Walter Hahn (photographer)

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Colmar Walter Hahn (born April 20, 1889 in Berlin ; † November 24, 1969 in Dresden ) was a German photographer from Dresden with his own postcard publisher. He was best known for his photos from Saxon Switzerland , aerial photos of Dresden and other Saxon cities and his pictures of the destroyed city after the air raids on Dresden in 1945.

Life

Colmar Walter Hahn was born in Berlin as the son of a carpenter and a tiler. Both parents came from Saxony. After the father's death, the family moved from Berlin to Dresden. Hahn finished his school career in 1903 at the Dresden 15th district school. In 1904 he began an apprenticeship at Steinbach & Strache as a lithographer , which he completed in 1907. He stayed with his training company until 1908, and in the following years he worked briefly in various cities, including Munich and Dortmund.

Hahn began his first photographic work during his apprenticeship. During his free time he climbed the rocks of Saxon Switzerland and began to get involved in mountaineering and hiking. In 1905 he joined the climbing club "Gipfelstürmer". He often took his heavy plate camera with him, with which he photographed his friends, including Paul Illmer , climbing. Hahn photographed most of the famous climbers of his time, such as Emanuel Strubich and Rudolf Fehrmann . Since he climbed himself, he was also able to open up daring photo locations. Because of the heavy camera that he carried with him almost all the time, he was soon nicknamed the brick carrier . Hahn only took photos when the weather was good with beautiful cloud formation. This was an essential prerequisite for the high quality of his recordings.

At first he only distributed prints of his photos to friends. At his suggestion, he offered the first of his climbing and rock photos for sale a few years later. They found good sales and so he turned his hobby into a profession. He later stated that his photo postcard publisher was founded in 1908, first in Dresden-Neustadt , Wallgäßchen 7, then in Dresden-Altstadt , Godeffroy-Straße 26, and after the Second World War also in Wiener Straße 105. From 1914 to 1919 Hahn was, according to his own statements, “with the Jäger Batl. 13 drafted into Dresden as capable of garrison service ”. A year later he finally went into business for himself as a photographer with his own publishing house. Also in 1920 Hahn married his first wife, Margarethe Clara Emma b. Koppenatsch. A year later his son Heinz Wolfgang was born, who succeeded his father professionally and completed an apprenticeship as a photographer. During the Second World War , his son worked as a photo reporter for the Air Force; he has been missing since 1943.

With increasing age he turned more to the architecture and landscape photography of his homeland. The last climbing pictures are documented for 1923. During this time Hahn began with aerial photography. Mostly he flew with his friend Ernst Fröde, an advertising pilot. It has not been proven whether he flew with Ernst Udet , as has occasionally been stated .

Hahn joined the NSDAP in 1934 . This enabled him to remain active as an aerial photographer. Its corresponding permit was last extended again in 1943, during the war. During the war years, he documented many art treasures and buildings that soon fell victim to the bombing of the Allies.

Hahn's photos of corpses burned on Dresden's Altmarkt after the air raids on Dresden in February 1945 also became known. Like his photos of the destroyed city, they shaped the post-war image of the air raids. On April 17, Hahn's house was destroyed in the last air raid on Dresden, and his wife was killed. With a few exceptions, however, his image negatives could be salvaged and saved.

After the war Hahn first had to make a living with passport photos and similar photos. He had temporarily relocated his photo collection to Kleinhennersdorf , but was able to transfer it back to Dresden with the approval of the Soviet occupying forces, where he had temporarily found shelter with his sister on Wiener Straße. In 1946 he achieved his denazification . During this time, he documented many of the destroyed Dresden, but also the first reconstruction work. Hahn continued to work as a freelance photographer. As such, he repeatedly had problems getting the photographic materials he needed in the GDR; on the other hand, his pictures were also highly valued by government agencies because of their high quality. In 1947 Hahn married his second wife Gertrud. His last shots include the pictures of the restoration of the Golden Town Hall Man on Dresden's New Town Hall in 1963.

In 1964 Hahn reluctantly left David Irving a copy of an unsigned document entitled “Tagesbefehl 47”, which he himself had copied from Max Funfack . It named ten times the number of victims of the air raids on Dresden and was called a forgery by the city archivist Walter Lange during Irving's visit by Hahn. Despite knowing the misstatements, Irving published the document as evidence from 1964 and held it until 1995. In the process following a libel action by Irving against Debora Lipstadt (2000), the historian Richard J. Evans Irving demonstrated that sources were wrongly handled using this document, among other things.

Hahn died after a long illness in 1969 at the age of 80.

plant

Walter Hahn has made a lasting name for himself with his high-quality photographs of Dresden and Saxon Switzerland. Around 15,000 of the glass plate negatives from his estate are now kept in the Deutsche Fotothek , part of the Saxon State and University Library. They are also of great interest and importance for the various reconstruction measures and new buildings in downtown Dresden.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e On life and work on the pages of the Deutsche Fotothek , accessed on August 17, 2013.
  2. ^ Sächsischer Bergsteigerbund (Hrsg.): 100 years of the Saxon Mountaineering Association. Review and Outlook , Dresden 2011, p. 36
  3. ↑ Short biography on the website of the Deutsche Fotothek , accessed on August 17, 2013.
  4. ^ SLUB Dresden, Deutsche Fotothek, curriculum vitae of Walter Hahn , accessed on August 15, 2013.
  5. ^ Richard Evans: Telling Lies About Hitler. The Holocaust, History and the David Irving Trial. Verso Books, 2002, ISBN 1859844170 , p. 161 f.
  6. ^ A b Defense Documents: David Irving, Hitler and Holocaust Denial: Electronic Edition, by Richard J. Evans
  7. ↑ Holocaust Reference: David Irving and the air raids on Dresden
personal data
SURNAME Hahn, Walter
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hahn, Colmar Walter (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German photographer and publisher
DATE OF BIRTH April 20, 1889
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH November 24, 1969
Place of death Dresden