The Arefact I chose at the IISG in Amsterdam is the former Newspaper Die Rote Fahne (The Red Flag). I was working on some reasearch about the Youth Pioneers (Jung Pioniere) in the GDR in an other class and throught this I came across the newspaper. The red flag on the newspaper is very present and centered and therfore I thought it would be interessting to get to know more about the articles and the newspapers history itself. The fact that this artefact is not even a hundert years old but its medium as newspaper is so old fashioned and not very present and important anymore in our digital age. We consume most of our information over websites, blogs or social media.
| Tag | Data |
|---|---|
| IISG Call Number | IISG BG D5/981 |
| Physical Description | Newspaper |
| Type | Newspaper Reproduction |
| Medium | Poster |
| Materials | Paper, Print |
| Date | 1968 |
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Poster of a Newspaper by the red flag. |
Poster from the German Democratic Republic on paper. The poster appears to be a reproduction of a newspaper which was called the red flag.
42x28.5cm print. Facsimile of it can be a photo like in this case. The poster could be also scanned or the text in the poster can be transcript to a plain text or book.
The text on the poster is written in german. Furthermore the text is written in Fraktur typeface. For me personally this is still readable, but very time consuming and not possible on this image. I am aware that they are not very a "big fan" in handing out posters but in this case it is very difficult and not possible otherwise. I still would like to give it a try if they will hand my out this poster because of the text.
Update: I was able to access the poster to take better photos aswell close-ups. Since it is a reproduction they were not to strict about it. The poster was in a folder with other posters about the same topic and time. Thanks to this I could find a second poster which was using the same newspaper. This made it possible to figure out the time, price and number. Those details on the top were unfortantly cut off.
Depending on how much care they take on the poster and the paper is stored with the right light, temperature and humidity this poster could be preserved for several hundred years. Although the poster was published in 1968 and is already very yellow I assume it was a cheap paper to print a lot of posters.
I found this poster during my research for image class. In my research, for image class I focused on the movement of the Youth Pioneers (Jung Pioniere) and the Free German Youth (Freie Deutsche Jugend). Both those movements accrued during the time of the German Democratic Republic. I found this poster interesting because of two reasons. First, the red communist flag is very present and impossible to ignore. Making it clear and easy what this text could be standing for. Second, the poster is very informative with a lot of text. During 1949 to 1990 there was no internet and not everyone had a television in there home yet. Therefore to inform the population posters played a way bigger role than in today. The poster was filled with information and communication as much as possible for the people. Today the media can be spread through so many channels and seeing a poster like this is very uncommon.
Kommunistisches Tagblatt
Proletarier aller Länder, vereinigt euch!
Jahrgang 2 Freitag, 2 August 1935. Nummer 104.
Klerikofaschismus in Nöten:
Heimwehr vor der Auflösung? Wien, 1. August. – Ein Erlass der österreichischen Heimkehrführung verbietet in Hinkunft jede politische Kundgebung der Heimwehren und droht mit Disziplinarverfahren und Ausstossung aus der Heimwehr gegen alle Zuwiderhandelnde. Im Erlass heisst es: “Die Habsburgerfrage dürfte kein Streitobjekt innerhalb der Heimwehr bilden. Falls es isch herausstellen sollte, dass es unmöglich sei, bei bestimmten Verbänden weiteres Politisieren zu verhindern, werden solche Formationen aufgelöst. Die Regierung sei stark genug, auch ohne sie auszukommen. “Die wilde Drohung verdeckt aber nur die innere Schwäche der österreichischen klerofaschistischen Diktatur.
The Red flag (eng)
Communist daily paper
Proletarians of all countries, unite!
Year 2 Friday, August 2, 1935. Number 104.
Cleric fascism in need:
Home Guard Before Dissolution? Vienna, August 1st. - In the future, a decree issued by the Austrian return commander forbids any political rally by the home ward and threatens disciplinary proceedings and expulsion from the home guard against all offenders. The decree states: “The Habsburg question should not be a subject of dispute within the home defense. If it turns out that it is impossible to prevent further politicization in certain associations, such formations will be dissolved. The government is strong enough to get by without it. “But the wild threat only hides the inner weakness of the Austrian clergy-fascist dictatorship.*
The newspaper Die Rote Fahne was founded on November 9, 1918 by Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg in Berlin - initially as a journalistic organ of the Spartacus League. As a result of the constitution of the German Communist Party (KPD) on January 1, 1919, it was the central organ of the party until 1945. Banned after the end of the Weimar Republic, it was spread underground during the dictatorship of National Socialism under the conditions of illegality in party-close resistance circles.
