The Dutchman Karel Frederik Mulder (1901-1978) lived as a businessman, journalist and amateur photographer in the Chinese treaty port of Shanghai. During the siege of the Shanghai International Settlement by the Japanese military (August 1937 - December 1941) he wrote reports and letters to his family. But there are also snapshots of the chaotic events of the Japanese attacks of the Chinese districts of Shanghai, of his personal life as a member of the International Volunteers Corps and of the changing political and human atmosphere in the Shanghai International Settlement. Louis Zweers interviewed his daughter Tineke Mulder (born in 1927, in Dairen, Manchuria), read the unpublished letters and researched the photographic material of his private collection.

Photo captions

1. Shanghai, Chinese sector, summer 1939. Mulder drives his car through the western Chinese part of the city, which is occupied by the Japanese. In the forefront you see a man pushing a traditional wheelbarrow. Most of the shots taken in these Chinese neighbourhoods, also known as the ‘badlands’, were taken furtively through the window of his car. The neighbourhoods were not safe for westerners. (© Mulder)
2. Shanghai, March 1939. Traditional riverboats waving the Japanese flag on the Yangtze river. (© Mulder)
3. Shanghai, International Settlement, late 1930s. Mulder sitting behind his desk. (© Mulder)
4. Shanghai, International Settlement, 1939. Armed members of the International Volunteer Corps, standing by an armoured military vehicle. In the foreground the dark silhouette of a woman and child. (© Mulder)
5. Shanghai, Chinese sector, summer 1939. Armed Japanese military march through the Chinese sector. Chinese children watch, enthralled. (© Mulder)
6. Shanghai, Chinese sector, summer 1939. View of the street. (© Mulder)
7. Shanghai, International Settlement, winter 1938. Rickshaws in the snow. (© Mulder)
8. Shanghai, International Settlement, 1939. Mulder in the uniform of the International Volunteer Corps. (© Mulder)
9. Shanghai, International Settlement, 1939. Mulder (right) keeping guard with his fellow Corps volunteers. (© Mulder)
10. Whilst the International Settlement in Shanghai was spared, the Chinese sector faced extreme destruction - Mulder visited the heavily damaged part of the city by car. At the beginning of March 1932 a ceasefire was declared. Shanghai, Chapei, 1932. (© Mulder)
11. Karel Frederik Mulder, armed with just his camera, poses here next to a stronghold of sandbags, built and abandoned by Japanese Marines - the Japanese flag still flying. He went on to photograph human victims and city structures reduced to ashes by Japanese bombings in the Chinese sector. Shanghai, Chapei, 1932. (© Mulder)
12. Japan, 1936/37. Mulder photographed a group boating on a mountain lake (boat passengers unknown). (© Mulder)
13. China, Manchuria, Port Arthur, 1925. Mulder photographed his wife (in floral dress) and family friends in front of a monument commemorating the Japan-Russia War of 1904-1905. (© Mulder)
14. Shanghai, International Settlement, late 1930s. Flooding in the city during the monsoon. (© Mulder)
15. Shanghai, Chinese sector, 1932. Japanese soldiers in the Chinese sector of Shanghai, Chapei. (© Internationaal fotopersbureau)
16. Shanghai, Chinese sector, 1932. Fleeing Chinese citizens. Chinese photographer Lafong Studio.
17. Shanghai, Chinese sector, 1932. Japanese soldiers in the Chinese sector of Shanghai, Chapei. (© Internationaal fotopersbureau)