In the spring of 1939, Richard Walther Darré, Reichsminister für Ernährung und Landwirtschaft contacted Anna Koppitz (1895-1989), who lived in Vienna. He engaged the widow of the renowned art photographer Rudolf Koppitz, with whom she had worked intensively until his death, to take pictures of his beloved project, which was to photograph the pupils of the Reichsschule Burg Neuhaus, located near Wolfsburg. The declared objective of the institute was to create racial models by selecting gymnasts from farmers’ families, where Darré saw the future of the German people. Anna Koppitz’s photographs were to play a central role in the dissemination of this model.

Rudolf Koppitz (1884 – 1936), often credited as Viennese or Austrian, was a Photo-Secessionist whose work includes straight photography and modernist images. He was one of the leading representatives of art photography in Vienna between the world wars. Koppitz is best known for his works of the human figure including his iconic Bewegungsstudie, "Motion Study" and his use of the nude in natural settings.