Hahne-Niehoff Archive
The Hahne-Niehoff Archive of the Berlin-Brandenburg Office for Everyday Culture at the Institute for European Ethnology includes in its holdings 1,122 rolls of 35mm film, amounting to around 41,000 individual images. The archive also contains further research materials, including field notes and correspondence. The photographs depict regional festivals and scenes of everyday life, as well as their so-called ethnographic documentation between 1920 and 1945. They were produced by the prehistorian Hans Hahne and his assistant Heinz Julius Niehoff, a photographer and documentary filmmaker. Hahne served as Director of the Office for Prehistory (Department of Volkskunde) in Halle.
From the 1920s onwards, Hans Hahne was a member of the NSDAP. He propagated a völkisch direction for Volkskunde: conceived as Volkheitskunde, it was intended to prove the continuity of the so-called “Nordic blood heritage”. Hahne also actively promoted völkisch revivals of customs within the region. Like the festivals and activities themselves, their photographic documentation and the compilation of the films served, from the 1930s at the latest, to present and affirm all participants as a “Volksgemeinschaft” (Volk community) in the sense of National Socialism. Through research projects, exhibitions, publications, teaching seminars and public events, the Berlin-Brandenburg Office for Everyday Culture actively engages with and critically reflects upon the historical contexts of such problematic collections.
For legal and ethical reasons, not all parts of the collection are freely accessible. Access to restricted holdings may be granted upon request. Should you have personal connections to the individuals, places or practices depicted in the photographs that you would like to share for research purposes, this is also possible upon request.
