Of Crises and War

by Philippe von Borries

In recent weeks, the relationship between the Bush Administration and the U.S. media has grown unusually tense. With constant new attacks aimed at coalition targets in Iraq, the news media feel a natural obligation to focus on the unstable security situation there.

The administration feels that such reports paint an unnecessarily grim picture of developments in Iraq. To shape the right image for the eyes of the U.S. public, the Pentagon is taking an increasingly forceful stand on denying journalists access to disturbing images — or to individuals that may tell too harsh a story.

Regrettably, what the Administration's policy amounts to is censorship in no subtle form.

It is in this context that we present photographs by Knut Müller. Mr. Müller's pictures tell stories of war and conflict across time and across the world. Stories of violence and gruesome murder, of persecution and arbitrary justice.

And while these photographs are frequently distressing, hopeless and sad — they never fail to remind us of the importance of telling the whole story.

Knut Müller's series, "Of Crises and War," presents a selection of his photo-journalistic work from 1989 to 2003. During these 14 years, Mr. Müller documented scenes of war in Albania, Bosnia, Somalia, Kosovo and Iraq.

About Knut Müller

Born in 1952 in Halle, Germany, Mr. Müller earned a university degree in art and design in 1975. Among his key professional principles are his insistence to create the "greatest possible confrontation with the viewer," and the importance of documenting faces — because in war, one can get as close as is possible to a "truthful representation of a person's emotion." And yet, while he believes that photographs are vital in depicting war, "they never can tell the entire truth."

According to his frequent travel companion, SPIEGEL journalist Claus Christian Malzahn, Mr. Müller's most prominent characteristics are his "resolute photographic eye," his "inner peace" — and his tendency to get nervous when everything is calm.

Over the years, the camera has become Mr. Müller's most valued piece of protection — and sometimes his camera has even saved other lives.

In 1999, for example, Mr. Müller documented the unrelenting persecution of a Serb by a mob of Albanians right in the heart of Pristina. His picture tells a story of incensed hatred and seething violence of a group of young Albanian men based purely on the ethnic background of a man going his way.

By unyieldingly keeping his camera steady and following the mob and its prey, Mr. Müller eventually noticed the discomfort his pictorial documentation was creating in his subjects.

With the help of a group of British "blue-helmets," the Serb was eventually liberated — and Mr. Müller's camera is likely to at least have slowed and prevented the almost imminent death of an innocent human being.