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|---|---|---|
| Karl Liebknecht | Rosa Luxemburg |
The Spartacus League (German: Spartakusbund) was a Marxist revolutionary movement organized in Germany during World War I. The League was named after Spartacus, leader of the largest slave rebellion of the Roman Republic. It was founded by Karl Liebknecht, Rosa Luxemburg, Clara Zetkin, and others. The League subsequently renamed itself the Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands (KPD), joining the Comintern in 1919. Its period of greatest activity was during the German Revolution of 1918, when it sought to incite a revolution by circulating the newspaper Spartacus Letters.
(https://www.dhm.de/fileadmin/medien/lemo/Titelbilder/pl006972.jpg) KPD Spartakusbund Berlin, 1919 Offsetdruck 62x47 cm © Deutsches Historisches Museum, Berlin Inv.-Nr: P 62/951 [3]
In the polemic, Rosa Luxemburg argued that capitalism needs to constantly expand into noncapitalist areas in order to access new supply sources, markets for surplus value, and reservoirs of labor. According to Luxemburg, Marx had made an error in Capital in that the proletariat could not afford to buy the commodities they produced, and therefore by his own criteria it was impossible for capitalists to make a profit in a closed-capitalist system since the demand for commodities would be too low, and therefore much of the value of commodities could not be transformed into money. Therefore, according to Luxemburg, capitalists sought to realize profits through offloading surplus commodities onto non-capitalist economies, hence the phenomenon of imperialism as capitalist states sought to dominate weaker economies. This however lead to the destruction of non-capitalist economies as they were increasingly absorbed into the capitalist system. With the destruction of non-capitalist economies however, there would be no more markets to offload surplus commodities onto, and capitalism would break down.
The Red Flag database is an image collecion of selected images which relate to the meaning and world build around the word red flag. Red Flag has so many different meanings and faces around the world and in different cultures. Therfore I chose some images to compare and show next to each other what they can mean and look like.
Collecte images from books, websites or in textes. The more the better of the collection I could choose from.
 In Formula 1 and other racing sports the red flag stands for stopping the race after an accident. The accident is so hard that the race has to be stoped at that point. |
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 Demonstrators carrying a red flag. The language in the background seems to be chinese. The red color of a flag in this context can stand for communism and socialism. |
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 In 2006 the canadian punk group Billy Talent released a song called red flag. The video showed a revolution by the youths |
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 Red flag in emails can stand for last warning or for a very important reminder. |
 A solid red flag, signifying the ship’s intent to engage in combat with a Spanish galleon (left ship), flies at the Dutch warship's stern (right ship). |
 Two fighter pilots, Phil Clark and Jay Rivers, who flew together in Vietnam are assigned to the elite Air Force Fighter Weapons School (known as "Red Flag") at Nellis AFB, Nevada about a decade after the war. |
 Red Flag-Alaska is a realistic, 10-day air combat United States Air Force training exercise held up to four times a year. |
 Chinese soldiars holding a red flag. |
 Plain red banners for the Sultan's retinue. From the collection Moeurs et costumes des Orientaux, undated |
Images and gifs [5]
Collection of different ways to represent a red flag in a digital way with a variety of softwares.
Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Indesign, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe After Effect, Page, SketchBook Pro, Cinema 4D, Processing, Paint S for Apple
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|---|---|---|
| Adobe Illustrator | Adobe Indesign | Adobe Photoshop |
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|---|---|---|
| SketchbookPro | Processing | Cinema 4D |
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| Adobe After Effects | Apple Pages | Paint S |
The Fraktur or Blackletters carry a heavy backpack of stereotypes with them each day. Often seen in propaganda of the nazis in print, letters or movie the typeface was dragged through the dirt.
Create an excercise for myself to only work with blackletters and simple shapes. A serie of posters by using only two blackletters. An older version of the Fetter Fraktur and a digitalised Potsdam Fraktur. Try to show the typefaces in details and in its pures form, almost like type specimen.
My main transcoding tool was to create an improved archive website for the red flag newspaper. Going throught the newspapers on the IISG website I was missing the details and informations from the photographies or scannes of the newspaper. To improve this missing part I started on an early stage on already to think how this could work as a website. I needed someone a zoom function that lets the user dive deeper into details of the newspapers. But at the same time I would need a transcripted text below if it was to hard to figure out or to translate from german to english.
My Website provides more details and better understanding of the red flag newspaper. Thanks to the the black and white photos the contrast is higher and therfore the text is more readable. With the zoom function it is possible now to look at each sentence or even single letters.
