Book Review: Hitler Moves East: A Graphic Chronicle, 1941-43

A few years back I was undertaking an informal study of books about the works of artists who used scale models of one sort or another as their medium. Other interests took over and I parked the project. The last few months though I've felt a need to revisit that project, especially now that the Havelock micro-layout has reentered my thoughts. There're things I want to communicate with that little chunk of foam and track that I think the techniques employed by these artists might help with, so I thought now was a good time to get back to my studies.

One book in this genre that I've been meaning to get for quite awhile is Hitler Moves East: A Graphic Chronicle, 1941-43 by David Levinthal and Garry Trudeau (of Doonesbury fame). I found a copy online that was a good price, and the shipping cost wasn't crazy, so I ordered it.

In the past I didn't pay much attention to any internal markings indicating something about a book's provenance, but these days I do, what with today's book shredding frenzy and a mass turning away from the printed word and all.

This book used to belong to a university library. Wikipedia tells me that the Kent Institute of Art & Design was formed in 1987 as a result of a merger of three art and design schools, and the University for the Creative Arts was formed in 2005 under a different name from a merger of the Kent Institute with another school. The merged entity became the University for the Creative Arts in 2008.

The book was first published in 1977 by Sheed, Andrews, and McMeel, and reprinted in 1989 by the Laurence Miller Gallery. My copy is the reprint edition.

There are many text-free, double page spreads like this one that let the photos speak for themselves.

In the Preface Trudeau refers to the work as a "paper movie", and I think that's a good description. It's a collection of staged photographs of HO and 1/35 scale toys and models, integrated with quotes and descriptive text, of the World War II German invasion of the Soviet Union. The book's story starts in June 1941 and takes the reader chronologically through the horror up to February 1943. The work was the thesis project of Levinthal and Trudeau at the Yale School of Art in the early 1970s.

An example of the integration of text into the "paper movie".

The photos aren't like the typical ones shot by hobbyists. They're monochromic, atmospheric, soft focus, and impressionistic. Showing off detail and fidelity to visual reality isn't the aim, but capturing real moods is. The Technical Information section has this to say:

"The sense of reality was augmented in this [JDL: the photo of an explosion throwing soldiers into the air that spans pages 18 and 19.] and many other photographs in Hitler Moves East by the narrow depth of field used in taking the pictures. Having only one small area in sharp focus permitted the models in the background and foreground to assume amorphous shapes that both obscured their identities as toys and contributed atmospherically to the compositions."

I found the imagery stunning. The only other book of Levinthal's work I have is War Games, but I'm looking forward to digging up his others.