Getty Museum

[National Socialists, Cologne Central Train Station]

Date

1937

Medium

Gelatin silver print

Culture

German

Department

Photographs

Institution

Getty Museum

> The same day August Sander created the portrait of an SS chief (see [84.XM.126.258](https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/34415/august-sander-ss-storm-trooper-chief-ss-hauptsturmfuhrer-german-1937/)), he also made this image of the officer posing with a group of men and women inside Cologne's central train station, its landmark advertisement of “4711 Kölnisch Wasser” hovering in the background. Some of the men appear in their brown SS uniforms and red armbands, while others, including a handful of women, are sporting swastikas on lapel buttons and official caps. Soldiers and civilians alike are smiling into the camera as if en route to a company picnic or on a weekend outing with their leader. > > As cultural and literary historian Sander Gilman and photographer Hilla Becher have pointed out, Cologne was a “Brown,” or Nazi, city. Unlike Berlin, whose population and elected officials were mostly liberal, Cologne's conservative, predominantly Catholic citizenry strongly supported the National Socialists. It is not known how Sander came to create this image, whether he just happened on the scene while scouting for pictures, or whether he was specifically commissioned to document the event. What is seen in the photograph, however, is revealing. It shows a basically commonplace occurrence in Cologne and other German cities from the time: the Nazi embedded in his society, posing among his cohorts. > > Originally published in *August Sander*, In Focus: Photographs from the J. Paul Getty Museum by Claudia Bohn-Spector (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2000), 90. ©2000, J. Paul Getty Trust.

The authoritative record is held by Getty Museum. LinkedCulture surfaces this object and its connections; it does not alter institutional metadata.