“After the border opened there was this hundred marks’ welcome money […] and people discussed whether to go and get it or not, whether it was humiliating or […] not.”
Carsten Jost was born in East Berlin in 1965. While studying theology in Jena and East Berlin, he became interested in photography. In 1990 he painted the picture “Politik ist die Fortsetzung des Krieges mit anderen Mitteln” (Politics is the continuation of war by other means) on the Berlin Wall, assisted by Ulrike Steglich. He now works as a freelance photographer.
Carsten Jost and Ulrike Steglich in the interview
The painting “Politik ist die Fortsetzung des Krieges mit anderen Mitteln” (Politics is the continuation of war by other means) by Jost and Steglich subverts the saying “War is merely a continuation of policy by other means” attributed to Prussian general Carl von Clausewitz. The image is based on a photograph. The artists painted it showing a dying or dead person with a 100 DM note hanging out of their mouth. The banknote is a play on the welcome money of 100 DM that all GDR citizens were entitled to collect in West Germany until the end of the year 1989.
Jost gained his school-leaving qualification with vocational training before studying theology in Jena. His ambition had been to open spaces for independent cultural and social activities in the GDR. In the event, he became a freelance photographer. After the fall of the Wall Jost spent some time working abroad on photo-reportages. Together with Ulrike Steglich, he painted the picture “Politik ist die Fortsetzung des Krieges mit anderen Mitteln” (Politics is the continuation of war by other means) on the Berlin Wall.
