This book was designed to show the nadir not the apotheosis of war. Kamerad im Westen: Ein Bericht in 221 Bildern (Comrade in the West: A Report in 221 Pictures)(Societäts-Verlag) is a 1930 compilation of home front and battlefield photographs of the “great war” transformed into devastating carnage.
Although it might be misinterpreted by some as a celebration of bravery, in fact it is a testament to the lunacy and tragedy of the trench warfare between competing land-masses and rival rulers. The absurdity of the so-called “war to end all wars” is that it was a pilot for conflagrations to follow. The lessons taught through these often dissonant images (life and death, honor and defeat) was not learned—and is still only given lip service.
