Filled
with humorous details and patriotic verse, this photomontage by Emil Vogt, a
local portrait photographer in the North Sea port of Cuxhaven, must have been
made as a keepsake for the seamen of this artillery unit—a class picture of a
sort as they finished their three-year term as conscripts in the Imperial
German Navy. Below the German war flag at the top, signal flags on the left
yardarm read P-T-A (“I am weighing anchor”) and on the right 0-4-1-2 (April
1912, the month of the sailors’ departure). A signpost points “zur heimat” [“to
home”] and the company’s radio-operator sends a final message, “An alle
Stationen: Übung beendet” [“To all stations: Exercise completed.”] Our delight
in the young sailors’ lighthearted antics and the photographer’s playful
manipulations is tempered by the knowledge that World War I would soon upend
millions of similarly carefree lives on all sides.