Walter Mittelholzer (2 April 1894 – 9 May 1937) was a Swiss

aviation Aviation includes the activities surrounding mechanical flight and the aircraft industry. ''Aircraft'' includes fixed-wing and rotary-wing types, morphable wings, wing-less lifting bodies, as well as lighter-than-air craft such as hot a ...

pioneer. He was active as a pilot, photographer, travel writer, as well as of the first aviation

entrepreneur Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value. With this definition, entrepreneurship is viewed as change, generally entailing risk beyond what is normally encountered in starting a business, which may include other values t ...

Life

Born on 2 April 1894 in

St. Gallen , neighboring_municipalities = Eggersriet, Gaiserwald, Gossau, Herisau (AR), Mörschwil, Speicher (AR), Stein (AR), Teufen (AR), Untereggen, Wittenbach , twintowns = Liberec (Czech Republic) , website = ...

as the son of a baker, Mittelholzer earned his private pilot's license in 1917. In 1918 he completed his instruction as a military pilot. On 5 November 1919 he co-founded an air-photo and passenger flight business, ''

Comte ''Comte'' is the French, Catalan and Occitan form of the word 'count' (Latin: ''comes''); ''comté'' is the Gallo-Romance form of the word 'county' (Latin: ''comitatus''). Comte or Comté may refer to: * A count in French, from Latin ''comes'' * A ...

, Mittelholzer, and Co.'' In 1920 this firm merged with the financially stronger

Ad Astra Aero Ad Astra Aero (Latin for "to the stars air") was a Swiss airline based at Zürichhorn in Zürich. Early years Initiated by Oskar Bider and Fritz Rihner, in July 1919 the "Schweizerische Gesellschaft für Lufttourismus" (literally: Swiss ...

. Mittelholzer was the director and head pilot of

which later became Swissair. He made the first north–south flight across

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

. It took him 77 days. Mittelholzer started in

Zürich , neighboring_municipalities = Adliswil, Dübendorf, Fällanden, Kilchberg, Maur, Oberengstringen, Opfikon, Regensdorf, Rümlang, Schlieren, Stallikon, Uitikon, Urdorf, Wallisellen, Zollikon , twintowns = Kunming, San Francisco Zürich ...

on 7 December 1926, flying via

Alexandria Alexandria ( or ; ar, ٱلْإِسْكَنْدَرِيَّةُ ; grc-gre, Αλεξάνδρεια, Alexándria) is the second largest city in Egypt, and the largest city on the Mediterranean coast. Founded in by Alexander the Great, Alexandri ...

and landing in

Cape Town Cape Town ( af, Kaapstad; , xh, iKapa) is one of South Africa's three capital cities, serving as the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. It is the legislative capital of the country, the oldest city in the country, and the second largest ...

on 21 February 1927. Earlier, he had been the first to do serious aerial reconnaissance of Spitsbergen, in a Junkers

monoplane A monoplane is a fixed-wing aircraft configuration with a single mainplane, in contrast to a biplane or other types of multiplanes, which have multiple planes. A monoplane has inherently the highest efficiency and lowest drag of any wing con ...

, in 1923. On 08 January 1930 he became the first person to fly over Mount Kilimanjaro; he planned to fly over

Mount Everest Mount Everest (; Tibetan: ''Chomolungma'' ; ) is Earth's highest mountain above sea level, located in the Mahalangur Himal sub-range of the Himalayas. The China–Nepal border runs across its summit point. Its elevation (snow heig ...

later in 1930. In 1931, Mittelholzer was appointed technical director of the new airline called Swissair, formed from the merger of Ad Astra Aero and

Balair Belair, legally ''Belair Airlines AG'', was a Swiss charter airline headquartered in Glattbrugg operating out of Zürich Airport and EuroAirport Basel Mulhouse Freiburg. It was a subsidiary of Air Berlin and operated under the Air Berlin brand ...

. Throughout his life he published many books of aerial photographs and marketed his expeditions through films and the media as well. He died in 1937 in a climbing accident on an expedition in the Hochschwab massif in southwest face of Stangenwand in Styria,

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

. Among other Swiss air pioneers, he is commemorated in a Swiss postage stamp issued in January 1977. His legacy of some 18,500 photographs is kept at ETH Library's image archive in

Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...

