Fascinating photos show how many of history’s iconic images were edited for political reasons… from Winston Churchill without his famous cigar to a portrait of Abraham Lincoln that isn’t really him
A gallery of interesting before and after shots show how history was rewritten with some photo editing – and still influences our historical memory today
A FASCINATING gallery reveals how iconic photos throughout history have been doctored.
Some of the world’s most famous photographs were heavily altered – in a time before Photoshop even existed.
From snaps of Hitler without his close associate Joseph Goebbels to a portrait of Abraham Lincoln that isn’t really him, many of history’s most iconic photographs were actually airbrushed and doctored for political purposes and propaganda.
A gallery of interesting before and after shots show how history was literally rewritten with some photo editing – and still influences our historical memory today.
In a 1937 photograph, Adolf Hitler had his Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels removed from the original image.
It remains unclear why exactly Goebbels fell foul of the Fuhrer – but it may have been to make Hitler appear all-powerful in the running of Nazi Germany.
Meanwhile in in a doctored 1939 photo of the Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother and Canada Prime Minister, Mackenzie King - King George VI was taken out from the original photograph.
The snap was used on an election poster for the Prime Minister and it is thought that Mackenzie King perhaps had the photo altered because an image of just him and The Queen Mother painted him in a more powerful light.
Another iconic portrait or lithograph of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln is not actually him at all – it’s a composite of Lincoln’s head and the Southern politician John Calhoun.
Calhoun had died one decade before Lincoln was elected as President of the United States.
But, it seems that Russian Communists were perhaps the most notorious at doctoring images and reshaping history, with Leon Trotsky erased from a photograph of Vladmir Lenin addressing a crowd – after being denounced by the Soviet Union leader for siding with the opposition.
Through this modification, Lenin also got the opportunity to show that he was the most important person in carrying out the Russian Revolution.
And it seems that Stalin was also a fan of photo manipulation.
He added himself into a picture to show him visiting the ailing Lenin at his dacha in 1922 shortly before his death and also erased his Head of Secret Police, Nikolai Yezhov, after he proved disloyal to him.
Meanwhile, this photograph of Russian troops hoisting the red flag over burning Berlin is recognised as one of the most famous wartime images – but it was in fact doctored to protect the soldier from the wrath of Joseph Stalin.
The photo was altered prior to publication to remove what appeared to be a second watch from the right arm of the soldier.
However, in the original, the soldiers had watches on both wrists and the photographer worried that Stalin would take that as evidence of looting – a crime that Stalin threatened execution over.
Back in the nineteenth and early twentieth century, without clever photo editing apps at their disposal, retouching images was extremely time consuming and required numerous tools.
Photographs were altered by hand using paint or ink and then pieced together in the darkroom from separate photographs.
Previously, we revealed the stunning colourised photos bring black and white shots from history to life… from D-Day to the Queen’s Coronation.
We also brought you the fascinating black and white photos revealing a vibrant pre-Blitz London in the 1930s.
