‘The Photos Are My Property, I Live from Them, I MUST Live from Them.’ Benno Wundshammer and His Wartime Photographs before and after 1945*

Abstract Until recently, historians have not been particularly interested in the practices that produced millions of photographs in the German-speaking lands. Nor have they been concerned with asking what new forms of historical knowledge might be gained from exploration of the production (as well as the consumption, circulation and display) of photographs. This situation has begun to change dramatically in the past decade. Academic historians of Germany are increasingly prepared to think seriously about the possibilities and problems of photographic images as historical sources. In this article, I contribute to these new discussions by examining some of the ways in which the unusual personal archive of German war photographer Benno (Benedikt Heinrich) Wundshammer can help us reconstruct his photographic practices during the Second World War and his relationship to his wartime pictures after 1945.