Fred Stein: Willy Brandt as a correspondent in Spain (1937)
Fred Stein: Willy Brandt as a correspondent in Spain (1937)
Ich begegnete Fred, als wir beide Flüchtlinge waren und das totalitäre Naziregime mit den ziemlich bescheidenen Mitteln bekämpften, die uns zur Verfügung standen. Für seine Zeit war er sehr avantgardistisch, ein brillanter Fotograf, inspiriert von seinem Streben nach Gerechtigkeit und seiner Sorge um die Wahrheit, die sich in seinen Fotografien so deutlich wiederspiegeln.
[I met Fred when we were both refugees fighting the totalitarian Nazi regime with the modest means we had available. He was very avant-garde for his time, a brilliant photographer inspired by his pursuit of justice and his concerns about the truth, which are reflected so clearly in his photographs. (ed. trans.)]
Willy Brandt about Fred Stein, 1983
Willy Brandt and Fred Stein were both members of the Socialist Workers' Party of Germany (SAPD) and met during Stein's years in exile in Paris. This encounter turned into a life-long friendship, which is also reflected in a few portrait shots. In 1937, Stein took photographs of the future leader of the Social Democratic Party of Germany and chancellor in Barcelona. At the time, Brandt was reporting on the Spanish Civil War as a correspondent for several Norwegian newspapers. He was also there to prepare for an international socialist youth conference. After working for the Marxist party Partido Obrero de Unificación Marxista (POUM), the German politician narrowly avoided arrest and escaped back to Norwegian Oslo, where he lived as an emigrant from 1933.
Shortly before Willy Brandt was elected governing mayor of Berlin for the first time in 1957, he visited Fred Stein in New York during a trip to the USA. This occasion resulted in another expressive portrait. In 1983, he wrote the following about his old friend: "He was a true visionary, clearly proven by the selection of people and motifs he took photographs of".
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