Photographic records reach their full significance in historical moments. "The Soviets" has become one of Bock-Schroeder’s most important and poignant reportages.
Worker and Kolkhoz woman, the pair is meant to represent the eternal unity of the working class and the peasantry in the Soviet Union. During the 1937 World's Fair in Paris, a confrontation took place between the two future enemies of the Second World War, the USSR and Germany. Their monumental pavilions were directly opposite each other on the main boulevard at the Trocadéro.
A look behind the Iron Curtain
In 1956, one year after the peace treaty between Russia and Germany, Peter Bock-Schroeder was the first West German photographer to be permitted to visit the former USSR for a photo reportage.
The background of this trip was the shooting of the movie "Russia today, We saw with our eyes" about the Soviet Union for western cinemas.
The film was approved by the Soviet authorities. It was created under the same conditions under which all Western journalists worked in the Soviet Union at that time.
In almost a year of production, they created the documentary under incredibly difficult conditions.
The Volgograd Tractor Plant formerly the Dzerzhinskiy Tractor Factory or the Stalingrad Tractor Plant, is a heavy equipment factory located in Volgograd.
Pictures of the Soviet Union
Bock-Schroeder was monitored at all times by a supervisor from the state authorities.
But he managed to take pictures of people in their natural environment, his pictures tell a visual story about the daily life behind the Iron Curtain.
The Moscow Hippodrome, which holds 3,500 spectators, is a landmark of Moscow. In 1834, the first horse races were held on the premises.
Several times the German and the Russian film crews had threatened to cancel the production.
After months of hard fought negotiations the German production company and the Moscow Central Documentary Film Studio agreed on the version of the respective authorities and their censorship institutions, although sometimes grudgingly given.
The State Hermitage Museum accommodates, besides numerous treasures, artworks that were once passionately collected by Tsarina Catherine II.
Pictures of western reporters allowed, for the first time to get a more reliable picture of the various aspects of the people, economy and culture of the Soviet people.
"Babushka markets" selling various home-made gastronomic products based on plants and animals were popular in Ukraine throughout the 1950s. In 1956 the collective farms were allowed to set up their own co-operative industries in the countryside.
Political upheavals in the Soviet Union led to changes in culinary culinary habits and changes in agricultural priorities.
Up until the Bolshevik Revolution, the Ukrainian Black Sea coast was the world's largest exporter of wild oysters. In the golden age of Black Sea oysters many ended up on the tables of restaurants in Europe, where they were appreciated for their delicate and not too salty taste.
1956 was a turning point, a fateful year for many countries of Eastern Europe in addition to all other world political events, such as the Suez crisis.
It was also the year in which the last German war returnees returned from Russian captivity.
Georgia was part of Russia and later the Soviet Union for a prolonged period of time. However, the country has managed to retain its cultural identity, including its own language and alphabet.
Soon after filming began, the usual declarations of peace and friendship on both sides failed to materialize, and filming, recording and photographing became a tenacious struggle for consistency. Most of the discussion focused on the core word objective.
Folk dances are an integral part of the Belarusian culture and way of life, and these dances have been repeatedly mentioned in Belarusian literature.
The Soviets, who came up for all the expenses of the four western camera groups in the USSR, were granted an extensive veto, control and participation rights. All of the material had to be "tuned" with the Soviets.
The Moscow Victory Day Parade (Russian: Парад Победы в Москве, tr. Parad Pobedy v Moskve) is the annual military parade of the Russian Armed Forces in Moscow's Red Square on 9 May to mark the Victory Day celebrations over Nazi Germany.
Is the inadequate footwear of the mausoleum visitors of the Red Square in Moscow suitable for conveying an objective or a false impression of the state of the Russian shoe industry?
The GUM department store in Moscow in 1956 was a luxury for privileged Russians. The beautiful building is located directly on the Red Square of the Russian capital. It houses numerous stores and is one of the most famous and well-known buildings in Russia. Together with the Red Square and the Kremlin it is part of the UNESCO World Heritage.
