Hugo Jaeger

Hugo Jaeger ( born January 18, 1900 in Munich, † probably after January 1, 1970) was a German photographer.

As a member of Adolf Hitler's personal photographer Heinrich Hoffmann had in the years 1936 to 1945 access to Hitler and his personal circle. During the Second World War he worked as a photographer for a propaganda company. As one of the first German press photographer he turned to color photography. After the war he could not continue his career apparently. After an encounter with U.S. soldiers, but were not aware with the supervision of the color negatives, Jaeger feared his detention, if the negatives would be noticeable. Therefore, Jaeger decided in 1945 to hide the negatives and save as by having them buried in twelve glass containers in a Munich suburb. In 1955 he dug up these containers and kept the negatives in a safe deposit box. In 1965 he sold this stock ( 2,000 color slides) at Time Life Pictures for LIFE magazine.