Ammer's novel published!
"Alberts Bilder bleiben"
Two years of extensive research, planning, writing and rewriting led to success: My novel is available on amazon.de
The comprehensive edition is available here.
The historic novel and bio-book tells the dramatic live of cameraman Albert Ammers in the years from 1930 until 1953.
The novel is available in a 500-page edition with 80 original photographs. The story unveils unbelievable, real and fact-proven adventures.
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Photographs capture his home in rural Thuringa, present people of Sicily in spring of 1941, portraits of greeks from 1941 to 1943 and spectacular views of bloody world war 2 in France 1944 plus pictures from destroyed Berlin in winter 1944.
Albert Ammer showed great empathy for "ordinary" people and he loved to take pictures. At the end of world war II he becomes film cameraman for German propaganda. He was one of the very few cameramen who stayed behind a film camera until the very end of the war. He survived with great luck and a bluff against militant soldiers. Already in 1940 he spent his first day in a prison cell.
After the apocalypse of the war he founded the cinema news studio in Weimar Thuringa with the help of his valuable film camera. From then on he put "real people" within the focus of his camera lenses. With priority of honest and hard-working people he documented the years of the "times inbetween" until the East-German, communist state would be founden.
Being crazy for film news, he lead a film crew to document the uprising against the communist regime on June 17th 1953. Already the next morning he is thrown into jail - just for filming people demonstrating. He will be turned into an enemy of state. His passion for people eventually put him behind bars. Today his films and photographs make long gone lives shine. With his camera he put hard-working farmers, poor day-to-day workers into the spotlights. His portrayals from Sicily and Greece dating back to 1941 and 1943 create big sympathy for the optimistic power of humans.
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During the brutal war, he witnessed war crimes and looked into the eyes of true evil. Nevertheless he never lost hope and believed in human kindness and artistic beauty. The novel follows true stories and events over more than twenty years in some of the most outrageous times in history. As a private soldier he found himself within the propaganda machinery of evil Nazis and still tried to find hope within the exes of the persons he photographed.
After the forced collape of Nazi Germany and the liberation of Germany by US and Soviet forces, he wished for the best new start in an almost completely destroyed country. With his camera he became the eye-witness of rebuilding of a new East German state in Thuringa and Saxony-Anhalt.
By 1949 his hopes for a better and more democratic future perished again. State-run propaganda, now from the communist side, dominated film news making. He tried to maintain personal freedom and upheld his dreams for the better. On June 17th 1953 he took he pointed his film camera at the hundred of thousands of people demonstrating against the communist regime. He paid a hefty price and disapperared in communist jail. He will be declared an enemy of state.
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The novel is based on his own private and kept-secret notes. More than 80 original pictures from his cameras illustrate historic events and show real people of the times. The pictures by Albert Ammer survived through war, hate-driven and brutal regimes and tell an unique biography.
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It is all about stories of hope, drama, love, despair and lots of good luck in horrific times. It was the smile of the "ordinary people" that he photograped, that let him keep the faith on a better future. A novel based on unbelievable, true events.
"Alberts Bilder bleiben"
Historical novel and biography 2023
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by Alexander K. Ammer
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Paperback
515 pages
81 photographs
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Available at amazon.de
Price: €36,96*
*Amazon significantly increased printing costs in July 2023
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