Images Secretes
A Collection of Censored Photos
Magazine Cover from 1933
The following photos are from a 1933 post-war publication. In the first issue of a somewhat lurid and insinuating magazine, a special collection of so-called 'censored' or 'secret images' from the Great War was printed. The 200 photos were purported to have been officially censored for one reason or another by the French Ministry of Public Information. Strictly speaking this is somewhat of an exaggeration since many photos in this issue are simple portraits, albeight of convicted traitors or spies. But by and large the magazine does live up to the promise of showing photographs never published before in France.
A great deal are of executions of spies, it apparently being the custom in France for such events to be recorded for prosterity. Even though the general tone of the magazine is one of righteous condemnation of the horrors of modern war, the concensus was that (especially German) spies got what they deserved : execution at dawn.
This magazine was somewhat similar in tone to the anti-war books published in the 1920s. It is also patriotically French in essence while condemming some of the more innane inconsistencies in the censorship bureaucracy. That said and done the ultimate blame for the horrors of the Great War, is in the best interbellum French tradition, unequivocally placed upon the evils of German militarism and upon Teutonic culture in general.
* see also Hermann Rex : Unpublished Photos
