I’m looking to decorate my walls a bit more, and I’d like some images/scenes that are iconically German. I was a German major and have a lot of fondness for the language/culture/history, but I’ve honestly forgotten a lot of the imagery and am looking to Dopers to help me.
I already have a couple of maps of German-speaking countries circa 1912, so that’s probably off the table. Also, would like to avoid WWII stuff which paints Germans in a negative light (so, like, no photos of american troops surveying concentration camps upon liberation. Not that those images aren’t very important, of course, but I don’t think it’s appropriate to display them on my walls).
You definitely need a picture of a castle, which is the iconic German image to me. I suggest Neuschwanstein. And of course the fall of the Berlin wall.
One of the last pics of Hitler, handing out awards to Hitler Youth in the final days of the war. It encompasses the remnants of what Germany had aspired to with the reality of the effects of those aspirations and what it meant for the future.
Posters in general are a good idea. 20th century Germans designed MONSTER posters.
If you want something less commercial, get prints of the works of Caspar David Friedrich, the German who ushered in the Romantic movement in painting. Because so few of his works ever left Germany – I think there’s ONE in the Met in NYC, and ONE in the Louvre – they will be new to the eyeballs of your friends.
Germania, the country personified as a hot babe wearing pseudo-medieval garments, usually carrying a sword and a gold shield with the imperial eagle on it.
I think a photo of Unter den Linden in Berlin would be an attractive addition. I also love the way certain Bavarian towns look, it’s like a storybook village. Check out images of Rothenburg and Garmische.
