The mysterious German fad for posing with a polar bear imitator

Jean-Marie Donat’s TeddyBär collection of surreal photographs from the mid-20th century proves it is still possible to discover genuine unearthliness in a vintage find

It could be a series of scenes from a novel dreamed up by Günter Grass. The author of The Tin Drum, The Flounder and other surreal stories of modern Germany would surely have seen the magic-realist poignancy of these bizarre images, found by Jean-Marie Donat, a French collector of photographs. Perhaps he could even help to explain why so many people in early and mid-20th-century Germany seem to have wanted to pose for their pictures with a polar bear.

In a Grass novel, we might follow the adventures of a polar-bear imitator as he puts on his hot, sweaty, furry white costume to appear beside a variety of Germans for their photographs. Here he is with a couple beside the Baltic sea. The man has taken off his top, but still wears long black trousers.

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