International Photography Networks and Walter Hahn’s Museum for Photography, Dresden

The Museum für Photographie, founded, developed and directed by Dr. Walter Hahn for only twelve years in the city of Dresden, has only recently emerged in scholarship on East German photographic culture. Although the museum definitely enjoyed a relationship with the East German cultural authorities within the Cultural League, or Kulturbund, it does not sit easily in the historiographical category of ‘official’ photography in the GDR. Hahn’s version of the history of photography was challenging to the socialist establishment, which hampered the further development of the museum and did not preserve the project after Hahn’s death. Hahn’s ambitions to expand his museum and gain membership in an international community of collectors and museum professionals drove him to contact a tremendous number of figures throughout the world and led to many fruitful exchanges on questions of the history of photography and the state of collections internationally. This article will address the degree to which Hahn’s networking through publications and correspondence and attempts at cultural diplomacy tied him more closely to the international community of photography collectors and photography museums – particularly in the West – than his Cultural League colleagues could ultimately sanction. It argues that Hahn and his museum represent a historical and historiographical anomaly that complicates the accepted narratives of East Germany history. Hahn’s interactions within the international museum community represent a significant instance of the international circuit of photographic images and literature during the Cold War.