Leo Rosenthal
Leo Rosenthal (born August 25, 1884 in Riga , † October 28, 1969 in New York ) was a German photographer who was best known for his courtroom pictures from the 1920s to 1930s.
Life
Leo Rosenthal was born as the son of a wealthy merchant family in Riga, then part of Russia. After attending the municipal high school in Riga, he first studied medicine, then law in Dorpat . He completed his studies in 1911 after a stay in Germany. Until 1917 he worked as a criminal defense lawyer in Moscow . Then he became the prison director and later secretary of the Red Cross.
After the October Revolution , Rosenthal emigrated to Berlin. There he worked as a court reporter for social democratic newspapers like Vorwärts . He began to secretly take photos during the court hearings and provided pictures from sensational trials. He portrayed Albert Einstein on the witness stand and Adolf Hitler under interrogation by Hans Litten .
After the National Socialist seizure of power , Rosenthal was taken into protective custody in March 1933 , but released as a Latvian on the day of his arrest. He moved back to Riga in April 1933, where he co-founded the Europa-Ost newspaper and lived on his savings. In 1934 he went to Paris as a correspondent for Belgian and Scandinavian newspapers. On June 14, 1940, he fled to Vichy . In January 1942 he left for Morocco via Marseille . His family stayed in Riga and were murdered by the National Socialists in the Riga ghetto in autumn 1941 . Leo Rosenthal was the only member of the family to survive. He began a second career as a photographer for the UN in the United States .
Web links
- Literature by and about Leo Rosenthal in the catalog of the German National Library
- Courtrooms in the Götterdämmerung, Berliner Zeitung of June 21, 2011
- Photo series with photos by Leo Rosenthal in ZEIT No. 7/2011 under the title Albert Einstein and Adolf Hitler in front of the judge. The photos are contained in the book Leo Rosenthal, "Chronicler of Weimar" listed in the literature section.
literature
- Leo Rosenthal: a chronicler in the Weimar Republic. Photographs 1926–1933 . Edited by the Berlin State Archives; Berlin Bar Association, selection of images, research and captions by Bianca Welzing-Bräutigam, exhibition catalog text in German + English, translation by Charlotte Hughes-Kreutzmüller, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-8296-0564-9
- Ferdinand von Schirach : The stage of the Weimar Republic. The photographer Leo Rosenthal. In: Human dignity can be touched. Munich: Piper Verlag 2014. ISBN 978-3-492-05658-8 . Pp. 47-59
Individual evidence
- ^ Ferdinand von Schirach: Leo Rosenthal, Diven_Diebe_Diktatoren. Spiegel Online, August 17, 2011
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Rosenthal, Leo |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German photographer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | August 25, 1884 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Riga |
| DATE OF DEATH | October 28, 1969 |
| Place of death | New York City |