Love letters from the war
Love Letters from the War explores how war continues to echo through memory and emotional legacy — not through visible violence, but through the quiet struggle to remain human. The project is based on nearly one thousand field letters my German grandfather Karl wrote to my grandmother between 1943 and 1945.
In these letters, I expected to find fear, violence, and hardship, but instead I found tenderness and the will to hold on to love and dignity in times of moral collapse. This project offers an intimate glimpse into the inner world of an ordinary man. He was not a hero in any conventional sense, nor did he perform grand gestures or make history. His actions were small and humble – writing daily letters to his wife, reflecting on fleeting moments of beauty, and staying connected to what truly mattered.
The work combines three visual layers: original letters and documents, archival family photographs from the 1940s, and AI-generated visualizations that imagine moments never photographed but vividly described. Together they form a dialogue between reality and imagination, history and emotion.
Find out more:
Website: hannoketterer.com
Instagram: @hannoketterer