17.3.1901, Hamburg:
Fide Struck is born in humble circumstances in the Gängeviertel.
1907–1920:
Attended primary school, apprenticeship as a textile merchant. Recruitment in 1918, no front-line service.
1920–1921:
Member of the "Neue Schar", a youth movement.
As of 1920:
Relationship with Therese Kallmeyer (married 1922). Birth of two sons.
1924:
Separation, Fide Struck assumes custody of the children.
1924, Neuruppin:
Working as an accountant in the open-air housing association "Handwerkschaft Gildenhall", an alternative art and business project. He and his children are in a shared living and housing arrangement with the couple Else and Harry Großmann (weaver/painter).
1925:
Struck learns photography under the photographer Curt Warnke.
1926–1927:
Birth of Fide and Else's son. Dissolution of the cohabitation. Struck's eldest sons are sent to a children's home.
1928, Berlin:
Accountant at the housing association "Brandenburgische Heimstätte".
1929, Potsdam:
Renewed relationship with Else Großmann, now a journalist for the Social Democratic and Communist publication Arbeiter-Illustrierte-Zeitung.
31.1.1933:
Takeover by the National Socialists.
As of 1931, Berlin:
Relationship with the stenotypist Martha "Martel" Nürnberg (married 1935). Return of the sons from the children's home.
Summer 1932:
Struck loses his job. Acquires new photographic equipment. He presumably intensifies his activity as a freelance photojournalist. From January 1935 onwards he begins working again for the "Brandenburgische Heimstätte".
9.10.1933:
Double-page photo reports with Struck's photographs of heath farmers, the vegetable market and fish market, shipyards and shrimp fishermen appear in the disguised Nazi magazine "Arbeit in Bild und Zeit".
1934:
Supports imprisoned friends, including KPD members Else and Harry Großmann. Fide Struck turns to less political subjects: The zoo, his family, landscape.
1941:
Fide Struck packs his around 3,000 negatives into a wooden suitcase.
1943:
Birth of his youngest son Thomas.
1945:
Sale of his photographic equipment.
1945–1970:
Moves with the suitcase full of photographs from Bad Münder am Deister to Hamburg, Stuttgart and then back to Hamburg.
15.10.1985:
Fide Struck dies.
24.5.2015:
Opening of the suitcase.
Fide Struck, around 1935, Foto Martel Struck, © bpk, Fide Struck, Slg. Thomas Struck