before; using only a very rudimentary camera, he wanted us to find a new way of seeing something that had already been photographed millions of times. I took my shot of it looking between the legs of the policemen there and got a good grade.” Pre-War Years His knack for framing the familiar in interesting ways served him well during a visit to the Netherlands, where he made some life-changing discoveries. “I was fascinated by the vastness of the country,” he wrote. He returned to Berlin having not only discovered a love for landscape photography that would sustain him throughout his life. He also learned that he could earn a living by taking pictures when he sold his Netherlands photos for publication. After two years at Brauhaus, Bock-Schroeder, at the age of 18, began his professional career as a journeyman photographer, chronicling his travels through Sweden, England and Belgium. “Travel is the best education for a photographer,” he wrote. “In those wander years I was able to experiment and shoot however I felt like. I had time, there were no `musts’ and earning a living wasn’t an issue. I was married to my camera.” Of all the activities that flourished in Berlin before the lights went out on Jan. 30, 1933, when Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany and the 12 years Nazi nightmare began, none was more exciting – nor more dangerous – than politics. While Nazis and Communists battled in the streets, 20-year-old Bock-Schroeder joined the Social Democratic Party (SPD). With the triumph of the right, the leftist SPD was banned, its leadership imprisoned and in many cases murdered. Detained and questioned by the Gestapo in 1933 when his name appeared on membership roles of the banned Social Democratic Party, Bock-Schroeder was ordered to work as part of the "Arbeits Dienst". World War II When, in 1938, as the Nazi war machine geared up for the coming invasion of Poland and the state-run Kristallnacht pogrom signaled the beginning of all-out war against Germany's Jewish population, Bock- Schroeder attempted to flee to the Netherlands. He was arrested and sent back to Germany. When the war broke out on September 1, 1939, Bock-Schroeder enlisted in the Luftwaffe. During the war he served as aerial gunner and war correspondent in Erwin Rommel’s Afrika Corps. By the spring of 1945, Bock-Schroeder and fellow veterans of Rommel’s vanquished Afrika Corps were ordered to