Made in Germany

The American photographer Leonard Freed travelled to Germany for the first time in 1954. Curious and yet from a safe distance, he observed the people in their social surroundings, at work, at street festivals, in public parks, in the streets and against the industrial backdrop of the Ruhr Valley. The Germany he saw was deeply cursed with the effects of war and the NS regime – despite the country’s reconstruction, industrial development and economic success. Freed published his extensive report Made in Germany for the first time with Grossman Publishers in New York in 1970. The present reprint accompanies the same-named exhibition at Museum Folkwang in Essen and comes with a booklet providing extra information about Freed’s approach and his times. The booklet also contains hitherto unpublished images, documents, and writing by Freed, spanning his fifty years of photographing Germany.