The exhibition "The Road to the Basic Law. Photographs by Erna Wagner-Hehmke" at the LVR Industrial Museum St. Antony-Hütte impressively conveys how German democracy found its origins after the Second World War. With around 4,000 photographs, the Düsseldorf photographer Wagner-Hehmke documented the work of the Parliamentary Council in 1948 on behalf of the NRW state government. Her vivid photographs not only show the historical moments of the constitution negotiations, but also private scenes in cafés and beer gardens.
With her visual language, Erna Wagner-Hehmke created a rare visual chronicle that goes far beyond the few surviving film and sound recordings of this decisive phase of German history. Her photos from the 1920s make the atmosphere of that time tangible again today.
In addition to Wagner-Hehmke's work, photographs by her colleague Anne Winterer, with whom she ran a studio in Düsseldorf between 1925 and 1935, are also on display at the LVR Industrial Museum St. Antony-Hütte in Oberhausen. 100 years after the founding of the "Hehmke-Winterer" photographic workshop, the works are thus returning to a joint exhibition venue.
