Swiss Review 5/2018

28 Images The flying photographer Walter Mittelholzer, son of a baker from St. Gallen, did an apprenticeship as a photographer. Then he became a military and civilian pilot and ultimately a great pioneer in aviation. Throughout his life he combined flying with pho- tography. In 1926 he flew together with a geologist, a mechanic and the writer René Gouzy by seaplane from Zurich to Cape Town. The flight, an ad- venturous undertaking, took 76 days. Mittelholzer documented each leg photographically – and sent the photos while underway to newspapers and magazines in Switzerland. As co-founder of Swissair in 1931, he became a national hero. Portrait of a barber in Marrakesh, taken on the Lake Chad flight, 1930–31 Walter Mittelholzer beside the Fokker on the Kilimanja- ro flight, 15 December 1929 to 28 February 1930 Swiss Review / September 2018 / No.5 The exhibition “The Flying Photographer” about Mittelholzer can be seen at the Swiss National Museum in Zurich until 7 October 2018. www.landesmuseum.ch. The ETH Library preserves the photographic legacy of Mittelholzer. More than 18,000 pictures are available online. http://ba.e-pics.ethz.ch