banned in the autumn of 1916 , and Weiland Herzfeld was coincidentally
called to the Western Front. While he was away, in the spring of 1917 ,
Heartfield resumed publishing Neue Jugendin its larger, newspaper format.
Always the clever subversive, Heartfield had found a way to circumvent the
ban by making the journal into a prospectus—an advertisement, essentially
—for a portfolio of George Grosz drawings. Since this Neue Jugendwas not
strictly a publication the censors were befuddled.
During the war years all new journals and publishing houses
needed a license, granted only when “pressing need” existed. While no such
need existed for Heartfield and Herzfeld’s left-wing publishing venture,
they dreamed up a plan that would confuse the bureaucrats. Heartfield slyly
stated in the application for the founding of the Malik Publishing House
that German writer Else Lasker-Schüler’s novella “Der Malik” (which
translated from Turkish meant not only “prince,” but also, fittingly, “robber
chief,”) had appeared in installments in Neue Jugend. “To complete its
publication (keep in mind Neue Jugendhad been banned), and for that
reason only, a publishing house was needed,” recalled Herzfeld. The
authorities did not immediately catch on, granted the license, and the
Malik Verlag proceeded instead to publish two George Grosz portfolios
and two issues of a thinly disguised Neue Jugend.
The publication’s design was an amalgam of variegated typefaces,
elaborate surprints, and various geometric color blocks. Work on this
journal marked an artistic turning point for Heartfield, who had destroyed
all his more formal work and embraced anti-art as a means for social protest
and propaganda. In 1915 Heartfield changed his name from Herzfeld to
protest German militarism. He became a charter member of the Berlin dada
group, whose members included George Grosz, Hannah Höch, Raoul
Hausmann, Otto Dix, and Herzfeld. Heartfield originally adopted the title
dada-monteur, eschewing the term artistin favor of monteur, which means
“machinist,” in an angry rejection of bourgeois art. He later changed to
photomonteur because he believed that photography was the vanguard of a
new art that would inevitably displace painting altogether.
The look of the new Neue Jugendwas different, but the content
continued in the style of the original monthly and, with its satire
and pacifist stance, was just as outrageous in the eyes of the regime.
Publication was summarily ceased in June 1917 , but the journal existed just
long enough for Heartfield to initiate the typographic revolution that
would subsequently influence the New Typography.Neue Jugend was also a
stepping stone for other German dada publications. The one-shot tabloid,
Jedermann sein eigner Fussball(“everyman his own football,” 1919 ), which
included the first political photomontage created by Heartfield—a fan with
tuis.
(Tuis.)
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