Ernst Heinrich Alfred Schlitte

Ernst Heinrich Alfred Schlitte (born October 9, 1854 in Berlin , † October 27, 1913 in Hamburg ) was a German photographer .

Life

Ernst Heinrich Alfred Schlitte was one of four children of an official who worked in the Ministry of Commerce. His father died on September 11, 1858 of tuberculosis . Schlitte grew up in Berlin, where he presumably worked as a freelance photographer. The name Schlittes can be found in Hamburg for the first time in June 1876, where it was listed at Neustädter Fuhlentwiete 35. On February 28, 1877, he received a trade license as a photographer. On August 13 of the same year he married the then 17-year-old Johanna Sophie Amanda Pape, with whom he had six children. The family initially lived at Schlachterstrasse 1. The photographer's studio is listed in the Hamburg address book from 1879 at 25 Rathausstrasse.

Sled, which since 1881 Hamburg citizen was, had since 1909 Hamburg citizenship . Since the income as a photographer in the beginning was apparently insufficient to be able to lead a good life, Schlitte also worked as a conductor. This is evidenced by a stereo photo of a tram depot that has been preserved to this day. In the period that followed, Schlitten's income must have improved. Reason for assuming are photographs of a trip that the photographer took in 1890. The pictures show photos from Kiel , Heligoland and Tahiti .

In 1895 Ernst Heinrich Alfred Schlitte and his wife separated. Amanda Schlitte set out for New York on April 11, 1895 . The children went there too. Since Amanda Schlitte returned to the Hanseatic city with the second oldest daughter after the death of her husband in 1913 to settle the estate, it can be assumed that the couple did not divorce.

Ernst Heinrich August Schlitte last lived at Alsterdorfer Straße 254, "Garden House". He died on October 27, 1913 in Eppendorfer Hospital .

Photographs

Schlitte probably created mainly portraits in order to be able to earn a living. There are also some photographs of Hamburg's buildings. With a few exceptions, the pictures were considered lost for decades. The reason for this was the loss of the photographs due to the bombing of Hamburg during the Second World War . Schlitte's grandson Helmut Schlitte found several pictures of relatives in the Netherlands . The pictures cover the years 1888 to 1909.

Schlitte was one of the few photographers who captured the cholera epidemic of 1892 . This included a picture of mass graves in Ohlsdorf , the woodcut of which was printed by the English newspaper The Graphic . The photographer also documented the backyards in the Niederstrasse and Steinstrasse area, which were viewed as a breeding ground for cholera. Woodcuts were made from the photographs, which are considered rare. The General-Anzeiger for Hamburg-Altona showed the recordings with accompanying text in the issue of October 25, 1892.

In 2000 , an exhibition in Hamburg's City Hall entitled “Rediscovered” showed numerous of the images that were found again. The photographs have since been kept in the Hamburg State Archives.

literature

• Joachim W. Frank: Schlitte, Ernst Heinrich Alfred . In: Franklin Kopitzsch, Dirk Brietzke (Hrsg.): Hamburgische Biographie . tape 4 . Wallstein, Göttingen 2008, ISBN 978-3-8353-0229-7 , pp. 303-304 .