Franz Roth (photographer)

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Franz Roth as a photo reporter in the war correspondent train of the "Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler" on the Eastern Front, probably summer 1941
Franz Roth: Tank Destroyers in the Kharkov Area (1943)

Franz Seraphicus Roth (born April 5, 1911 in Vienna , Austria-Hungary , † March 17, 1943 in Kiev ) was an Austrian photographer for the American news agency Associated Press and photo reporter for the Waffen SS . His curriculum vitae is "exemplary for that of a decidedly National Socialist photo journalist," says Rolf Sachsse in his book Education to Look Away. Photography in the Nazi state .

Life

Childhood and youth

Franz Roth was born in Vienna as the eldest son of the pediatrician Franz Alois Roth (1881–1952) and his wife Alma Roth (née Wagner, 1888–1978). He had three siblings. From 1918 to 1929 he attended high schools in Salzburg and Linz . The first photographs were taken of school trips and classmates to whom he sold the self-made prints. He was a member of the pennal fraternity Ivaria .

From 1929 he studied four semesters of Law in Vienna and joined the academic fraternity Upper Austrian Germanic one.

Work as a photographer

After the failed attempt to pass the first state examination in law, he broke off his studies in 1932 and in 1934 became a self-employed photo reporter for the Associated Press in Vienna. In the following years he reported on behalf of AP, among other things, from the Abyssinian War , from the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin and documented the Spanish civil war on the side of the right-wing putschists under General Franco .

In 1933 Franz Roth joined SA-Sturm II / 99 in Vienna. In 1937 he became a member of the Reich Press Chamber . The move to Berlin followed in 1938. He continued to work for AP and also began to work for the Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda , on whose behalf he was on the road in France, Poland, Hungary, Austria, Finland, the Sudetenland and the Balkans in the following years .

In 1938 he was accepted into the NSDAP and joined the Reichsfilmkammer . In June 1939 Roth married the actress Thea Bohnsack (1907–1985). In 1940 he joined the war correspondent platoon of the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler under SS-Sturmbannführer Kurt Meyer , known as "Panzermeyer". Until his death in 1943, he took part as a war reporter for the Waffen SS, among other things in the Balkan campaign , the attack on the Soviet Union and the Battle of Kharkov . After being wounded in Greece, he was awarded the Iron Cross 2nd Class in 1941 . In September 1942 he was accepted into the Waffen SS with the rank of Untersturmführer . His son Hans was born in October 1942.

Wounding and death

During the Battle of Kharkov on February 21, 1943, he was wounded in a double lung near Krasnohrad . On March 17, 1943, Franz Roth succumbed to his injuries in a military hospital in Kiev. He was buried in the "Heroes Cemetery Askold's Grave". He was posthumously awarded the Iron Cross 1st Class on March 25, 1943.

literature

  • Harriet Scharnberg: The alpha and omega of propaganda. Associated Press and the National Socialist Bildpublizistik , in: Zeithistorische Forschungen / Studies in Contemporary History, online edition, 13 (2016), no.1 , URL: http://www.zeithistorische-forschungen.de/1-2016/id= 5324, print edition: pp. 11–37.
  • In memory of the journalist and war reporter Franz Roth , in: Illustrierter Beobachter 1943 / Episode 18.
  • Franz Roth, the role model of a photo reporter (obituary), Deutsche Presse, No. 17, 1943, p. 189/190.
  • Diethart Kerbs: German Photographers in the Spanish Civil War with a short biography of Franz Roth, in: Music, Theater, Literature and Film at the Time of the Third Reich , ed. v. Cultural Office of the City of Düsseldorf, 1987, pp. 107–113.
  • Rolf Sachsse: The education to look away. Photography in the Nazi state , 2003, p. 114.

Web links

Commons : Franz Roth  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Rolf Sachsse, Education to look away. Photography in the Nazi state, 2003, p. 114.
  2. ↑ a b Eike Rux: The history of the national Salzburg Pennalien using the example of the all-German high school connection Rugia. Diploma thesis, Salzburg 2005, p. 330.
  3. ^ Rolf Sachsse, Education to look away. Photography in the Nazi state, 2003, p. 420.
  4. ↑ Personal details on the SS admission and obligation certificate 1942 / Federal Archives.
  5. ^ Declaration of membership in the Reichsfilmkammer / Federal Archives.
  6. ↑ Harriet Scharnberg: The Alpha and Omega of Propaganda. Associated Press and the National Socialist picture journalism . In: Zeithistorische Forschungen / Studies in Contemporary History . 13 (2016), H. 1, pp. 11-37.
  7. ↑ NSDAP-Gaukartei and declaration of accession to the Reichsfilmkammer, Bundesarchiv.
  8. ↑ SS admission and obligation certificate, Federal Archives. Rolf d'Alquen and Obersturmführer Wickelmayr signed as guarantors.
  9. ^ Report of the German office for the notification of the next of kin of fallen soldiers of the former German armed forces.
    >>> Is that a source?
  10. ^ Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge.
personal data
SURNAME Roth, Franz
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Roth, Franz Seraphicus (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian photographer
DATE OF BIRTH April 5, 1911
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH March 17, 1943
Place of death Kiev