<< HEARTFIELD CHRONOLOGY - ALL YEARS
1914 1915

“Use Photography as a Weapon!”   
Heartfield's sign above John Heartfield Room,<br />
Film und Foto Exhibition, Stuttgart, 1929
Heartfield's sign above John Heartfield Room,
Film und Foto Exhibition, Stuttgart, 1929

Soldier Artist John Heartfield. Kaiser-Franz-Josef Regiment, World War I, 1914

Soldier Artist John Heartfield (born Helmut Herzfeld) is drafted into the Kaiser-Franz-Josef Regiment in September 1914. He is scheduled to be sent to the front.

Heartfield fakes mental illness in the form of a nervous breakdown in order to avoid participation in what he considers a greater insanity – war. His “performance” is so realistic that he attacks an officer who mocks his cowardice. The soldier artist Heartfield is sent to a rehabilitation facility.

There can be no questions that Heartfield’s action was a philosophical protest, not a question of courage. He proved his bravery over and over again during World War II when he risked his life to oppose the insanity of Hitler and his Third Reich.

When he’s released from rehabilitation, Heartfield is assigned to a propaganda unit. He walks to the front to see the reality of the German trenches. He returns to tell a friend that the conditions at the front are unimaginable. Heartfield’s later work employed sensory excess – noise pain and even screams. Many of his photomontages were an answer to the photography of World War One that were intended as visual sedative.

Professor John J Heartfield is John Heartfield’s paternal grandson. He gives live interactive presentations around the world that focus on his grandfather’s life and work and modern political art. Please write to him to request his presence at your event or ask any question. He is always pleased to hear from exhibition visitors.

Dada Political Artist John Heartfield grandson, John Heartfield, Curator Official John Heartfield Exhibition