Artist: Ernst Friedrich

The German pacifist and anti war champion Ernst Friedrich created a book; “Krieg dem Kriege!” (War Against War!).  This book used shock tactics to reveal the atrocities of war to the masses.  Over one hundred and eighty images were primarily drawn from German medical and military archives from the First World War were combined in a published book.  The book starts by showing military based toys, such as toy soldiers, toy cannons and other war games for boys.  The book goes on to show some truly shocking and gruesome images even by todays desensitised standards.  This includes carefully positioned sets of diptychs.  This includes on one side an image of the heroic march off to war and on the other side an image from a mass grave from one of the battles.  It simply has the words; “Enthusiastic...for what? and on the opposing side ...for the field of honour.”(Ernst Friedrich, 1928) in four languages.  Friedrich's book had an incredible influence on “educated” society, however, he was imprisoned a number of times by the Nazi's which made continued production of works difficult.