Those familiar with such series of pictures from the "Arbeiter-Illustrierte-Zeitung" (Workers' Illustrated Newspaper) grasp Ballhause's special method here: he concretises the abstract mass misery using the example of an individual figure who retains the particularity of the individual case in private, on the street, in the city, with colleagues. It is stated, not interpreted. Thus, in the end, the remaining strength, the sense of togetherness of the workers is revealed, unadorned, a fact. As Seghers tells it, where, as in "Rettung", she populates her stories with proletarian figures.
(Beicken, Peter, in: Solidarisches Sehen oder Weimars Ende in Hannover. Der Arbeiterfotograf Walter Ballhause, in: Die Horen, 27th year, vol. 2 (1982), issue 126, p. 63–70)
"One day I was commissioned by the "Kuckuck" to do a report under the motto "One in a Million". That was in September 1932. [...] Thereupon I chose Karl with his family and his living situation. [...]. And now comes the essential part, namely [...] the art of typifying the typical. So I had to think about what is typical for an unemployed person? And I thought of these motifs and photographed them that way. The texts I added to the pictures are mine. [...] All that was done was to add a nice swing here and there."
(Walter Ballhause 1984, in: Interview with Hannes Schmidt (excerpts published in: Medium, 1985, 11/12, p. 80 ff.))
