WARSAW. 2 engravings by Paul E. Schneider, dated 1915: 1) Jewish street vendor in Warsaw; trees. color, dimension: 79x120 mm; 2) Jewish quarter in Warsaw, trees. color, dimension: 89x124 mm; condition of engravings bdb. RARE.
People from the East: a semantic category that became established in the German language during WWI. It became almost archetypal, popularized with the help of the rapidly cheapening "funnel", cameras very popular among Reichswehr officers. They were essentially amateurs. But the German army also recruited professional photographers into its ranks. They were to document its victories. They photographed Osten in every possible way. Extremely popular were photos of Ostleute, or people from the East. Disgusting, dirty, evil, and especially Ostjuden. "Funnel" foreshadowed the time that was to come: the German crimes of World War II. Graphic artists also went to the Reichswehr. There were many of them, and among them was Paul E. Schneider.
Paul E. Schneider (1884-1969), painter and illustrator. From 1908 to 1915 he studied at the Royal Academy of Graphic and Commercial Arts in Leipzig. Through his acquaintance with Hermina Reuss-Hohenzollern (1° voto von Schönaich-Carolath), second wife of Wilhelm II, he became a painter for the emperor's court. Mobilized in 1915, he stayed in Warsaw, where he documented daily life. He was particularly fond of sketching scenes of the jüdische viertel - the Jewish quarter. To say that he was not very friendly is to use a sky-high euphemism. He came off as a big German chauvinist, a typical product of the Wilhelminian era. After World War I, he taught lithography at the Leipzig Academy and ran a factory that produced illustrations for books and magazines.
