do not belong. Does this sentence apply to all war photographer?
Anne-Marie Beckmann: The camera is first and foremost their tool to travel to war zones - the war does not come to them in most cases. In addition, especially in countries with patriarchal structures, women are less perceived as a threat, both by the population and the army. Photographers thus have rather unlimited access to families and can report very close, very familiar. Only: The image of the man who stands as a warhorse and the woman behind the front shows how the children play and the women survive, is not true. We want to break this cliché.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: They show the work of eight women in "women photographers at the front", from the Spanish Civil War to today. What connects them?
Beckmann: They all set out, driven by the desire to be active with their pictures basically against war or for one side. Gerda Taro, for example, reported from the Spanish Civil War to fight against fascism. Lee Miller accompanied with the army the liberation of Germany and Anja Niedringhaus moved into the Balkan War, with a firm belief in their pictures to contribute to the fact that this war ends.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: That sounds so normal. What hurdles did you have to take?
Beckmann: In the early days of war photography from the middle of the 19th century, women were not even allowed to work at the front, nor were they allowed to be trained as photographers. Although women entered the profession during the Second World War, they were still not allowed to go to the front and were not admitted to the press camps.
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Anti-war photography: women at the frontSPIEGEL ONLINE: Lee Miller was said to photograph the field hospital.
Beckmann: Exactly, women were allowed to show the hospitals, the civilian population or the liberation. Lee Miller later succeeded in overcoming these limitations.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: But even Niedringhaus initially had to fight for ever to be allowed to report on the Balkan war.
Beckmann: For six weeks she wrote a letter to her boss at the European Pressphoto Agency every day to convince him to let her go. She was not credited with that, she was also very young.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: That she was a woman was not an argument?
Beckmann: Certainly not. She rejected everything when it came to the subject of "perception as a woman". She used to say that when I'm at the finish line of a light-sleeving World Championship or at center court - sports was her other focus - there are fewer women than in the war zones. Of course, that world is still very masculine, but Anja Niedringhaus is a good example of the reality of war photography.
SPIEGEL ONLINE : So your exhibition should show examples in particular?
Beckmann: First of all, women have to feel that they can do that. This self-image emerged especially during the Vietnam War. In all major wars you can also read leaps in the coverage, and especially the Vietnam War changed a lot here. He attracted hundreds of young photographers, such as Françoise Demulder, Christine Spengler or Catherine Leroy - all without education, without prior knowledge, without clients.
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Female photographers at the front: From Lee Miller to Anja Niedringhaus
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SPIEGEL ONLINE: How visible were women as authors? Next to Gerda Taro's photos was "Robert Capa" for years.
Beckmann: In any case too little, even if some of them have won prestigious awards. Therefore, we are also interested in making their names known. The photos of Anja appeared in daily newspapers usually only with the addition AP - without her name.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: How has the digital influenced the photographic attitude to the war?
Beckmann: Images are now made very directly, but often unreflected. Although this creates temporal, spatial, emotional proximity, it is usually without photographic quality.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: And there are a lot of them. Does that change the way we look at the suffering of others?
Beckmann: Especially because bloodthirsty photos are omnipresent today, it is important to find a different visual language. Take Anja's picture of the soldier sitting alone on his 34th birthday: his posture is so lost. This takes me more sustainable than if I see a wounded man. I believe that it is now more indirectly necessary to convey that war brings suffering to many people and should be prevented.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Indirectly, because war is conducted more indirectly?
Beckmann: That soldiers sometimes sit like in computer game rooms, is perverse. The distance gets bigger and bigger. An image of Anja Niedringhaus shows three Afghani on a moped, on the right there are two soldiers. They are like aliens, from top to bottom with high-tech equipment. But they have to look at their devices, they do not know where they are. In this picture is the whole absurdity of the war - for the civilian population, the society as the soldiers.
picture alliance / AP / Kunstpalast Düsseldorf
Photograph by Anja Niedringhaus
SPIEGEL ONLINE: War photography is actually always anti-war photography. Does that still work today?
Beckmann: Definitely. In the past, the depiction of the war was determined by the invulnerable soldier, who is happy to go to war for his country, to the superiority of his own people. I no longer see that today. It is about compassion, with the civilian population, the victims, even the soldiers, these completely overburdened young men.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: And yet the INF disarmament treaty and the international nuclear agreement are currently being revoked.
Beckmann: I was born in 1966, I consciously realized the whole scenario of the Cold War and how it relaxed, thank God. What is happening is incredible. Images of war must make it clear that every war is pointless.
Exhibition: "Female photographers at the front, from Lee Miller to Anja Niedringhaus", Kunstpalast Düsseldorf, until 10 July 2019