Robert Baberske

Three objects were purchased from Baberske’s son Charlie in 1990 as acquisitions: a hand-labelled album with production photos and press clippings on Baberske’s career, his Kinamo N 25 handheld camera from the mid-1920s, and a glass award commemorating Baberske’s collaboration on Fritz Lang’s ‘Metropolis’ (1927). The album documents phases of Baberske’s professional biography in 181 production photos related to 28 films, including his training with Freund. Production photos for Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau’s ‘Der letzte Mann’ (1924) attest to the love of experimentation shared by the two cameramen. Pictures of Walther Ruttmann’s documentary experiment, ‘Berlin. Die Sinfonie der Großstadt’ (1927), show Baberske with his portable Kinamo concealed under a tarp covering an automobile ‒ a cinematographer of Berlin city life. His work as a cameraman for National Socialist entertainment films is also documented, including Gerhard Lamprecht’s ‘Einer zu viel an Bord’ (1935) and Carl Froelich’s ‘Familie Buchholz’ (1944), but not for National Socialist propaganda films (such as Erich Waschneck’s staged antisemitic feature film ‘Die Rothschilds’ from 1940, of which no photos are included). Baberske’s DEFA work is illustrated by photographs for Slatan Dudow’s productions ‘Unser täglich Brot’ (1949) and ‘Frauenschicksale’ (1952) as well as Wolfgang Staudte’s classic ‘Der Untertan’ (1951) and his German-Swedish co-production ‘Leuchtfeuer’ (1954). (Text: Peter Mänz)