gans.His mode of address always involves imperatives, and his exhortations al-
ways refer to struggle and confrontation.Forinstance, on the cover of the KPD’s
1927 MayDayFestzeitung,Heartfield pairs the imageofthree male workersrais-
ing theirfists with the closing line fromTheCommunist Manifesto,“Proletarians
of all countries,unite!”An electionposter from 1930 enlistsamale and female
worker holding upahammer and sickleto implorevotersto“Fightwith us.”
Captions fromAIZcovers include appeals and declarations such as“Hit hard,
proletarian! So thatanew world emergesfrom misery and pain,”“Weall only
know one enemy, the classofexploiters,” or“All fists clenched into one,
show the fascistsyour power!”¹⁵The combination of images and texts invariably
aims at cognitive clarification and emotional intensification. Thusthe word“hit”
in“Hit hard, proletarian!”is placed aboveahammer forgingawhite-hot piece of
iron, and the caption of“Weonlyknow one enemy”appears right nextto the
fists ofawhite andablack man.
Nothing captures Heartfield’sagitationalmethod better thanthe sloganFoto
alsWaffe(photographyasaweapon), which was displayedprominentlyinsev-
eral exhibitions of his work duringthe lastyears of theWeimarRepublic. This
militaristic terminologymarkedasharp departure from the aspirational dis-
course on cultureand education (discussed in chapter 8) and the belief in aes-
thetic experience as self-actualizationinthe humanist tradition.FollowingFrie-
drich Wolf’sannouncement that “art is aweapon!”¹⁶ the old distinctions
between purposeless enjoyment and purposeful instructionnolonger served
anypurpose foranew generation of communist photographers and graphic de-
signers.Photographycame to occupyacentral place in the ensuing battle over
images and imaginaries,with Adolf Behne describing photomontages as“pho-
tographyplusdynamite”¹⁷andKurt Tucholsky calling on all communists to
“fight in league with photography.”¹⁸The large gunonthe Heartfield cover for
FranzJung’sTheConquest of the Machinesconfirms that the reference to“weap-
on”in these contexts can be understood invery literal terms.InDie RoteFahne,
The captions arefromAIZ9.52 (1930), 13.36 (1934), and 13.49(1934).Anumber of these im-
ages have been reprinted in David Kingand ErnstVolland,John Heartfield: Laughter IsaDevas-
tatingWeapon(London:Tate Publishing,2015).
SeeFriedrichWolf,Kunstist Waffe! EineFeststellung(Berlin: Arbeiter-Theater-Bund Deutsch-
land, 1928).
IgnazWrobel [i.e.,Kurt Tucholsky],“DieTendenzphotographie,”DieWeltbühne21 (17April
1925): 637.
Adolf Behne,“DieKunst alsWaffe,”DieWeltbühne27.34/35 (1931): 301–304.Behne’sasser-
tion is takenfromthe 1931 article“Jo hn Heartfield (Künstler des Proletariats),”reprinted in März,
ed.,John Heartfield,185–187.
John Heartfield’sProductiveRage 311