Peter Leibing (1941 – November 2, 2008) was a German

photographer A photographer (the Greek φῶς (''phos''), meaning "light", and γραφή (''graphê''), meaning "drawing, writing", together meaning "drawing with light") is a person who uses a camera to make photographs. Duties and types of photograp ...

known for his 1961 photographs of escaping East German border guard,

Conrad Schumann Hans Conrad Schumann, also known as Konrad Schumann (28 March 1942 – 20 June 1998), was an East German Bereitschaftspolizist who escaped to West Germany during the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961. Early life Born in Zschochau (now pa ...

jumping a

barbed wire Roll of modern agricultural barbed wire Barbed wire, also known as barb wire or bob wire (in the Southern and Southwestern United States), is a type of steel fencing wire constructed with sharp edges or points arranged at intervals along the ...

fence during construction of the

Berlin Wall The Berlin Wall (, ) was a guarded concrete Separation barrier, barrier that encircled West Berlin from 1961 to 1989, separating it from East Berlin and the East Germany, German Democratic Republic (GDR; East Germany). Construction of the B ...

. Leibing was born in

Hamburg Hamburg (, ; ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg,. is the List of cities in Germany by population, second-largest city in Germany after Berlin and List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, 7th-lar ...

in 1941. On 15 August 1961 Leibing, working for the Hamburg picture agency Contiepress, had been tipped by police that an East German border guard might escape the

, then in its third day of construction. At that stage of construction, the Berlin Wall was only a low barbed-wire fence. As people on the Western side shouted ''Komm rüber!'' ("come over"), Leibing captured a photograph of Schumann jumping a barbed wire fence and making his escape. The photo became a well-known image of the

Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...

and won the

Overseas Press Club The Overseas Press Club of America (OPC) was founded in 1939 in New York City by a group of foreign correspondents. The wire service reporter Carol Weld was a founding member, as was the war correspondent Peggy Hull. The club seeks to maintain ...

Best Photograph award for 1961. Leibing continued to work as a photographer, later as photo editor until retirement, both as a police photographer and reporter for the '' Hamburger Echo'', the ''

Hamburger Morgenpost The ''Hamburger Morgenpost'' (Hamburg Morning Post) (also known as Mopo) is a daily German newspaper published in Hamburg in Tabloid (newspaper format), tabloid format. As of 2006 the ''Hamburger Morgenpost'' was the second-largest newspaper in H ...

'', and ''

Hamburger Abendblatt ''Hamburger Abendblatt'' () is a German daily newspaper in Hamburg belonging to the Funke Mediengruppe, publishing Monday to Saturday. The paper focuses on news in Hamburg and its surrounds, and produces regional supplements with news from Norde ...

''. Leibing died on November 2, 2008. The rights to his famous photograph of the escaping East German border guard currently belong to Conibeta GmbH.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Leibing, Peter Photographers from Hamburg 1941 births 2008 deaths