German Locomotive Image Archive
The German Locomotive Image Archive (DLA) was a photo archive in Berlin.
In 1929 mechanical engineering students from the Technical University of Darmstadt came together to found the "Locomotive Image Archive of the Central Traffic Office of the German Student Unions". Graduate engineer Hermann Maey was one of the founding members with some other railway enthusiasts. After other photographers such as Rudolf Kallmünzer , Günther Scheingraber , Rudolf Kreutzer , Werner Hubert and Carl Bellingrodt made their photos available to the archive, it became known throughout Germany. In 1938 the archive was renamed “Deutsches Lokomotivbild-Archiv” (DLA), taken over by the Reich Ministry of Transport on April 1, 1939 and connected to the Reichsbahn film office. The archive moved to Berlin as early as May 1939 .
The collection included “The steam locomotives of the Deutsche Reichsbahn in pictures” in the “Directory of railway technical photographs” and was constantly updated. In order to be able to compare the images, standard photos were taken in postcard format 10 × 15 cm (DIN A6), with given perspectives:
- v: front
- lss: on the left very diagonally from the front
- ls: left diagonally from the front
- lws: left a little obliquely from the front
- l: left (heater side)
- lsvh: left diagonally from behind
- lssvh: left very diagonally from behind
- h: back
- rssvh: on the right very diagonally from behind
- rsvh: right diagonally from behind
- r: right (driver's side)
- rws: on the right a little diagonally from the front
- rs: right diagonally from the front
- rss: right very diagonally from the front
The collected material was supplemented by reproduced company photos of the manufacturing companies and old factory photos, also in the previous standard format of 9 × 14 cm. The photographs were not only used by universities, offices and museums, they could also be purchased by railway enthusiasts. In addition, there were the "collector sheets after Hubert", which had space for two pictures, and corresponding folder.
When Berlin was taken by the Red Army at the end of World War II, the German Locomotive Image Archive was completely destroyed. The archives of other DLA photographers, such as Werner Huberts in Dresden , had not survived the war either. After the war, only Carl Bellingrodt's image archive buried in the garden in Wuppertal remained . At Hermann Maey's request , Bellingrodt made reproductions of prints that had also been preserved, so that it was possible to continue the German Locomotive Image Archive (DLA) as the “Bellingrodt Locomotive Image Archive”. After Bellingrodt's death in 1971, the archive was continued by his widow until she sold it to the Eisenbahn-Kurier- Verlag in the early 1980s .
literature
- Alfred Gottwaldt , Helmut Brinker: The German Locomotive Image Archive: Master Photographers of the Reichsbahn Era . Geramond, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-76547-083-7 .
source
- Th. Samek: Old Masters of Railway Photography: Werner Hubert . Vol. 1, pp. 4-8