Color from the 1930s??

nyoung · Jun 6, 2009

Been looking at the work of Hitler's personal photographer Hugh Jaeger on the Life Magazine site.

http://www.life.com/image/50714733/in-gallery/27022/adolf-hitler-up-close

The story notes that the pictures were transparencies so my question is what film would he have been using in the 1930s-40s?

I know Kodachrome was around but, I assume, not redily available in the Reich during the war.

nickandre · Jun 6, 2009

There was Kodachrome, AgfaChrome/anscochrome of some sort, color seperation methods, and hand coloring. Probably agfachrome/anscochrome. It was a color film invented in germany which used integrated dye couplers like E6 style films today. There's a wikipedia article on it somewhere...

DannL · Jun 6, 2009

Found these . . .

http://www.historicphotoarchive.com/f2/ansco.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agfacolor

Mark Antony · Jun 6, 2009

It was probably Agfacolour Neu which was released in the mid 1930's just around the time of the Berlin Olympics. There was an earlier Agfacolour which was similar to Autochrome (non integral tripack). In the UK there was Dufay colour.
I have some articles about early colour on my blog if you are interested (link below)

AgX · Jun 6, 2009

There was no Agfa-"chrome". It was Agfacolor or rather Agfacolor-Neu [New], as there already was an Agfacolor film which was a much refined type of Autochrome film.

That "-chrome" suffix was later introduced as suffix indicating a film to be reversal processed following the Kodak style. By the way, Orwo was the last company to introduce that suffix.

Chazzy · Jun 6, 2009

Fascinating stuff. I hope that Life puts even more of it online.

railwayman3 · Jun 6, 2009

nyoung said:
Been looking at the work of Hitler's personal photographer Hugh Jaeger on the Life Magazine site.]

The story notes that the pictures were transparencies so my question is what film would he have been using in the 1930s-40s?

I know Kodachrome was around but, I assume, not redily available in the Reich during the war.

I've seen a similar question elsewhere (I can't track the reference at the moment) and recall a fairly authoratative answer that:- Kodachrome was used in Germany right up to the time the US joined the Allies (when any remaining Kodak representation/processing services, etc., in Berlin would obviously have ceased). And that it was used for preference for official portraits and pictures of the Nazi bigwigs.
It would be interested to know more definitely if this were true.

nyoung · Jun 6, 2009

Mark Antony said:
It was probably Agfacolour Neu which was released in the mid 1930's just around the time of the Berlin Olympics. There was an earlier Agfacolour which was similar to Autochrome (non integral tripack). In the UK there was Dufay colour.
I have some articles about early colour on my blog if you are interested (link below)

Thanks for the info, I'm not much of a materials history buff but I thought I remembered hearing of Agfa in a discussion of very early color materials.

AgX · Jun 6, 2009

Railwayman,

I have heard this story about post-war Eastern Block nomenclatura portrays and Western colour films...

Photo Engineer · Jun 6, 2009

Both Kodak and Agfa were active in the production of various types of color films and print materials in the early part of the 20th century. Names were often reused. Kodacolor was applied to several color films.

Agfacolor and Kodachrome were two of the first to survive to the modern day using much the same type of chemistry, but Kodachrome was the closest to its original roots. Agfacolor had morphed more into the Kodak model. In Japan, Konica was the first big maker of color films, using an Agfacolor type formula. After the plant was nearly destroyed, Fuji took over much of the film manufacturing in Japan.

The formulas for the original Agfacolor film, and the synthetic routes to the chemicals were totally disclosed in the FIAT reports. This includes emulsion formulas, AH layers, CLS layers, dyes and etc. In fact, with the cross references, you find that the Brovira paper formulas were used for the color paper and etc... So the means to make it are out there for those interested.

PE

hoffy · Jun 6, 2009

Please don't take this the wrong way, but why would sales of Kodachrome cease once the US entered the second world war? It didn't stop other companies worldwide selling to the the Nazis. Why would it have stopped Kodak? Or was it a simply a case of not being able to get the films processed?

BTW, a few months ago, there was a series on Australia TV (probably from the BBC anyway) called "the 30's in colour". It was predominantly motion picture based, but I think they said that most was shot on Kodachrome, by the wealthy.

Photo Engineer · Jun 6, 2009

Kodak plants in Europe were "nationalized" by Germany and their assets made government property. Agfa-Ansco in the US was nationalized by the US government and made US property. These two acts terminated sale of respective products across the Atlantic by Agfa and Kodak. Many small companies or those not nationalized continued to do some limited business, but it was considered unpatriotic and was dealt with rather harshly later in the war by a series of acts treating with the "dealing with the enemy" subject in general.

At the end of the war, all German photo plants were debriefed and their formulas were made public property. This revealed to the world, the method of making Agfa products as well as a number of others.

PE

EASmithV · Jun 6, 2009

I'm surprised Life didn't correct the colors when they published these.

Amazing photos, though...

Dead Link Removed

skyrick · Jun 8, 2009

EASmithV said:
I'm surprised Life didn't correct the colors when they published these.

Amazing photos, though...

Dead Link Removed

The shot of a Nazi Christmas dinner could have been shot last week, but most of the others had a pretty good fade going on.

Rick

Color from the 1930s??

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