From an Adventure Book to a War Photo Album? A Comparative Perspective on Photo Albums from the First and Second World Wars

War photography experienced its genesis during WWI, and by the time of WWII, it had become one of the most significant media and an important propagandistic weapon. Official propaganda images and pre-war conventions influenced the private photography of soldiers, which generally presented a less ideologically charged view on the war. Through the process of selection and composition, photo albums evolved into narrative spaces in which individual memories of the wars were constructed. In our article, we will investigate to what extent the conventions of private war photo albums evolved from an adventurous travelogue with touristic themes during WWI into a more straightforward documentation of brutal war events during WWII, and how this transformation manifested in private photo albums and reflects broader shifts in mentalities and ideological frameworks between these two periods. Our source material consists of private German photo albums from the Baltic Front during WWI (1914–1917), from the invasion of Poland (1939), and of Finnish Border Jaegers from the Finnish-Soviet Continuation War (1941–1944). This study contributes to a deeper understanding of the role of visual discourses in the reproduction of ideological narratives – a development that continues to be relevant in recent conflicts.