DGPH | Dr.- Erich- Salomon- Prize | Award-Winner since 2000


Erich Salomon, born in Berlin in 1886, murdered in Auschwitz in 1944.

Educated in jurisprudence, he became a photographer. The achievement of the "greatest photographer of the Weimar Republic" consists in his having given the pictures he took of the current events of his day a timeless visual signature. He captured the psychologically most interesting aspect of a given situation, thus elevating "unposed photography" to a distinctive stylistic plane of its own. An alert intellect, technical talent and a feeling for photography as a medium fused in his work to make it so successful. Driven by the goal he set himself as a photographer observing current events, he cleverly insinuated himself into places not accessible to the public eye.

"Special photographer for politicians" clandestine meetings’ was what Salomon was dubbed. His photographs became the visual substance of the political game that led to the second world war. Deploying lively curiosity, anecdotal sophistication and psychological insight, Salomon developed press photography into the form that as photojournalism has become indispensable and is today taken for granted.

Award ceremony
September 29, 17h , Ernst-Bloch-Zentrum, Ludwigshafen.