Gerhard Gronefeld

Gerhard Gronefeld (born August 9, 1911 in Berlin ; † December 26, 2000 in Munich ) was a German photo reporter , animal photographer and author.

Live and act

Gronefeld comes from a family of chemists . His grandfathers worked as a veterinarian or skinner . Even as a teenager, Gronefeld was fascinated by photography and successfully took part in photo competitions. After studying newspaper science for two semesters with Emil Dovifat in Berlin, he completed an apprenticeship as a photographer in the photo studio of August Scherl Verlag in Berlin from 1932 to 1934 , where he also worked as a photo reporter. In 1935 he worked for the press illustration Heinrich Hoffmann . In 1936 he was an accredited photo reporter at the Summer Olympics . Since Gronefeld refused to join the NSDAP , he was dismissed in autumn 1936. His employment as a picture editor for the magazine Freude und Arbeit was also short-lived. In 1937 he became a photo reporter for the Berliner Illustrirten Zeitung (BIZ), where he specialized in military reporting.

During the Second World War, Gronefeld was employed by a Wehrmacht propaganda company , where he was deployed as a war correspondent on the home front as well as in Belgium, France, Poland, the Balkans and the attack on the Soviet Union. Gronefeld's photos, most of which he took with a Carl Zeiss Ikon Contax in 35mm format , appeared in the Nazi propaganda magazine Signal . Gronefeld temporarily had the status of a privileged special rapporteur. In this role he documented, for example, military cleansing and retaliation measures, such as the execution of 36 Serbian civilians in Pančevo in April 1941 during the Balkan campaign .

After the end of the war, Gronefeld worked as a photo reporter for numerous magazines, including from summer 1945 for Neue Berliner Illustrierte and from 1946 for Life magazine , where he was a photographer in the western zones and the Soviet-occupied zone. Gronefeld published photo series of German life after the capitulation, including the destruction and reconstruction, the return of deported Jews and prisoners of war, refugees, the black market and Berlin's nightlife. In 1949 Gronefeld became a permanent employee of Quick , for which he photographed war crimes trials and the time of the economic miracle from 1952 . His photos, which he published under various pseudonyms, also appeared in the magazines Stern and Heute .

In 1950 Gronefeld moved to Munich. After meeting Konrad Lorenz , he devoted himself to animal behavior research . He specialized in animal photography and made trips to the European wilderness, Africa, New Guinea, Australia and Madagascar. From the end of the 1950s, Gronefeld published his first animal books, from the 1970s he worked for the magazine Das Tier and from the 1980s his photos appeared in the magazine Ein Herz für Tiere .

Works (selection)

• Urian. A bear from the Karawanken, 1958
• Three totos in the Taunus, 1959
• Do We Understand Animals ?, 1963
• Because we love animals, 1964
• Experiences with animals - the elephants trembled. Noah's Ark Current, 1968
• With lasso and trap. On animal trapping in Africa, 1974
• Seals. Our Brothers in the Sea, 1974
• Lions have right of way. Wild animals - dependent on humans. Reported in words and pictures., 1975
• Not a day without adventure. Animals and their keepers, 1980
• How do I make my garden wild, or shape nature, 1984
• Women in Berlin 1945–1947 selected by Annemarie Tröger, 1984
• The Photo Paperback: Children after the War, 1985
• Brief exposure of German history: photo reports by Gerhard Gronefeld 1937–1965; Exhibition book. German Historical Museum Berlin., 1991 (with Winfried Ranke and Dieter Vorsteher-Seiler)

literature

• Nicola Buhl: Gronefeld, Gerhard . In: General Artist Lexicon . The visual artists of all times and peoples (AKL). Volume 63, Saur, Munich a. a. 2009, ISBN 978-3-598-23030-1 , p. 4.
• Veronika Mirschel: "I can't forget it - and I don't want to either" In: FREELENS magazine No. 6 - 2nd quarter 1997 (portrait and interview)
• Felix Farnheim: The pictures, the truth and the long silence In: Hamburger Abendblatt (print) from April 14, 1997
• People die there . A conversation with Gerhard Gronefeld about a hostage execution in 1941 and his work as a war correspondent, led by Diethart Kerbs. In: Photo history. Contributions to the history and aesthetics of photography. Vol. 4, (1984), No. 13, pp. 51-64

Web links

• Profile at the German Historical Museum