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Luxury liner »Titanic«: the last photos before the maiden voyage

2021-04-15T08:37:48.631Z


Most of the pictures that we know of the »Titanic« show the structurally identical sister ship »Olympic«. Some of the few original shots were shot by a Berlin photographer - four days before the sinking.


The sun was shining over the port of Southampton on April 10, 1912, with a cool north-west breeze blowing at 10 degrees.

Good conditions for the maiden voyage of the brand new "Titanic", which had been in the White Star Dock for six days and was due to leave for New York for its first Atlantic crossing at 12 noon.

A group of journalists approached the ship at the pier.

Erich Benninghoven, 39, had already taken photos in far more exciting locations.

He had only returned from Tripoli a few months earlier.

There he photographed heavy battles between Turkish and Italian troops and also captured executions on a glass plate.

Enlarge image

Magnificent: the main staircase of the luxury liner »Titanic«, 1912

Photo: Roger Viollet / Getty Images

So now the new "Titanic", the largest ship in the world.

When its identical sister, the "Olympic", was presented in June 1911, the interest of the world press was significantly greater.

And even if the »Titanic« had a little more tonnage with 46,328 gross register tons, it remained only a copy of the acclaimed »Olympic«.

Today there are only a few pictures of the »Titanic«.

Most of the photos that we know of the crashed luxury liner actually show the sister ship "Olympic".

This is due to the short lifespan of the »Titanic«, but also to the moderate interest before its demise.

“It was just the slightly improved version of the first ship built,” emphasizes “Titanic” historian Günter Bäbler.

Pictures a few days before the disaster

Three steamers belonged to the ship type: "Olympic", "Titanic" and the later "Britannic".

The Harland & Wolff shipyard in Belfast, Northern Ireland, had photographers documented in detail how the "Olympic" was created.

In the case of the "Titanic" building, only special features were recorded that differed from them.

The photos shortly before the maiden voyage are all the more valuable for historians.

On deck you can see the silhouettes of people who were looking forward to a comfortable cruise, many looking forward to a new life in America.

Five days later, most of them were dead - drowned, frozen to death, or hit by wreckage.

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Title: The Titanic Was Her Destiny: The Story of the German Passengers and Crew

Editor: Jens Ostrowski

Number of pages: 160

Author: Ostrowski, Jens

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The new book "The Titanic was her fate" tells in detail the stories of the 22 German passengers and crew members - and reveals that some of the photos were taken by Erich Benninghoven.

So far, they could only be assigned to the agencies that sold them at the time, but not to the photographers.

"The fact that a German photographer, of all people, took some of the most important photos two years before the outbreak of World War I is a small sensation for" Titanic "research," says Günter Bäbler.

He describes Benninghoven as a press photographer with "the best contacts to the major newspaper editors in the German Reich."

Many of his pictures appeared in the "Berliner Illustrirten Zeitung", as well as in the weekly newspaper "Die Welt".

He was accredited on the »Titanic« by the London photo agency Illustrations Bureau.

The photographer got around

Benninghoven was born in the Rhineland on February 24, 1873 in Gruiten near Mettmann.

A place in the Mettmann district still bears the family name today.

Instead of following in the footsteps of his long-established farming family, Erich Benninghoven went to the capital of the Reich.

The Berlin address book from 1911 shows him living in Steglitz as an illustrator and photographer.

A look into the remains of the Ullstein Archive, which was destroyed in World War II, shows that he worked as a freelance photographer around the world at the turn of the century.

He photographed aristocrats, the Prussian Crown Princess Cecilie or Ernst August von Hannover, the last Duke of Braunschweig;

he even photographed the coronation ceremony of the Queen of Siam, now Thailand.

Benninghoven got around - at a time when traveling by train and boat was often tedious.

His pictures of the war fronts are printed to this day.

With other photographers he brought the horrors of the Eastern and Western fronts of the First World War into the domestic rooms of the German Reich.

"The motifs were subject to strict propaganda rules," says photo historian Anton Holzer.

“Dead German soldiers were not allowed to be portrayed, those of the enemy were.

Battle scenes were often re-enacted behind the front lines.

Identification marks on airplanes, special weapons and details of fortifications were taboo for the photographers. «In Berlin the pictures were meticulously censored before they were allowed to appear in newspapers or on postcards.

A fortune for the luxury suite

At that time the "Titanic" had long since been on the ocean floor.

On April 10, 1912, however, her maiden voyage was due.

A White Star Line manager led Benninghoven's group of journalists on board.

The photographers carried heavy cameras on tripods, up to 20 kilograms of equipment.

13x18 centimeter glass plates were used for exposure.

The shipping company wanted to present the special features of the ship, which differed from the "Olympic" in several areas.

The two suites with their own private promenade, the most expensive cabins, were demonstrated.

In the summer season, the shipping company charged 870 pounds per crossing - a fortune at the time.

US millionaire Charlotte Cardeza with her son Drake and Bruce Ismay, director of the White Star Line, were booked in the suites for the maiden voyage.

The journalists also saw social rooms such as the Parisien café: it was directly adjacent to the à la carte restaurant on the starboard side.

After the first “Olympic” voyages, the shipping company changed the construction plans of the “Titanic” and considered another covered promenade deck to be superfluous.

"Instead, the ship received a few additional cabins and the plant-covered café, inspired by a Parisian original," said historian Bäbler.

A gym on the boat deck

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Benninghoven photo from the gym: a passenger on the "electric horse"

Photo: Günter Bäbler Collection

The tour also took the visitors on the boat deck to the gym, equipped with the most modern sports equipment from the company Rossel, Schwarz & Co. from Wiesbaden - including a punching ball, rowing machine and riding apparatus on which Benninghoven staged an unknown young woman.

The Berliner also photographed "Titanic" captain Edward John Smith on the boat deck.

This probably last portrait shows him in a black uniform in front of the windows of the officers' cabins near the command bridge.

Smith was about to retire and was one of the most experienced captains of his shipping company, which had entrusted him with the flagships for years.

Even his 40 years of experience at sea could not prevent the sinking of the "Titanic".

Erich Benninghoven left the ship with a sweep of motifs to wait with his camera in the port entrance for the »Titanic« to start moving at noon.

For this purpose, the photographers positioned themselves on the deck of the »Beacon Grange« lying on the quay.

The photographer in a photo

Here a picture was created that electrifies Günter Bäbler - and Daniel Klistorner too.

The Australian "Titanic" researcher studied the photographers intensively on April 10, 1912.

In the foreground you can see Erich Benninghoven at work during the departure of the Titanic from Southampton - accidentally or deliberately taken by a second photographer.

"Since we can assign the photos taken on that day to the agencies," Bäbler is almost certain: "The photographer with the bowler hat is Erich Benninghoven." Despite an extensive search, the researchers have not yet been able to find any other picture of the photographer.

Four and a half days after these recordings, the unbelievable happened: On the night of April 15, the ocean liner collided with an iceberg, the hull broke apart under the massive load of the incoming water and sank to the bottom of the North Atlantic.

1496 people died in the icy sea - also because there were too few lifeboats.

Only 712 people survived.

Benninghoven's motifs from Southampton were suddenly of a new quality and went around the world: from then on they showed the most famous ship of all times, no longer just a copy of the "Olympic".

From the twenties onwards, things gradually became quiet around the photographer.

It is not known when Erich Benninghoven died.

But his pictures live on.

Until today.

Source: spiegel

All news articles on 2021-04-15

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