CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 9/27/2015

Lee Miller

On April 30, 1945, photojournalists David E. Scherman and Lee Miller produced one of the most controversial photographic series of the twentieth century; while documenting Hitler's apartment on the day of his suicide, they photographed each other bathing in the Führer's tub. In Hatje Cantz's new release, Elissa Mailänder writes, "Within Germany, Hitler represented less horror and mass violence than he did rebirth and the ambitious project to Germanize Europe. Miller observed Hitler’s neighbors in Bogenhausen with perplexity: 'The attitude of these Germans was odd. They talked quite normally about... that Hitler was a great man with the right ideas, but he had been badly advised and controlled by gangsters.' Considering the widespread goodwill and profound respect for Hitler, Miller’s and Scherman’s action, as a woman and especially as a Jew, can be interpreted as an act of provocation. It was a (successful) attempt to deconstruct the Führer as a (German) identification figure and hereby to undermine his aura at a time when the war had not officially ended. Although Hitler and his wife had just taken their lives, Germany, which lay in ruins, had not yet capitulated. Embedded in that contemporaneous context, the bathtub photographs sent a clear and defiant message to Germany and international society: The Führer is dead. And now we are here."