On the basis of the Lenin quotation, that an objective behavior includes the duty to accept the criticism of the other side, the German film people tried to persuade their Soviet opponents.
The Russian Censors defended themselfes with yet another Lenin quotations: "Objectivity is what promotes friendship between peoples."
No official action of Catholicos Vazgen I could occur outside the context of the USSR’s larger policies vis-à-vis the Cold War.
Frequently, it became clear that the support from the Moscow Central Studio was more of a burden than a help. In the Caucasus republics in particular, the Moscow escorts were noticeably not welcome.
In Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, the head of the Georgian film production, each Soviet republic had its own film studio, told the film team in strong words that he would not lift a finger to support a film with the misleading title "Russia Today". "The Soviet Union is not Russia and Russia is not the Soviet Union".
In addition, there was the eternal rivalry between the various authorities and organisations. In Baku, it took patient visits and the support of a film ministry official rushed in from Moscow to get permission to photograph the oil fields.
A local trade union committee took offence at the fact that Bock-Schroeder was photographing the idyllic shacks with laundry. The union members protested to the oil ministry and the work had to be stopped.
In 1636 Adam Oleary Elshleger (1603-1671), a German diplomat and traveler, gave description of 30 Baku oil wells and remarked that some of them were gushers.
The film was to be completed with production assistance from the Russians in the Moscow Central Studio for Documentary Film, including music, photographs and text recordings.
Section three of the contract provided: "Theme of the film is the objective reporting of the USSR, the work of the Soviet people, their everyday lives, their art, recreation and other aspects of social and cultural life."
Serge Obraztov (1901-1992) who established puppertry as an art form in the Soviet Union with Italian actress Silvana Pampanini (1925 -2016) during the Italian Filmweek, Moscow 1956
Bock-Schroeder's photographs show the differences and similarities between lifestyles in the east and the west of the late 1950's.
While filming a Moscow backyards, one Russian film official addressed the Film Team with a glossy paper picture book of Hamburg, which he had brought with him: "There are no backyards here either, so why do you want to film backyards in the Soviet Union? This kind of realistic reporting is an insult to the Soviet people"
The Moscow Authorities resisted all attempts to an improvised visit to any apartment.
Instead, after weeks of effort, the Central Studio arranged the filming permit for the apartment of a Moscow architect, which stood out so advantageously from the standard homes that the DCF people termed it "Potemkin apartment".
The Soviet Red Army
Approximately ten million soldiers of the Red Army were killed or died as prisoners of war. In total, at least 24 million Soviet citizens lost their lives - due to the racial mania of National Socialist Germany. The Red Army was the official name for the majority of the armed forces of the Soviet Union.
Unseen Moscow 1956
In spite of the close supervision Peter Bock-Schroeder managed to avoid censorship most of the time. The silent click of his Rolleiflex twin lens camera helped him to work almost unnoticed from the authorities.
On the eve of his departure to West Berlin, Bock-Schroeder sewed most of the exposed rolls of film into his trench coat and brought his work out of Russia into West-Berlin.
Bock-Schroeder's work describes the Soviet daily life in all its austerity and authenticity.
He witnessed solemn religious services and processions of the Orthodox Church, photographed the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow and took part in sport events and mammoth military parades.
He photographed people, the big cities, the historic buildings and gigantic construction sites.
Peter Bock-Schroeder was amazed by the people of the Soviet Union.
He admired their culture, their friendly nature and their hospitality.
His journey took him through the huge space of the former Soviet republics - from the oriental south to the far north, from west to the east.
Soviet pictorial art photo collection.
In September 1956, photo reporter Peter Bock-Schroeder reaches Azerbaijan on his one-year journey through the Soviet Union.
The Bolshoi Ballet and the Bolshoi Opera are considered the world's most traditional and famous ballet and opera companies.
From 1926 Manizer was a member of the "Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia", later known as the "Association of Artists of the Revolution".
The Pushkin Museum's collection spans several centuries of art history