| Travel was particularly important in the construction of German national identity from the mid 19th to the mid 20 th century. Due to political and economic instability, travel was not a possibility for many Germans living in the Weimar Republic. Representations of travel found in photography in Martin Munkacsi's reportages for the Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung such as "Kaffee-Tragodie: Eine Milliarde Pfund Kaffee ins Meer geworfen!" ("Coffee Tragedy: One Billion Pounds of Coffee Thrown into the Sea!") and "Berlin-Rio in vier Tagen: Mit dem fahrplanmassigen Zeppelin nach Sudamerika" ("Berlin-Rio in Four Days: With the Regularly Scheduled Zeppelin to South America"), and the context of lost experience gave the photos new meaning through ersatz travel. Munkacsi's travelling lens created and commented upon discourses of German national identity such as masculinity, whiteness, economics, and an Orientalist gaze through the ersatz reality of the photograph and its representation of the foreign. |
