Helmut Laux (10 June 1916 in

Donaueschingen Donaueschingen (; Low Alemannic: ''Eschinge'') is a German town in the Black Forest in the southwest of the federal state of Baden-Württemberg in the Schwarzwald-Baar '' Kreis''. It stands near the confluence of the two sources of the river Da ...

- 29 April, 1987) was a German photographer who rose to prominence in

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

and who headed the so-called Buro Laux, a photo news agency jointly-operated by the SS and the

German Foreign Ministry , logo = DEgov-AA-Logo en.svg , logo_width = 260 px , image = Auswaertiges Amt Berlin Eingang.jpg , picture_width = 300px , image_caption = Entrance to the Foreign Office building , headquarters = Werderscher Mark ...

Buro Laux

The Buro/Bureau Laux had as its director, SS-''

Obersturmführer __NOTOC__ (, ; short: ''Ostuf'') was a Nazi Germany paramilitary rank that was used in several Nazi organisations, such as the SA, SS, NSKK and the NSFK. The rank of ''Obersturmführer'' was first created in 1932 as the result of an expa ...

'' Helmut Laux. As the personal photographer of foreign minister

Joachim von Ribbentrop Ulrich Friedrich Wilhelm Joachim von Ribbentrop (; 30 April 1893 – 16 October 1946) was a German politician and diplomat who served as Minister of Foreign Affairs of Nazi Germany from 1938 to 1945. Ribbentrop first came to Adolf Hitler's not ...

, Laux was often part of Hitler's entourage and was present at important state receptions. With the declaration of war with the United States, the Buro Laux incorporated the Berlin operations of

Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. newspa ...

(AP GmbH) and its photo archive. This transaction was cemented with the help of both the Foreign Office and the SS against the wishes of the Ministry of Propaganda. Some of the Buro Laux's employees were civilians but many key personnel joined the ''

Waffen-SS The (, "Armed SS") was the combat branch of the Nazi Party's ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) organisation. Its formations included men from Nazi Germany, along with Waffen-SS foreign volunteers and conscripts, volunteers and conscripts from both occup ...

''. Though only Laux himself is said to have always worn his SS uniform. The bureau was not located in offices belonging to the Foreign Office, but initially in Laux's luxurious seven-room apartment at Innsbrucker Straße 44 in Berlin-Schöneberg. Prisoners from the

Sachsenhausen concentration camp Sachsenhausen () or Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg was a German Nazi concentration camp in Oranienburg, Germany, used from 1936 until April 1945, shortly before the defeat of Nazi Germany in May later that year. It mainly held political prisoners ...

were also employed there. It was Laux who took a famous photograph of

Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretar ...

toasting with von Ribbentrop after the signing of the notorious

Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact , long_name = Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , image = Bundesarchiv Bild 183-H27337, Moskau, Stalin und Ribbentrop im Kreml.jpg , image_width = 200 , caption = Stalin and Ribbentrop shaking ...

. Stalin reputedly commented that it would not be a good idea to publish the picture. Laux went to remove the film from the camera to give it to Stalin, but Stalin with a wave of his hand assured him that he "trusted the word of a German". Due to this the photograph still exists. The Buro Laux was able to pursue its full range of activities from the spring/summer of 1942. It provided photographers who documented all important events involving Ribbentrop and even travelled abroad to produce pictures for the Foreign Office. These were mainly supplied to the German press through the Deutscher Verlag publishing house. The Buro Laux also supplied foreign newspapers with pictures and provided the press attachés at the German embassies with photos that made Ribbentrop and his translator Paul Schmidt look important. Laux himself travelled widely in the occupied territories and in the war zones, collecting photo material. He was even in

Baghdad Baghdad (; ar, بَغْدَاد , ) is the capital of Iraq and the second-largest city in the Arab world after Cairo. It is located on the Tigris near the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon and the Sassanid Persian capital of Ctesiphon ...

before the British took back control of the city.

The AP "deal"

Investigators (chiefly Norman Domeier of the University of Vienna) have in recent years brought to wider attention the (well known in some circles) secret that there was a deal between

and the German government related to the interchange of press photos during the period in which the United States was at war with Germany. The mechanism for this interchange was that a courier flew to Lisbon and back each day transporting photos from and for Germany's wartime enemy, the US, via diplomatic pouch. The transactions were initially conducted at the AP bureau under Luiz Lupi in Lisbon, and from 1944, when the exchange via Lisbon took too long, also at the AP bureau in Stockholm under Eddie Shanke. Here, as a cover, the Swedish agency, , was involved as an intermediary. An estimated 40,000 photos were exchanged between the enemies in this way. The key figure in establishing the photo exchange, and Laux's superior, was SS-''Obersturmbannführer'' Dr. Paul Karl Schmidt, later known as

Paul Carell Paul Carell was the post-war pen name of Paul Karl Schmidt (2 November 1911 – 20 June 1997) who was a writer and German propagandist. During the Nazi era, Schmidt served as the chief press spokesman for Joachim von Ribbentrop's Foreign Ministry. ...

, one of the most successful ministerial careerists of Nazi Germany. AP published their own version of events during World War II.

Later life

Laux's activity after 1945 is largely a mystery. He did spend considerable time in prisoner-of-war camps, but he does not seem to have been banned from exercising his profession as a photographer. An article in ''

Der Spiegel ''Der Spiegel'' (, lit. ''"The Mirror"'') is a German weekly news magazine published in Hamburg. With a weekly circulation of 695,100 copies, it was the largest such publication in Europe in 2011. It was founded in 1947 by John Seymour Chaloner ...

'' in 1947 dealing with a camp in the neighbourhood of Darmstadt, where former SS personnel were being held, specifically mentions Laux as one of the inmates. He received denazification clearance and was soon able to reactivate his contacts abroad. He contributed glossy photos of various leading Nazis from D-Day 1944 to the 14 June 1948 edition of ''

Life Life is a quality that distinguishes matter that has biological processes, such as signaling and self-sustaining processes, from that which does not, and is defined by the capacity for growth, reaction to stimuli, metabolism, energ ...

'', signing as "Photographer Helmut Laux of the

Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung The ''Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung'', often abbreviated ''BIZ'', was a German weekly illustrated magazine published in Berlin from 1892 to 1945. It was the first mass-market German magazine and pioneered the format of the illustrated news magazine. ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Laux, Helmut 1916 births 1987 deaths Photographers from Baden-Württemberg People from Donaueschingen