Robert Sennecke

Robert Sennecke spent his life as a photographer, with a special interest in sports photography. His work was displayed in museums in Berlin and in Leipzig in 1990, and he was one of the most famous photographers of the 1920s. The Carl-Diem-Archive in Köln (Cologne) possesses more than 40,000 of his pictures. During World War I, Sennecke served as a war correspondent in various territories in France and Poland, especially focusing on the Central Powers (Germany, Austria, Hungary) and the Ottoman Empire.

In that era, the Ottoman Empire extended into present-day Egypt, over large parts of the Arabian Peninsula, with cities such as Aleppo, Jerusalem, Jeddah, Medina, Mecca and in today’s Yemen, also further east cities like Baghdad and Basra on the Persian Gulf. Sennecke travelled through all those regions and nominally belonged to the Turkish army, wearing their uniform on occasion. During these trips, Sennecke became infected with malaria. The disease was not diagnosed and led ultimately to mental derangement, and he was placed at the Brandenburg Psychiatric Hospital where he died on 8 June 1940 in Lübben, Spreewald. In 1906 Sennecke travelled at his own cost to the Athinai Olympics and started the marathon, but did not finish the race.

Personal Best: Mar – unknown.