Path 5: Develop your own Dynamic View!
My rationale for this path and its structure:
In this path, my readers are supposed to test their understanding of the functional montage (method), exploring and interacting with GG's last section, titled "Heimat" / "Homeland."They should decide whether they as readers (and by extension the worker-readers back in the Weimar Republic) were actually able to develop a more dynamic perspective of concepts such as "Heimat" / "Homeland," having been exposed to several functional montages (targeted specifically at workers) throughout GG.
The main section discussed in this path is "Heimat" / "Homeland", the very last section of "Germany, Germany above All."
(I am currently wondering though, if bringing in other functional montages and their photographs would help here.)In the second preface, "Foreword", explained step-by-step in the 3rd path, Tucholsky tells his readers that by the end of the photobook, they will meet each other again, to see what kind of idea him and his readers have now of Germany.
The last section is titled, provocatively, "Heimat" / "Homeland."
In his essay, Tucholsky explores the idea of Germany for himself, using, for instance, childhood memories. However, while the photos match to some extent Tucholsky's recollections, they all neither show any people, as it was the case with many photographs beforehand, nor are they innocent images of Germany's landscapes. Many photos have political or historical events attached to them, i.e. the photographs become charged symbols.
Now, is this just an ironic move by Tucholsky? Maybe even to avoid giving a definitive answer to what "Heimat" / "Homeland" means to him? No. In the very last lines, he actually does tell his readers that Germany to him means a country that should not forget about communists, young socialists and pacifists like him and others.
Yet, why these images? To counter-act as timeless, historical and political visual symbols his individual view?
What about his readers? After all, in his text, he calls for everyone to find their "Privat-Deutschland" / "Private Germany?"
If so, what does the reader, what do you, as my online-user from Germany or elsewhere, make of these photographs (and Tucholsky's text)?
Is a functional montage at work here? Or does it fall apart? Do you feel like this last section and its montage method encourage a more dynamic perspective on the idea of "Heimat" / "Homeland" / "Germany?"
I will let you decide, when you move through the 3 pages of this path.
On the first page, you will encounter only the seven photographs included in "Heimat" without any annotations.
On the second page, you will be able to see these photos in their original context. Annotations will tell you what locations these photos depict.
On the last page, I will include a google map that shows all these locations pinned on a map. This spatial view informs my understanding of this section. While the photos remain visual symbols of historical and political events, thinking of them spatially in relation to the rest of Germany, opened up Tucholsky's text and my own idea of "Heimat" / "Homeland."