1934 Aerial | Walter Mittelholzer

Mavi Boncuk | "

Aerial | Walter Mittelholzer [1] 1934

Findikli 1934

[1] Walter Mittelholzer (2 April 1894 – 9 May 1937) was a Swiss aviation pioneer. He was active as a pilot, photographer, travel writer, as well as of the first aviation entrepreneurs.On 5 November 1919 he co-founded an air-photo and passenger flight business, Comte, Mittelholzer, and Co. In 1920 this firm merged with the financially stronger Ad Astra Aero. Mittelholzer was the director and head pilot of Ad Astra Aero, which later became Swissair. 

Among other Swiss air pioneers, he is commemorated in a Swiss postage stamp issued in January 1977. His legacy of some 18,500 photographs is kept at ETH Library's image archive in Zürich, Switzerland. 

Mittelholzer always flew with a co-pilot so that he could take photographs while in the air. Seated in the cabin alongside the oil drums are mechanic Werner Wegmann and expedition organiser Georg Wood, 1930/31 

 A new book documents his obsession with the Middle East, and African cities from Cairo to Casablanca Walter Mittelholzer Revisited: From the Walter Mittelholzer Photo Archive is published by Scheidegger & Spiess 

“His images also won approval of the Fascists. His contribution to the German anthology Flug und Wolken published after the Nazis seized power in fact comprised not just photographs but also one of the three prefaces, the other two being the work of Herman Göring, the “Third Reich’s” commander-in chief of the Luftwaffe, and Italo Balbo, Fascist Italy’s aviation minister. Göring for his part lavished praised on the “high artistic appeal” of a book showing the beauty of the “conquered world of the clouds.” (p. 35) You could also add, the conquered lands of the people – for Germany, Britain, Italy and France all had colonies in Africa. His flights in 1924 to Spitsbergen to assist Polar explorer Roald Amundsen and a year later to deliver a plane to Persia were both undertaken for the German aircraft manufacturer Junkers.