Title: Algerien, L'Algérie
Photographer(s): Dirk Alvermann
Writer(s): Dirk Alvermann
Designer(s): Dirk Alvermann
Publisher(s): Rütten & Loening, Berlin, ex DDR , Germany
Year: 1960
Print run: 30.000
Language(s): German
Pages: 224
Size: 11 x 18 cm
Binding: Hardcover
Edition: 2nd Steidl, Gottingen, Germany, 2010 as Box Protest - 3rd 2012 Steidl, Gottingen, Germany
Print: Sachsische Zeitung, Dresden, Germany
Nation(s) and year(s) of Protest: Algeria,1960
ISBN:
Back in West Germany, Alvermann wanted to make his pictures accessible to as many people as possible, and the format of the Rowohlts rotary novels (Publisher in west Germany), which has been published since 1950, was ideal for this. A publication commitment from Rowohlt Verlag was withdrawn, however. The Algerian war and the struggle of the Algerian liberation front FLN was too sensitive a topic for the Adenauer Republic, which was committed to the Franco-German reconciliation.
So the book was published in ex DDR by Rütten & Loening in Berlin.
A new edition of Algeria (ed.Steidl 2012) goes back to the original idea of the photographer, in fact the book is designed in the traditional Rororo format, has the desired cardboard cover and corresponds in content to the first draft in every detail. Political contemporary documents, quotations from French military sources, from pamphlets, newspapers and magazines accompanied the photographs. The book is more topical today than ever, because it tells of the rebellion of a people against oppression and arbitrariness: be it against European colonialism, be it against homemade dictatorial regimes as it is today.