The author photographer Hildegard Ochse (1935–1997)
by Benjamin Ochse/ Hildegard Ochse estate

Her parents, Arthur Peter Maria Roemer (1893–1957) and school teacher and author Dr. Emma Maria Krusemeyer-Roemer (1894–1964) met in the 20s in Muenster.

Hildegard Maria Helene Ochse (maiden name Roemer) was born at home in Bad Salzuflen, Westphalia on December 7, 1935. The daughter of Hermann Krusemeyer (1854–1930), a high-up railway official, and Helene Krusemeyer (maiden name Dyckhoff 1868–?).

As of 1942 Hildegard attended the former Catholic elementary school and from 1946 the high school for girls. She was very athletic, received numerous sports awards and at thirteen became a certified lifeguard.
At age sixteen in the summer of 1952, Hildegard left in the summer the provincial Bad Salzuflen. She traveled as an exchange student on scholarship on the transatlantic route via Paris and Le Havre on the legendary SS United States to New York city and then on to Rochester. Included in her luggage was a camera, a gift from her parents to their rebellious daughter. The first remarkable photographs by Hildegard were taken on the Seine and at the bus station in Paris. It was the camera that from this point forward documented her life as a diary. Once in Rochester, she lived with a host family and attended the Catholic Nazareth Academy. She spent her free time swimming, horseback riding, reading and listening to music. Her host father was employed by Eastman Kodak as a senior chemist in the development department and his knowledge of photography became an important influence for Hildegard. In the USA, she produced her first portraits as well as remarkable street and architectural photographs. During her stay in the United States, she visited the Niagara Falls, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Washington DC, Delaware and Boston. Further architectural and urban landscapes have survived from her visit to New York. After a year in 1953, Hildegard returned to Bad Salzuflen with her high school diploma and other awards aboard the Italian luxury liner, the SS Andrea Doria, via the Azores, Gibraltar and Italy. The ship was known for its modern decoration and the artworks on board.

In 1955 she passed her German high exams with honors and began studying romance languages ​​and art history at the University of Freiburg in Breisgau. During her studies, she took numerous study trips to Switzerland, France and to Italy and met her future husband at the university in Freiburg. In 1957 she received a scholarship to Aix-en-Provence in southern France and lived with a photographer in modest conditions. She was impressed by the landscape and the colors in Provence and wrote »... if I were a painter, I think I could not paint this country because it is too BEAUTIFUL. And the eye cannot take in these colors and these forms at once. If painting a landscape, then northern Germany, the marshes, the fields...«. In the same year, she became pregnant in the fall, and her father unexpectedly died on her birthday. In March her marriage to the later Dr. Horst Ochse followed. In summer, she gave birth to her first child and had to quit studying. In the following seven years, Hildegard had three other children who required her full attention. In the spring of 1973, the family moved to West Berlin for professional reasons. Moving to the walled city was a serious turning point for Hildegard, as she lost almost all social connections from her studies in Freiburg and fell into a deep personal crisis. After an extended stay in France with the family in 1975, their marriage began to fail later leading to a final separation. Almost simultaneously in early 1975, Hildegard again discovered her passion for photography. At first she taught herself. Subsequently she learned through the Kreuz­berg photographer Association, in photography courses of the continuing education center in Zehlendorf in 1976, and later in the legendary photography workshop of Michael Schmidt (1945–2014) in Berlin-Kreuzberg.

At the beginning of the workshop, a somewhat orthodox documentary way of seeing dominated, which organized itself around the aesthetics of Michael Schmidt and focused on a presentation of everyday life. Later, the photography scene experimented with new forms of documentation which emphasized a subjective view of the author. Hildegard Ochse quickly developed an independent, artistic authorship with a personal viewpoint. Most students and attendees were self-taught and therefore had a more liberal understanding of the medium compared to professional photographers. The imagery and the content were initially more important than technical quality. She participated in courses under the direction of Ulrich Goerlich (1952–), Wilmar Koenig (1952–2019), as well as workshops by American photographers such as Lewis Baltz (1945–2014), John Gossage (1946–), Ralph Gibson (1939–) and Larry Fink (1952–) and the German photographer André Gelpke (1947–). Her imagery developed soon after initial attempts—profound, multi-layered and philosophical, dense, highly concentrated, conceptual and documentary. She created images primarily for herself and per her own wishes.

From 1978 Hildegard taught photography at the state media center, as well as at the Pedagogical University Berlin and could present her images in galleries for the first time. Shortly after her new beginning, the first photo series were purchased by the Berlin Gallery. After the final separation from her husband and a private fresh start, she established herself as an independent author photographer as of 1981. She received extensive commissions, grants and exhibitions at home and abroad. She traveled extensively with her camera and thus unintentionally documented her own life. Italy became her preferred destination. In 1995 she was diagnosed with leukemia. She died in the summer of 1997 at the age of 61 in Berlin.
Epilogue
Hildegard Ochse saw herself as an author photographer and less as a contract photographer or photojournalist. Her extensive photographic work remained undiscovered for a long time after her death, even though parts of her oeuvre were already in the collection of the Berlin Gallery, Deutscher Bundestag, Brandenburgisches Landesmuseum für moderne Kunst (BLMK), the University of Parma photography Center as well as in private collections. Among the most important groups of works include Nature in the city, urban vegetation (1979), No Future—Café Mitropa (1980), Winter in Berlin (1980–83), Topographic Sequences of the City and its Changing Landscapes (1983), Host country Federal Republic of Germany (1983), The oath to the Constitution (1987), KPM Royal Prussian Porcelain Factory (1987), Jerusalem (1989), In Memoriam ! (1989), Metamorphosis (1990), Walk through Mark Brandenburg (1990), Fishing in Normandy (1991).
Her work and publishing rights of Hildegard Ochse's photographs are now handled by her son Benjamin Ochse.
Online
Homepage: http://hildegard-ochse.de/
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hildegard_Ochse

Further reference
Deutscher Bundestag: https://www.bundestag.de/besuche/kunst/artothek/ankaeufe2018/ochse-591784
Prussian Heritage Image Archive: https://www.bpk-bildagentur.de/fotografen?show=3091
Hildegard Ochse @ akg-images https://www.akg-images.de/Package/2UMEBMVSS99Y
30 Years Fall of the Wall @ akg-images https://www.akg-images.de/Package/2UMEBMBP7ERSI