'The Exotic Country': Stefan Moses' photographic journey through Germany

Stefan Moses (1928-2018) liked to explore his subjects via unusual perspectives: for example, the back view of these well-heeled visitors to the Bayreuth Festival in 1961 exposed a lot more than a frontal shot. After escaping a Nazi concentration camp in 1945, Moses worked as a freelance photojournalist, and cemented his unique portraiture style while working at "Stern" magazine from 1960-1968.

The hunt for delicacies at a buffet was almost like a sporting event in West Germany during the post-war economic boom. Germans had begun celebrating again — working hard and playing hard. Here, the photographer wasn't interested in technical perfection for such snapshots; he wanted to capture the dynamics of the action. The DHM is showing mainly his early reportage works.

Here former German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer is sporting cool Ray Ban sunglasses he brought back from his last state visit to the US. The CDU politician was meeting with SPD party leader Willy Brandt (right) at the 1961 annual meeting of Silesians. At least 12 million ethnic Germans had to flee their homes after WWII, and the expellees were an important constituency for the two political parties.

As a portrait specialist, Moses was less interested in capturing the ultimate "magic moment" than telling a bigger narrative in photo essay form. In the 1960s, he created long-term photographic series and cycles like "Die Alten" ("The Elderly"). This image from the 1962 series captures royal devotees camping out in London while waiting for the Queen's parade.

Moses' photographic series "Ostdeutsche Portraits" ("East German Portraits") was originally commissioned by the German Historical Museum (DHM) in Berlin to show on the occasion of the institution's opening in 1991. The agreed one-month photo assignment in the former GDR went for much longer as Moses, always drawn to the working classes, became fascinated by the independent pride of East Germans.

As a professional photographer, Stefan Moses preferred to stay in the background. He didn't like models posing in front of the camera. The facial expressions of those he photographed were essential to him, and he had a keen sense of comedy. People managed to feel unobserved as he captured them in their everyday actions, such as this woman trying on a fur hat.

Many of his mostly black-and-white photographs captured everyday life. Moses did not take pictures in a studio and instead hit the streets to capture what appeared to him as "typically German." Rather than travel to exotic countries for inspiration like many of his professional colleagues, this avid chronicler of 20th century Germany found endless material in his own backyard.

The photographer was also on the road in the industrial Ruhr region, encountering the guys who did the hard work underground. "On Saturdays, Dad's with us" was the slogan of the trade unions back then who fought for a five-day work week. Moses studied the Sunday rituals of the mining families in detail. Here's a classic: father, mother, two children — dressed to the nines for a day in the city.

Free time was hardly an option in a six-day work week. That's why, during summer vacation, people in West Germany began traveling to the sunny South from the 1950s onwards, preferably to Italy, Spain or Greece. But you could also make it nice at home — at the campsite, for instance. Stefan Moses was on the scene.

His Jewish family roots gave Moses a very personal insight into the lives of Jews in Germany. The war was over, many of the Holocaust survivors had emigrated, but some stayed in Germany. Like those here: elderly residents of the Jewish old people's home in Würzburg.

Stefan Moses sought to document Germany's post-war recovery after so much terror and destruction. His ironic, observational snapshots were free of judgement and, in addition to capturing politics and society, included humorous everyday impressions. In his latest DHM exhibition, 250 photographs, magazines and books depict Moses' path from intrepid photojournalist to chronicler of a nation.