Harald Schmitt
(In the background above: Photo of the military parade in front of the Berlin Palace of the Republic on October 7, 1977, below: Parade for the 25th -annual existence of the "working class combat groups" on Karl-Marx-Allee in East Berlin on October 7, 1978.)
Harald Schmitt (born March 2, 1948 in Hausen near Mayen ) is a former photo reporter for Stern magazine . His photos, which he took before and during the fall of the Wall in 1989 in the GDR and the neighboring Eastern Bloc states , are documents of contemporary history.
biography
He spent his youth in Trier , where his father ran a night bar, and in Cologne . He completed his apprenticeship as a photographer in Trier. The job of creating weddings, passport photos and small advertising and architectural photos, however, did not fulfill him. It drew him to the press. So he first became a laboratory assistant and photographer for the Trierische Landeszeitung . Since this did not meet his goals either, he went to Munich in 1970 , became a sports photographer at Dieter Frinke's photo agency and stayed there until the 1972 Olympics. After that, he switched to Sven Simon's photo agency in Bonn. There he photographed political and economic topics and for the first time traveled the world as a photographic companion for politicians. 1974 and 1975 he was in Paris and Nice , where he worked for Star Agency documented filming of movies and home stories of various actors for the yellow press coverte . In 1977 he came back to Sven Simon in Bonn. Now he has photographed stories such as election campaigns in America ( Bill Clinton ), earthquakes, strikes in England, the beginning of the Socialist International in Spain , Portugal and Italy , as well as theaters of war in Vietnam , Cambodia , Rhodesia , Namibia and Ireland .
In 1977 he managed to get employed as a photographer at Stern, where he worked until the beginning of 2011. For the first six years at Stern, he was an accredited photo reporter in East Berlin. He provided photos of the beginning of the peace movement (1982) and of trips with Erich Honecker to Japan and Zambia (1979). As early as 1978 he photographed Václav Havel and Pavel Kohout in Prague . In 1989 Schmitt was in Prague when it became known on November 24th that the Prague Communist Party leader had resigned. Photos of the strikes in the Lenin shipyard in Gdańsk , the establishment of Solidarność and the collapse of the political system in Czechoslovakia round off his photographic achievements from this period. In 1983 his visa was no longer extended by the GDR. His photos of (small selection)
- Lech Wałęsa as a leader clenching his fists on the shoulders of the Gdańsk shipyard workers
- Alexander Dubček and Václav Havel learned of the resignation of the Prague leader of the Communist Party through acclamation on the podium of the Citizens' Forum . Havel then raises his glass to the triumph of the people. That was five weeks before he was elected president. (See → Velvet Revolution )
- The “disempowerment” of Mikhail Gorbachev by Boris Yeltsin in front of the Russian parliament
- Portrait of the pensive Gorbachev
- Rainer Eppelmann in the rocking chair in his house in East Berlin
- Markus Wolf at the funeral of his brother Konrad in 1982
- Wolf Biermann's visit to Robert Havemann three days before his death († April 9, 1982)
- Erich Honecker says goodbye to Helmut Schmidt after his visit to Güstrow (December 1981)
- Honecker, dressed entirely in white, gets out of his Rolls-Royce in Lusaka to greet the cheering crowd
- Arthur Rubinstein 1976 in New York
- Heinz Bennent (standing upside down) with his son David 1979
- Yasser Arafat with V-shaped fingers 1974 in Beirut (World Press Photo 1975)
From 1986 to the end of 2009 he worked at the STERN headquarters in Hamburg and created photo reports from all over the world, mostly with a colleague who wrote, but also alone. Since 2011 Schmitt has been a freelance photo reporter in Hamburg, u. a. for the STERN, traveling speaker and (co-) editor of books.
Private
Harald Schmitt is married to Annette, whom he met in 1979 while working in East Berlin, and lives in Hamburg.
Films about Harald Schmitt
- The Malocher tour - WDR
- Harald Schmitt - Photo reporter Stern - Photo Tv
- Harald Schmitt - Seconds that became history - Photo Tv
- Harald Schmitt and Thomas Höpker about their time in the GDR - Photo Tv
- Reports from the GDR - MDR television
Books
- Harald Schmitt: Seconds that became history: Images of the end of socialism . Steidl-Verlag 2009, ISBN 978-3-8652-1988-6 .
- Harald Schmitt: To the point . Addison-Wesley 2011, ISBN 978-3-8273-3026-0 .
- Pictures to:
- The six world religions. ISBN 978-3-5500-7854-5 .
- The challengers: Germany is reaching for the America's Cup. ISBN 978-3-9380-1749-4 .
- The strong: By children who fight for life. ISBN 978-3-5700-8620-9 .
- Arved Fuchs : Northern Lights in the Sails - A Winter Journey to the Lofoten (2013). ISBN 978-3-7688-3673-9 .
Awards
- 1975: World Press Photo Award : 3rd Prize Cat. Portrait Yasser Arafat
- 1976: World Press Photo Award: 1st price cat. Portrait Indira Gandhi
- 1988: World Press Photo Award: 3rd Prize Cat. New Feature "Sinking of the Herald of Free Enterprise Ferry "
- 1991: Medal "In memory of the defense of Latvia's independence"
- 1998: World Press Photo Award: 2nd Prize Cat. Art " Ea Sola Dance Compagnie in Vietnam "
- 2000: World Press Photo Award: Honorable Mention, Sports Category " Americas Cup Sailing Competition"
- 2002: World Press Photo Award: 3rd Prize Cat. Culture Series "The Music of the Agma Pygmies"
Source: World Press Photo
swell
- ↑ Harald Schmitt ( English ) World Press Photo. Retrieved April 27, 2019.
- Catalog for his exhibition at the end of 2009 in the Martin-Gropius-Bau in Berlin
- Stern.de: stern photographers: Harald Schmitt
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Schmitt, Harald |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German photographer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 2, 1948 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Hausen near Mayen |