Paul Botzenhardt

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Paul Botzenhardt (born May 25, 1914 in Ulm , † September 4, 2000 in Koengen ) was a German photographer and one of the most famous car photographers of the 20th century.

Life

Botzenhardt, son of a train driver, studied mechanical engineering for several semesters at the Stuttgart University of Applied Sciences from 1934 . After completing his intermediate diploma, he worked as a technician at Fortuna-Werke AG in Bad Cannstatt from 1936 . In 1939 the Wehrmacht called him for military service. As a soldier in an army anti -aircraft division, he had to take part in the war against the Soviet Union . His platoon leader was temporarily the later Bavarian Prime Minister Franz Josef Strauss . After the Battle of Stalingrad , he was taken prisoner by Russia in February 1943. Only in 1951 could he return to Germany ( Plochingen / Württemberg) to his wife (marriage in 1941).

plant

In a conversation in the late 1990s, he mentioned that because of the war and imprisonment he was never again ready to take or carry out an order. The result of this consideration led to professional independence. Photo hobbyist Botzenhardt bought an Exakta camera and an old MAN bus. He converted this vehicle into a rolling photo laboratory with beds. With a photo lab technician, he traveled to trade fairs such as the International Motor Show (IAA) in Frankfurt and the Hanover Fair . There he photographed the most important exhibition stands of the exhibiting companies and immediately brought the exposed film to his bus for processing. The lab technician created the negatives and drew positives from them, which he hung in the windows of the bus. The numerous press representatives could choose photos, buy them and take them straight to their editorial offices.

Later, when the press became more and more photographing themselves, Botzenhardt took more and more orders. He worked for the print media and the auto industry until the 1980s. His industrial customers were Audi , Auto Union , Borgward , BMW , Citroën , Ford , Goliath , Gutbrod , Lancia , Lloyd , Magirus-Deutz , Mercedes-Benz , NSU , Opel , Porsche , Renault , Simca , Volkswagen and Volvo . At the same time he created advertising photos for Hohner Musikinstrumenten GmbH and the antenna builder Hirschmann .

Botzenhardt's pictures almost always showed the cars with models. So he brought soft eroticism through the press departments of automakers in newspapers, magazines and automobile catalogs.

Botzenhardt is not considered to be the inventor of the companion , but as the photographer who mastered this recording technique and made it socially acceptable. He set the shutter speed of the then manual camera to 1 / 30th of a second and aimed the lens at the passing car, swiveled the camera with it so that the same point on the car was always captured, and pulled the trigger. The result is a dynamic photo in which the vehicle is in focus, the background and the turning wheels are blurred.

“Botze”, the nickname his colleagues had given him, mainly took photos in 35mm format and used a self-made fine-grain negative developer. His total oeuvre amounts to around 200,000 pictures, his photos are considered to be the most printed car pictures of the 50s, 60s and 70s. The negatives, positives and the rights of use are owned by the Bremen publisher Peter Kurz .

literature

  • Paul Botzenhardt: Borgward in view. Verlag Peter Kurz, Bremen 2003, ISBN 978-3-927485-42-6 .
  • Wankel in view. Paul Botzenhardt photographs NSU Spider, RO 80, Mercedes C 111. Verlag Peter kurz, Bremen 2003, ISBN 978-3-927485-44-0 .

Web links

Commons : Paul Botzenhardt  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Wilfried Scharnagel “My bouquet. Statesman and Friend "Neuried 2008. Quoted by Horst Möller" Franz Josef Strauss: Rulers and Rebels "Piper Verlag Munich / Berlin 2015, o. S., Chap. 12, footnote 54. Access [1] , BooksGoogle.de accessed on June 11 2018
  2. ↑ a b c Botzenhardt: Interview by Peter Kurz, Köngen May 1996.
  3. ↑ See "Borgward Kurier" Carl FW Borgward GmbH, Bremen 1957, issue 1, pp. 1 and 13
  4. ↑ See "Fahr mit Lloyd" Verlag Karl Fichtner, Bremen 1959, winter issue p. 1
  5. ↑ Cf. “We build cars with passion” publisher Daimler AG, Bremen 2013, pp. 130, 140f, 150, 193
  6. ↑ See Archive Art History Berlin / akg-images gmbh; Examples [2] on June 13, 2018
personal data
SURNAME Botzenhardt, Paul
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Botze
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German photographer
DATE OF BIRTH May 25, 1914
PLACE OF BIRTH Ulm
DATE OF DEATH September 4, 2000
Place of death Kings