. File:Walter Mittelholzer 970.jpg, Mittelholzer memorial at Zürich Airport File:Flugbild von Walter Mittelholzer aus dem Jahr 1919, früheste Flugaufnahme von Rapperswil - Stadtmuseum Rapperswil - 'Stadt in Sicht 2013-10-05 16-29-54 (P77000).JPG, Earliest aerial photography of

Rapperswil Rapperswil (Swiss German: or ;Andres Kristol, ''Rapperswil SG (See)'' in: ''Dictionnaire toponymique des communes suisses – Lexikon der schweizerischen Gemeindenamen – Dizionario toponomastico dei comuni svizzeri (DTS, LSG)'', Centre de dial ...

, Switzerland, by Walter Mittelholzer in 1919 File:Ad Astra Aero - Mittelholzers Dornier Merkur (CH171) in Kenja 1927.jpg,

Dornier Merkur The Dornier ''Komet'' ("Comet"), ''Merkur'' ("Mercury"), Do C, Do D, and Do T were a family of aircraft manufactured in Germany during the 1920s, originally as small airliners, but which saw military use as well. The earliest aircraft in the ser ...

(CH-171) piloted by Mittelholzer in Kigocna, Kenya (1927) File:Mittelholzer-fokker.jpg, Swissair

Fokker F.VII The Fokker F.VII, also known as the Fokker Trimotor, was an airliner produced in the 1920s by the Dutch aircraft manufacturer Fokker, Fokker's American subsidiary Atlantic Aircraft Corporation, and other companies under licence. Design and d ...

b-3 m (CH-192) piloted by Walter Mittelholzer in

Kassala Kassala ( ar, كسلا) is the capital of the state of Kassala in eastern Sudan. Its 2008 population was recorded to be 419,030. Built on the banks of the Gash River, it is a market town and is famous for its fruit gardens. Many of its inhabit ...

, Sudan, February 1934 File:ETH-BIB-Teheran aus 400 m Höhe-Persienflug 1924-1925-LBS MH02-02-0085-AL-FL.tif, Aerial view of

Tehran Tehran (; fa, تهران ) is the largest city in Tehran Province and the capital of Iran. With a population of around 9 million in the city and around 16 million in the larger metropolitan area of Greater Tehran, Tehran is the most popul ...

in 1925 by Walter Mittelholzer

Select bibliography

*''Im Flugzeug dem Nordpol entgegen: Junkers'sche Hilfsexpedition für Amundsen nach Spitzbergen, 1923'' (with Kurt Wegener, Adolf Miethe, Hans Boykow).

Orell Füssli Orell Füssli is a Swiss printing and bookselling company, established by Christoph Froschauer in 1519 as a book printer and publisher. It is currently operating in many print-related segments, such as security printing, bookselling and publishing, ...

, 1924. *''Die Schweiz aus der Vogelschau: 274 Abbildungen aus der Sammlung von Walter Mittelholzer'' (with Otto Flückiger. Eugen Rentsch, 1926. *''Persienflug'' (with Otto Flückiger). Orell Füssli, 1926. *''Kilimandjaro Flug''. Orell Füssli, 1930. *''Alpenflug'' (with F. Hass, Hans Kempf, Willi Fritz Burger). Orell Füssli, 1930. *''Mittelmeerflug, mit 120 Fliegeraufnahmen und einer Einleitung'' (with Gustav Ehrhardt). Rascher & cie, 1930. *''Tschadseeflug: Mit dem drei-motorigen Fokker der Swissair durch die Sahara zum Tschadsee'' (with Auguste Piccard). Schweizer aero-revue, 1932. *''Abessinienflug: Mit dem dreimotorigen Fokker an den Hof des Negus Negesti''. Schweizer aero-revue, 1934. *''Fliegerabenteuer'' (with Willi Rickmer Rickmers, Werner von Langsdorff). Brockhaus, 1938. *''Die Schweiz von damals, 1917-1937: 350 historische Flugaufnahmen'' (with Walter M. Borner). Weltbild-Verlag, 2005. , .

References

External links

*
Luftbild Schweiz

Image Archive, ETH Library, collection Walter Mittelholzer
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mittelholzer, Walter 1894 births 1937 deaths Swiss aviators 20th-century Swiss photographers 20th-century travel writers Swiss travel writers Aerial photographers Aviation pioneers People from St. Gallen (city) Mountaineering deaths