| Photo of dead woman holding her dead baby. Photo by Richard Peter (May 10, 1895 – October 3, 1977). Peter was fascinated by this corpse, and photographed it from many angles. The woman perished in a Dresden basement air raid shelter in Johannesstraße, holding her baby, who also perished. Her skin has degraded into a macabre sort of smile. After the firebombing of Dresden in February 1945, Peter entered the basement shelters before the crews cleaning out the bodies. His photographs of the dead are striking, showing how Dresden civilians suffocated in place in the shelters as the firestorm sucked the air out of them. While gruesome, the photographs reveals the true nature of war. Peter was expelled from the Socialist Unity Party of Germany for investigating corruption in 1949. That same year, he published his photographs of the bomb shelters in a book, Dresden, Eine Kamera Klagt An (“Dresden, a Camera Accuses”). | |
| Image Filename | wwii2234.jpg |
| Image Size | 480.53 KB |
| Image Dimensions | 2030 x 3006 |
| Photographer | Richard Peter |
| Photographer Title | Dresden, Eine Kamera Klagt An |
| Caption Author | Written or Adapted by Jason McDonald |
| Date Photographed | February 1, 1946 |
| Location | |
| City | Dresden |
| State or Province | Saxony |
| Country | Germany |
| Archive | Deutsche Fotothek |
| Record Number | 88951071 |
| Status | Caption ©2026 MFA Productions LLC Please Do Not Duplicate or Distribute Without Permission; Image in the Public Domain |
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