Fritz Gunter Sachs (14 November 1932 – 7 May 2011, also Gunter Sachs von Opel) was a German photographer, author, Rosenberg student, industrialist, and latterly head of an institute that researched claims of

astrology Astrology is a range of divinatory practices, recognized as pseudoscientific since the 18th century, that claim to discern information about human affairs and terrestrial events by studying the apparent positions of celestial objects. Di ...

. As a young man he became a sportsman, then gained international fame as a documentary film-maker, documentary photographer, and third husband of

Brigitte Bardot Brigitte Anne-Marie Bardot ( ; ; born 28 September 1934), often referred to by her initials B.B., is a former French actress, singer and model. Famous for portraying sexually emancipated characters with hedonistic lifestyles, she was one of the ...

Early life

Sachs was born in southern Germany. His mother was Eleanor, the daughter of Wilhelm von Opel, co-founder of the automaker

Opel Opel Automobile GmbH (), usually shortened to Opel, is a German automobile manufacturer which has been a subsidiary of Stellantis since 16 January 2021. It was owned by the American automaker General Motors from 1929 until 2017 and the PSA ...

; his father was Willy Sachs, sole owner of Fichtel & Sachs, a leading manufacturer of ball bearings in

Schweinfurt Schweinfurt ( , ; ) is a city in the district of Lower Franconia in Bavaria, Germany. It is the administrative centre of the surrounding district (''Landkreis'') of Schweinfurt and a major industrial, cultural and educational hub. The urban a ...

and one of Germany's biggest automobile suppliers. Willy was friendly with

Hermann Göring Hermann Wilhelm Göring (or Goering; ; 12 January 1893 – 15 October 1946) was a German politician, military leader and convicted war criminal. He was one of the most powerful figures in the Nazi Party, which ruled Germany from 1933 to 1 ...

and

Heinrich Himmler Heinrich Luitpold Himmler (; 7 October 1900 – 23 May 1945) was of the (Protection Squadron; SS), and a leading member of the Nazi Party of Germany. Himmler was one of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany and a main architect of th ...

and arrested by the American military after the war but finally declared a follower and released. Gunter Sachs commented on his father's past in several publications. Willy committed suicide in 1958 by shooting himself. Sachs' brother, Ernst Wilhelm, died in an

avalanche An avalanche is a rapid flow of snow down a slope, such as a hill or mountain. Avalanches can be set off spontaneously, by such factors as increased precipitation or snowpack weakening, or by external means such as humans, animals, and ear ...

in 1977. Sachs studied maths and economics.

Personal life

playboy ''Playboy'' is an American men's lifestyle and entertainment magazine, formerly in print and currently online. It was founded in Chicago in 1953, by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from Hefner's mother. K ...

''Legendary Playboy Gunter Sachs is Dead''
(German) '' Der Spiegel'', 8 May 2011. in his early years, Sachs was romantically linked to the former Iranian empress Soraya Esfandiary. He married three times. His first wife, Anne-Marie Faure, died in 1958 during surgery. He married Anne-Marie at the age of 23. He courted his second wife,

, by flying over her villa on the

French Riviera The French Riviera (known in French as the ; oc, Còsta d'Azur ; literal translation "Azure Coast") is the Mediterranean coastline of the southeast corner of France. There is no official boundary, but it is usually considered to extend from ...

in a helicopter and dropping hundreds of roses. The couple were married on 14 July 1966 in

Las Vegas Las Vegas (; Spanish language, Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the List of United States cities by population, 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the U.S. state, state of Neva ...

; they divorced in 1969. His final marriage was to

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

former model,

Mirja Larsson Mirja is a given name. Notable people with the given name include: *Mirja Boes (born 1971), German comedian, actress, and singer *Mirja Breitholtz, Swedish songwriter and producer *Mirja Hietamies (1931–2013), Finnish cross-country skier *Mirja J ...

, (who was 26 at the time of their engagement) which lasted from 1969 until his death. He had a son Rolf Sachs (born 1955), with his first wife, and a further two sons (Christian Gunnar and Claus Alexander) with his third wife. In addition to his German nationality, Sachs received Swiss citizenship in 1976.

Sports

From 1969 until his death, Sachs was the chairman of the

St. Moritz Bobsleigh Club The St. Moritz Bobsleigh Club, officially known as Bobclub St. Moritz is a club located in St. Moritz, Switzerland for members interested in bobsleigh and skeleton A skeleton is the structural frame that supports the body of an animal. There a ...

. Turn 13 of the

St. Moritz-Celerina Olympic Bobrun The Olympia Bob Run St. Moritz-Celerina is a bobsleigh track located in the Engadin Valley, Switzerland. It officially opened on New Year's Day 1904 and is the oldest bobsleigh track in the world. It is also the only one that is naturally refrige ...

is named in his honour.

Art collector

Sachs' extensive art collection included works by Jean Fautrier,

Andy Warhol Andy Warhol (; born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director, and producer who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore the relationsh ...

René Magritte René François Ghislain Magritte (; 21 November 1898 – 15 August 1967) was a Belgian surrealist artist known for his depictions of familiar objects in unfamiliar, unexpected contexts, which often provoked questions about the nature and bounda ...

Salvador Dalí Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, Marquess of Dalí of Púbol (; ; ; 11 May 190423 January 1989) was a Spanish surrealist artist renowned for his technical skill, precise draftsmanship, and the striking and bizarre images in ...