The aim of this Tool is to be able research further about the Red Flag Newspaper. The Zoom function and transcripts text from the newspaper allows the user to learn more in details and depths about the newspaper. On the IISG archive website you are able to click on it ant thats kinda it. If the photos is in bad resolution then its even worse. With this tool you can zoom into details, learn more about it and even already have transcript text from the newspaper to the webpage.
Currently the website is hosted via Github. This works good because its easy to change and reupload without any further problems. If there are any problems, they are easy to solve due to the large community of Github. The website is written by myself in html and css and uses for the zoom function and text javascript.
Sketches and results of my progress to create my tool.
First Version of a Sketch where the newspaper is translated into a digital format.
Close up Sketch of an interactive page where you can click and zoom on one page.
Almost full frame high resolution images to read and look at each detail.
More details about the Newspaper. Transcript in german aswell as in english.
Overview of different newspapers but also of different posters by the designers.
Large Newspaper Title for the toolkit website.
German Fraktur Letters
German Fraktur Letters
[6]
First clean improved sketches of a clear title and text on the starting page.
The possibility to click on images and zoom into them.
Screenshots of the action
Second screenshots of the action
Third screenshots of the action
Overview of my newspaer archive.
TOOLKIT -> https://vincentrhein.github.io/RedFlagArchive/
Inputs and codes I found for my tools during research or at group talks.
https://kranten.archiefalkmaar.nl/issue/ACO/1936-03-04/edition/null/page/7?query=
https://codepen.io/uglycoyote/pen/gpfeC
https://codepen.io/creme/pen/gOYrvxM
https://www.w3schools.com/howto/howto_js_image_zoom.asp
It was very interesting to work with IISG in Amsterdam and to discover this place. I guess I was lucky that I went a few times to the archive before everything shut done due to the virus. Therefor I had a lot of photography material of the newspaper to work with. Maybe for me personally that shows I should get things done the moment I can and not push it out. In this case it worked quite well. The topic I chose is I would say not very typical for me and I liked it because through this I could learn a lot about the GDR past which I had no idea of. Furthermore that I worked on a website also thought me a lot because I think I might have chosen an other way if I could have keep on working at school in the workshops. The tool I developed and worked on seems to work and provides a solution. Working in a markdown on github and also hosting website with github was an other tool which I could learn and now use after this semester.
My outcome is an improved archive about the red flag newspaper. The tool of zooming and translated text makes it easier and better to read and inform yourself about the newspaper. It applies especially great on a newspaper because it makes it possible to identify and read the smallest parts of a newspaper which were not accessible before. The website provides and in depth view for different exemplares of the red flag.
TOOLKIT LINK TO THE WEBSITE https://vincentrhein.github.io/RedFlagArchive/
I was able to improve my skills in research and coding. Compared to my last years third year semester I think I developed better in coding and research. Coding was something I mostly avoided but in this semester I used it more and also next to IMD/Coding to improve in it. With this assignment I got to learn about a new source for research, the IISG. Researched felt more “alive” when you can visit a place and see and talk with the people there which was very nice. Hosting websites and understanding some basic of markdown on Github are also something new I learned this semester which is defiantly going to be useful in the future.
[1]: Karl Liebknecht - https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0e/Karl_Liebknecht.jpg/440px-Karl_Liebknecht.jpg"
[2]: Rosa Luxemburg - "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/52/Rosa_Luxemburg.jpg/440px-Rosa_Luxemburg.jpg"
[3]: Spartakusbund- "https://www.dhm.de/fileadmin/medien/lemo/Titelbilder/pl006972.jpg"
[4]: The Accumulation of Capitalism by Rosa Luxemburg - "https://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1913/accumulation-capital/"
