Elly Beinhorn as a Game Hunter (1933)
Abstract
In 1933, following a solo flight across Africa, celebrated German aviatrix Elly Beinhorn (1907–2007) posed for this photograph, which shows her as a game hunter. Comparing this photograph with the Völkerschau poster makes clear that, when it came to identity markers, whiteness trumped gender. Femininity in this photograph does not signal a threat to imagined borders but rather expresses German domination over space and nature. Beinhorn carried a weapon without appearing deviant; she stood straight, her posture was upright, and her facial expressions controlled.
Source
Source: German pilot Elly Beinhorn in on safari in the 1930s. Alamy, image number: CPJ10N. Photographer: Scherl / Süddeutsche Zeitung
Further Reading
Nina Berman, Klaus Mühlhahn, and Alain Patrice Nganang, eds., German Colonialism Revisited: African, Asian, and Oceanic Experiences. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2018.
Sara Friedrichsmeyer, Sara Lennox, and Susanne Zantop, eds., German Colonialism and its Legacies. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1998, pp. 107–24.
Bradley Naranch and Geoff Eley, eds., German Colonialism in a Global Age. Durham, NC, and London: Duke University Press, 2014.
Michael Perraudin, Jürgen Zimmerer, and Kate Heady, eds., German Colonialism and National Identity. New York: Routledge, 2011.
Britta Schilling, Postcolonial Germany. Memories of Empire in a Decolonized Nation, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.