Frentz, Walter, born 21-08-1907 in Heilbronn.

the son of
Albert Frentz, who was a cook in Heilbronn, his mother’s name was Wilhelmine, born Neher. In 1912 the family moved to Stuttgart. Even as a child, Walter Frentz was enthusiastic about water sports and photography. Through the youth movement he came to canoeing in 1923. Walter studied electrical engineering in Munich and Berlin but showed an early interest in both film and architecture. Regarding himself as a gifted amateur, he started filming with a hand-held camera. Followed
Adolf Hitler’s 
(
did you know) inner circle as a Luftwaffe cameraman during the final years of World War II and recorded some of the Nazi era’s key events on film. The official Nazi photographer was
Heinrich Hoffmann)

(
Henriette von Schirach-Hoffmann) 
an old Hitler comrade from the early years, his daughter Henriètte married the Hitler Youth leader
Baldur von Schirach.
Frentz met
Albert Speer
and his wife
Magarete 
who would become Hitler’s architect, during his time as a student in Berlin. Frentz started in film with a 1931 feature about kayaking in Austria and Yugoslavia, and in 1933 worked on a film for the Ufa company

on an ocean liner’s voyage to New York. Through Speer, a fellow student, in 1929 , Frentz met
Leni Riefenstahl
and was sworn to silence on his return. Frentz, who had never joined the Nazi party, NSDAP,

was held for several months after the war by U.S. forces at the Hammelburg prison camp.
John Knight Waters

later a four stars General, the son in law of General
George Smith Patton,

he was married with his daughter Beatrix

, was prisoner in this camp since 1943. The camp with the wounded Waters was liberated on 27-03-1945, by Task Force Baum, commander
Abraham Jasper “Abe” Baum

died age 91, 23-03-2013 in Steve Chawkins, Los Angeles.
John Knight Waters died on 09-01-1989, age 82, at the Walter Reed Army in Washington, due to heart failure.
Frentz married the painter Edeltrude “Truda” Esser, in 1949 and they got one child Hanns Peter in 1953. Hanns Peter although rejecting the values of Nazism, retains an interest in his father’s work. It is believed that Frentz left behind nearly 20,000 images which have not been published. Frentz till the end still was an enthusiastic Nationalsozialist and never dropped Hitler (see
Alois Hitler)
Walter Frentz, was held for several months after the war by United States forces, in camp Hammelburg.

In March 1945 he took the last pictures of Hitler in his Berlin bunker. Fleeing Berlin on one of the last planes out, Walter Frentz was arrested, and part of his photo archive was confiscated. He gradually returned to film, working on a documentary titled ”5,000 Years of Egypt” in 1953

and on various films on nature parks in Germany and Europe.
Death and burial ground of Frentz, Walter.

Walter Frentz married a widow, Edeltrude Esser, in 1949, who had four children. A painter, she was the wife of a friend killed in the war. Their son, Hanns-Peter Frentz,

born in 1953, although rejecting the values of Nazism, retains an interest in his father’s work. It is believed that Frentz left behind nearly 20,000 images which have not been published. Living in a retirement home in Überlingen, since 1998, Walter Fentz at the very old age of 96 died, on 06-07-2004. He is survived by his son and three stepchildren. Frentz is buried with his wife Trude Esser, born, Bewerunge, who died age 83 in 1997, on the Stadtfriedhof of Überlingen, almost next to the WWII Generalmajor der Flieger, Commander of Command Station of Luftwaffe Catch Staff West with Air Region Command VI,
Wolfgang Wieland.
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