Robert Capa (pseudonym of Endre Ernö Friedmann, Budapest 22.10.1913 – Province of Thái Bình 25.5.1954) was the First photographer in history specialized in war reportagehistorical collaborator of the magazine Life and founder in 1947 of the Magnum-Photo Agency. He began to take photographs from a very young age: in 1936 he took part as a reporter at the Spanish civil warmaking his most famous (and discussed) photography: Death of a militia. In the following years he documented some moments of the Second World War, including the landing in Normandy, and the First Arab-Israeli war. In 1954, while he was following the French troops engaged in the colonial war in Indochina, he found death because of the explosion of a mine, leaving only one thing behind him: the precious legacy of his photographs.
Birth and beginning of the career of Robert Capa
Robert Capa was born in Budapest, Hungary, the October 22, 1913 In angiata family of Jewish origins. The surname with which we all remember comes from the fact that, having been a very lively and restricted child, his parents had renamed him Cápa “, who in Hungarian means” shark “.
From young Communist sympathiesexposing himself to serious dangers in the Hungary governed by the authoritarian regime of Miklos Horthy, in power from 1920 to 1944. precisely because of this, at just 17 years he was arrested for a short period and as soon as he left prison, he abandoned his close home move to Berlin and study political science. Once there, however, he became passionate about photography and in 1932 he published his first service, with the photographs taken at a conference of Lev Trockij (The Bolshevik leader of Stalin) in Copenhagen.
The following year, the ascent to the power of Nazism forced him to leave Germany. After spending a period in Vienna, he settled at Pariswhere he met other young photographers, such as David Seymour And Henri Cartier-Bressonwith whom he established a friendship relationship for collaboration that would last for many years. In the French capital he also met Gerta Pohorylle, better known as Gerda Taroyoung German photographer who became his life partner and profession.
Robert Capa in Spain
In 1936, at the outbreak of the Spanish civil war, Endre and Taro drew to Barcelona To document the war events. It was on this occasion that the couple began to use it pseudonym Robert Capabehind which the images of both photographers were originally hidden.
In September, Endre made his most famous shot: the photograph of the Death of a militiain English known as The Falling Soldier. The photo, taken in September 1936, portrayed a republican army soldier resumed right in the instant in which he was hit to death by a bullet of the men of Francisco Franco.
The shot earned great popularity the following year, when it was published in the United States by Life magazine, but its authenticity was immediately questioned: According to some, in fact, the scene would have been a fiction made artfully by Capa. For others, the shot would be authentic and would portray the real death in battle of the anarchist militia Federico Borrell García In a gunfight with franchises in Cerro Muriano (Cordova). In 1947, during a radio interview, the photographer said about it:
I took the photo in Andalusia, while I was in the trenches with 20 republican soldiers, who had old rifles in hand and died every minute. The photo was taken while the soldiers with whom he traveled were waveted towards a fascist machine gun to bring it down. At the third or fourth attempt to assault the militiamen I put the camera above my head – continues in the interview – and, without looking, I photographed a soldier while moving above the trenches, that’s all. I did not immediately develop the photos, I sent them together with many others. I was in Spain for three months and on my return I was a famous photographer, because the camera I had above my head had captured a man when they shot him. It was said it was the best photo I had ever taken, and I hadn’t even framed it in the viewfinder because I had the camera above my head.
The truth in this regard will never be known, but it is certain that, with its photographs, Capa offered exceptional documentation of the Spanish War, exciting millions of people. The conflict on the Iberian land, however, however fame brought him, was the one who deprived him of the beloved partner, crushed by a tank led by the Spanish fascists in Brunete (Madrid) in 1937. The following year, moving away from everything, Capa went in China for document the resistance to the Japanese invasion.
Photograph the Second World War
At the outbreak of the Second World War, the photographer was in New York, but decided to return to Europe to document the conflict, working first for the Collier’s Magazine And then for Life.
In July 1943 the American troops followed land in Sicily: He launches at night with his parachute, lands on a tree, and remains there until the next morning, when other paratroopers help him go down. Then it is a farmer who welcomes them and host them, waiting for the military of the American first division to which to join and photograph the military objectives of the Sicily campaign. Among all the adventures immortalized the Battle of Troina And a famous photograph took, portraying a Sicilian farmer in the act of giving information to an American soldier.
In Agrigento, while he was photographing the Temple of Concordia, he met a young Sicilian destined to become famous: Andrea Camilleri. While Capa took photographs at the monument, a very young Camilleri approached him, and began to speak in a sort of mixture of Spanish and Sicilian dialect. Just then, they witness a clash in the skies between a German and an American plane, promptly taken by the photographer. A few years later, observing the photographs, an amazed Camilleri realized who was that young man with whom he chatted.
In 1944 he participated in the landing in Normandy, reaching the “Omaha” beach together with American soldiers. Most of the photos taken then was accidentally destroyed by the laboratory technician Development, but fortunately eleven shots survived, known as “The Magnificent Eleven” (The magnificent eleven), which document the arrival of the troops on the French coast.
The Magnum Photos agency and death
After the war, Capa visited the Soviet Union together with the writer John Steinbeck and in 1947, together with Cartier-Bresson, Seymour and other colleagues, he founded the agency in New York Magnum Photoswhich soon became known all over the world.
He continued his work as a war reporter and in 1948 he reached Palestine, photographing the foundation of the state of Israel and the First Arab-Israeli war. In 1954, despite having decided not to make more war services, he agreed to follow the French troops engaged in Indochinain the conflict that would end with the end of France colonial domain. On May 25 his audacity, which had guaranteed him fame and prestige, led him to death. While he was crossing the Province of Thái Bình Following the French soldiers, Capa came down from the Jeep on which he traveled to photograph the advance of the troops, but trampled on one anti -manwho exploded and killed him instantly. Thus, at the age of 40, the most famous war reporter in history died.
