A German Kriegsberichter (war correspondent), Arriflex in hand documents Operation Barbarossa from behind the cover of a knocked-out BT-5 Soviet light tank. 1941 [1,080 x 699]
by 94MIKE19
A German Kriegsberichter (war correspondent), Arriflex in hand documents Operation Barbarossa from behind the cover of a knocked-out BT-5 Soviet light tank. 1941 [1,080 x 699]
by 94MIKE19
3 Comments
“The hoes over at Die Deutsche Wochenschau are gonna love dis”
Being a war correspondent for Operation Barbarossa and the Eastern Front must have been WILD
The camera he’s holding is a 1st generation Arriflex 35, developed in 1937, it is prolific for being the first 35mm reflex motion picture camera, meaning you could look through the viewfinder and see exactly what the lens sees. It was intended for Leni Riefenstahl to use on the propaganda films *Olympia* and *Olympia II*, but it wasn’t finished in time.
During the war it became popular as a news camera and especially, as a battlefield camera, any war footage taken from the German perspective that you’ve seen was likely shot with an Arriflex. Many units were captured by American G.I.s who took it Stateside where it was reverse-engineered and a copycat called the CineFlex was produced.
Since the war’s end, Arri has gone on to become the most prolific name in cinema cameras. The successor models to the Arriflex 35 (especially the 35 IIC) are among the most widely-used in history, being favoured by the likes of Sergio Leone and Stanley Kubrick ([who owned one personally](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYUYjhQHj8k)) and they still see use today, nearly 90 years later.
**EDIT**: Link added