Serving Racial Politics - Anna Koppitz's Works for Reich Minister R. Walther Darre

Photography was Reichsminister Richard Walther Darre's medium of choice for illustrating and disseminating his 'blood and soil' ideology. The protagonists staged before the camera at his request consisted of athletic youths from the Bauernschaft farming community specially educated at the Burg Neuhaus Reichsschule. It was onto their bodies that he projected his utopian notions of the 'Nordic Race' and of farmers as Germany's genetic future. Working for him was Viennese photographer Anna Koppitz, the widow of the renowned photographer Rudolf Koppitz. Her photographs were modelled partly on the elaborate body studies perfected by her husband and partly on the contemporary sports photography in the style of Leni Riefenstahl: a highly explosive mix that was ideally suited for propaganda purposes.