Dieter Bauer’s pictures are important contemporary documents. Including partly exclusive image material of the protagonists – beyond the official reporting taking place –, they document the Bonn and Berlin Republics with all their players and stakeholders and the domestic and foreign political events. Dieter Bauer accompanied the Federal Chancellors Schmidt, Kohl, Schröder and Angela Merkel, as well as numerous well-known politicians on journeys abroad. Among them, there were, for example, Richard von Weizsäcker or Franz Josef Strauß on his legendary journey through the GDR in the year 1983. He also reported from areas of crisis and war worldwide. He received the World Press Photo Award for his photo story from Afghanistan in 1983.

Born in Schweinfurt, Dieter Bauer trained as a typographer in Nuremberg before starting as a self-taught photographer. He worked as a regularly employed photographer for various daily newspapers in Nuremberg from 1972 to 1979. In 1980 he took over political reporting for the Springer publishing house in Bonn, until he switched to the Hamburg journal stern in 1983 following a recommendation by the recently deceased photographer and art director Thomas Höpker. At 29, he was the youngest regularly employed photographer there. He continued working in Bonn and then in Berlin after the move of the government. Finally, in 1998, he switched to “FOCUS” as the journal's only regularly employed photographer.

The Bayerische Staatsbibliothek will preserve this unique contemporary-historical photo archive in its entirety and will make it accessible successively. The takeover constitutes a further expansion of the collection of contemporary-historical documentary photography held by the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek. It comprises around 19.4 million pictures.

Dieter Bauer:

I am pleased that with the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek I have found a partner to preserve the photographic work of my life sustainably and to make it accessible step by step.

Director General Klaus Ceynowa:

With Dieter Bauer, we have gained an exceptional photographer for our Image Archive. His photographic work excellently complements the contemporary-historical focus of our collection.

About the Image Archive of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek
The Image Archive of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek comprises over 19.4 million images of a predominantly documentary character and with a contemporary historical emphasis. It is the largest image archive held by any public-sector institution in Germany. The main stock is constituted by the photo archive of the journal stern including more than 15 million pictures, which was taken over in 2019. The holdings will be successively digitized over the next few years.
Photographic archives

Press release for download  (PDF, 380 KB)  (in German)

Contact persons

Dr. Cornelia Jahn
Head of the Department of Maps and Images
Bayerische Staatsbibliothek
Ludwigstrasse 16, 80539 Munich
Phone  +49 89 28638-2287
cornelia.jahn@bsb-muenchen.de

Peter Schnitzlein
Head of Communications
Phone  +49 89 28638-2429
presse@bsb-muenchen.de