[5]: Images and gifs from Red-Flag-Database - "https://media.giphy.com/media/520eqgjwzZi2Prvkxa/giphy.gif" https://media.giphy.com/media/eipWeODuIDzbaic7NM/giphy.gif https://media.giphy.com/media/521WDxQOqDR4ycWIpl/giphy.gif https://tenor.com/view/wang-yibo-yibo-uniq-chinese-handsome-gif-15750384 https://tenor.com/view/45-45s-colorguard-dca-flag-gif-12070374 https://tenor.com/view/ussr-gif-8554666 https://tenor.com/view/communism-communist-flag-wave-soviet-flag-gif-16196202 https://tenor.com/view/amanda-diaz-big-red-flag-nope-gif-10196257 https://media.giphy.com/media/fYNSI87f937Is2sNEF/giphy.gif https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xODM0ODA2NS9vcmlnaW4uZ2lmIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYxNTUwNTgxNH0.dPu8INlHQbGjyUHtVQGOWeabjFlG9-YdR__OplfJPws/img.gif?width=980 https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xODM0ODA2Ni9vcmlnaW4uZ2lmIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYxODc5NjM5MH0.CvwIyoSydJs3baNLJtAeoYBcRUa7dttb_xUrlEhzn_s/img.gif?width=980 https://s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/secure.notion-static.com/74f8b8ba-2e72-4884-9712-d22d193eb745/Screen_Shot_2020-03-08_at_11.00.06.png?X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Credential=AKIAT73L2G45O3KS52Y5%2F20200503%2Fus-west-2%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20200503T163602Z&X-Amz-Expires=86400&X-Amz-Signature=d1285dac7268f6c3efe1af6f26bef6ec6b5123e5f32f022fede1046bf22025f5&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&response-content-disposition=filename%20%3D%22Screen_Shot_2020-03-08_at_11.00.06.png%22 https://s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/secure.notion-static.com/243be615-c096-40ba-a26b-4b2f38525cd1/Screen_Shot_2020-03-08_at_11.04.40.png?X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Credential=AKIAT73L2G45O3KS52Y5%2F20200503%2Fus-west-2%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20200503T163609Z&X-Amz-Expires=86400&X-Amz-Signature=14dbd0ceb0b68e1df53ad8fb54223e1cdfadb7e5bac5335108ee6713016e9a0f&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&response-content-disposition=filename%20%3D%22Screen_Shot_2020-03-08_at_11.04.40.png%22 https://s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/secure.notion-static.com/a64baa4a-003e-4f1a-97af-2176bd269131/Screen_Shot_2020-03-08_at_11.08.26.png?X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Credential=AKIAT73L2G45O3KS52Y5%2F20200503%2Fus-west-2%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20200503T163616Z&X-Amz-Expires=86400&X-Amz-Signature=e166a9cc4b5d3fa0647ce259cf4c6c7daabfbdcde6bdfb425c7867fce6ebcbcb&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&response-content-disposition=filename%20%3D%22Screen_Shot_2020-03-08_at_11.08.26.png%22 https://s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/secure.notion-static.com/471a7f79-2d02-4a93-b2a2-b677aaf329b6/Screen_Shot_2020-03-08_at_11.08.46.png?X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Credential=AKIAT73L2G45O3KS52Y5%2F20200503%2Fus-west-2%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20200503T163623Z&X-Amz-Expires=86400&X-Amz-Signature=a30ccfdcf173f434ccf6feb2d560b88449491b08f7cd110d0db4daecf57e15a5&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&response-content-disposition=filename%20%3D%22Screen_Shot_2020-03-08_at_11.08.46.png%22 https://s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/secure.notion-static.com/5595c480-39d0-4727-b796-ad0e191a6696/Screen_Shot_2020-03-08_at_11.09.45.png?X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Credential=AKIAT73L2G45O3KS52Y5%2F20200503%2Fus-west-2%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20200503T163629Z&X-Amz-Expires=86400&X-Amz-Signature=aad3b5fc6ef0b7bf3275f5b1d35dfbcf5e29731134e8089430478f4916fc7ec9&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&response-content-disposition=filename%20%3D%22Screen_Shot_2020-03-08_at_11.09.45.png%22 https://s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/secure.notion-static.com/864474fe-6308-4655-8586-c86121bbbb78/Screen_Shot_2020-03-08_at_11.15.08.png?X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Credential=AKIAT73L2G45O3KS52Y5%2F20200503%2Fus-west-2%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20200503T163637Z&X-Amz-Expires=86400&X-Amz-Signature=2337ed2fc50f3feec803198f5d546396f089f987169bd729d2fc19def14fd4ff&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&response-content-disposition=filename%20%3D%22Screen_Shot_2020-03-08_at_11.15.08.png%22 https://www.gstatic.com/tv/thumb/v22vodart/5594/p5594_v_v8_aa.jpg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7WRH5TN4Jk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmKF3CKdrcs https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b6/Redflagalaska.jpg?1584270866551 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2JJ4N2uXuc https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cf/Moeurs_et_costumes_des_Orientaux_%28recueil%29.f022.jpg
[6]: Fraktur - https://www.deutsche-handschrift.de/images/fraktur.gif
[7]: Video Website Sketch - https://youtu.be/zsH9NA6Ytvg
[8]: Foundation of the Spartacus group - https://dietrommlerarchiv.files.wordpress.com/2018/12/Gru%CC%88ndung-Spartakusgruppe.jpeg?w=1024