, Roy Lichtenstein, Tom Wesselmann,

Mel Ramos Melvin John Ramos (July 24, 1935 – October 14, 2018) was an American figurative painter, specializing most often in paintings of female nudes, whose work incorporates elements of realist and abstract art. Born in Sacramento, California, t ...

, and Allen Jones. He also owned important pieces from the Nouveau réalisme school including Yves Klein, Jean Tinguely, Arman, and

Martial Raysse Martial Raysse (born 12 February 1936 in Golfe-Juan) is a French artist and actor. He lives in Issigeac, France. He holds the record for the most expensive work sold by a living French artist. Biography Raysse was born in a ceramicist family in ...

. Many of these artists were involved in the 1969 design of the legendary pop-art-apartment in the tower of the Palace Hotel in St. Moritz, which quickly gained the art world's attention. From 1967 to 1975 Sachs, together with Prince Konstantin of Bavaria, co-founded and headed the association for the Modern Art Museum in Munich (MAM), which lobbied for the construction of a comprehensive museum of contemporary art in Munich and mounted monthly exhibitions at Villa Stuck. Victor Vasarely,

Georg Baselitz Georg Baselitz (born 23 January 1938) is a German Painting, painter, Sculpture, sculptor and Graphic arts, graphic artist. In the 1960s he became well known for his Figurative art, figurative, expressive paintings. In 1969 he began painting his s ...

, Heinz Edelmann, Christo, Cy Twombly,

Alexander Calder Alexander Calder (; July 22, 1898 – November 11, 1976) was an American sculptor known both for his innovative mobiles (kinetic sculptures powered by motors or air currents) that embrace chance in their aesthetic, his static "stabiles", and his ...

Heinz Mack Heinz Mack (born March 8, 1931) is a German artist. Together with Otto Piene he founded the ZERO movement in 1957. He exhibited works at documenta in 1964 and 1977 and he represented Germany at the 1970 Venice Biennale. He is best known for ...

and Jean Tinguely, Roy Lichtenstein, and Gotthard Graubner found their way into the rooms of the museum. In 1972 Sachs opened a gallery in Hamburg and organised the first European exhibition of his friend Warhol. In 1974, he commissioned Warhol with a series of silkscreen portraits of his ex-wife

. In May 2006, Sachs sold one of Warhol's silk screens of Bardot at auction for $3 million. The Sachs family sold part of his collection of Pop Art and Nouveau Realisme through

Sotheby's Sotheby's () is a British-founded American multinational corporation with headquarters in New York City. It is one of the world's largest brokers of fine and decorative art, jewellery, and collectibles. It has 80 locations in 40 countries, an ...

in May 2012.

Photographer

From 1972 Sachs worked as a professional photographer. In 1973 he caused a stir with the first nude photograph for French Vogue. In 1991 he worked with Claudia Schiffer on the "Heroines" series. He gained international recognition in 1974 with a special show at the photokina trade show for which he also designed the official exhibition poster. In 1976 he was awarded the Leica Award. At the 'German photo days' and the photokina he received prizes for "Die Farbe Weiss" in

1994 File:1994 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1994 Winter Olympics are held in Lillehammer, Norway; The Kaiser Permanente building after the 1994 Northridge earthquake; A model of the MS Estonia, which sank in the Baltic Sea; Nelson Ma ...

and for "Die Farbe Rot" in 1995. The focus of his photography are surreal nudes and landscapes, which were published in no less than seven image volumes. Early on, Sachs also experimented with digital photography. The proceeds from the sale of his photographs and illustrated books went into the Mirja Sachs Foundation, which helps children in need.

Astrological research

Sachs' methodology and the statistical analysis have been criticised by mathematicians. They found serious errors in all parts and deny any

statistical significance In statistical hypothesis testing, a result has statistical significance when it is very unlikely to have occurred given the null hypothesis (simply by chance alone). More precisely, a study's defined significance level, denoted by \alpha, is the p ...

after the necessary corrections in his data.

Death

Sachs died by suicide on 7 May 2011 by a gunshot wound to the head at his home in

Gstaad Gstaad ( ; ) is a town in the German-speaking section of the Canton of Bern in southwestern Switzerland. It is part of the municipality of Saanen and is known as a major ski resort and a popular destination amongst high society and the inter ...

, Switzerland. The suicide note stated that he acted because of what he defined as "hopeless illness A." (which some have speculated to be Alzheimer's) adding that "The loss of mental control over my life was an undignified condition, which I decided to counter decisively".

Literature

*Sachs, Gunter: ''The Astrology File: Scientific Proof of the Link Between Star Signs and Human Behaviour''. Orion Books (December 1999). * Elwell, Dennis: ''Cosmic Loom'', 2nd edition 1999. The Urania Trust. . Discussion and interpretation of some of Gunter Sachs results and related material.

References

External links

*https://web.archive.org/web/20080208135701/http://www.guntersachs.ch/ *https://web.archive.org/web/20060407202044/http://www.gunter-sachs.de/ *http://www.astrology-and-science.com
Obituary of Gunter Sachs, ''The Daily Telegraph'', 9 May 2011
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sachs, Gunther 1932 births 2011 deaths Opel family People from Schweinfurt (district) German art collectors Astrological data collectors Photographers from Bavaria Suicides by firearm in Switzerland Artists who committed suicide People from Gstaad 2011 suicides