The Need to Know by Michael S. Honegger

My father was a spy during the Cold War. Bilingual in German and English, he worked for the U.S. Air Force and sent agents into East Germany and elsewhere behind the Iron Curtain in the early 1960s. The Need to Know, a photo book, is my exploration of the meager details that emerged from brief and cryptic conversations with my father and my curiosity about Cold War espionage and its impact upon my family at the time. The book will be published by the Blow Up Press of Warsaw, Poland in early October.

My father led two lives that rarely intersected. Family members were often the unwitting participants in indecipherable events that left us with many more questions than answers. Mysterious strangers would show up at our apartment late at night only to depart before dawn without saying a word to anyone other than my father. Peculiar encounters, curious radio transmissions, and unexplained coincidences became the norms of my childhood.

The book that I have worked on for the past four years is a photographic re-creation of the intersections and divergences of my father’s secret life and the traditional paternal role he played. The project consists of vernacular photographs, new captures and ephemera to tell a story and investigate a childhood mystery. Ironically, several of the archival photos in the project were photographed by me and my father on separate trips to West Berlin in the winter of 1961 but were only rediscovered recently. The Need to Know is the intersection of the factual and fictional based upon historical research, family archives, my memories, and my imagination.

The project is particularly timely as the issues of the Cold War have evolved but continue to play out on the international stage. The current crisis in Ukraine is just one example of the evolution of that conflict. The espionage tools of the 1960s look primitive to a degree but they, too, have changed to conform to the current applications and tools used for cyber warfare and propaganda purposes. The cycle of history continues to unwind in an ever-repetitive pattern.





Michael S. Honegger
Michael S. Honegger is a visual artist born in Germany with roots in the United States and France. His practice as a fine art and documentary photographer explores the performative nature of self-portraiture, the complexities of memory and family and an investigation of the ironies of American culture with an expatriate's eye. He received a B.A. in History & Spanish from Duke University, a M.S. in Foreign Service from Georgetown University, and a Professional Certificate in Visual Arts from Maine Media College. He has exhibited his work in numerous juried group and solo shows throughout the United States and Europe. His documentary project on the refugee crisis on the island of Lesvos, Greece in 2015 was widely published in major European newspapers and by Amnesty International in their initial press release on the crisis. The Economist The Guardian, Lenscratch and The Eye of Photography have also published his images. He is a European Content Editor for Lenscratch and currently resides in Nice, France.