Walter Mittelholzer was the first to fly over Kilimanjaro

A media star concerned about his style: Walter Mittelholzer poses in front of his Fokker in 1930. (Photo: ETH-Bibliothek Zürich)

Author, photographer, media star, founder of Swissair: Born in St. Gallen in 1894, Walter Mittelholzer was a dazzling personality. The pioneer of aviation had many talents and sold them without fear of contact. Through his keen business acumen, not only books, reports and films, but also countless landscape photos have emerged from a bird's eye view.

But Mittelholzer did not content himself with Switzerland, that brought him to the world. The exhibition at the Landesmuseum, created in collaboration with the ETH-Bibliothek, brings together some of his best photographs. The ETH image archive includes more than 18,000 fully indexed and freely accessible online photographs

Swissair co-founder

Photographer and qualified military pilot, he possesses the best qualifications to become a pioneer of aviation. In 1926 he was the first to fly a flying boat from Zurich all over Africa to Cape Town. In 1930, he crossed Kilimanjaro with his plane. It was also a world first.

He always documented his flights and his adventures, Mittelholzer was a fast supplier of the press with his photographs and his reports. In 1934, he delivered a plane to the Emperor of Abyssinia. He became a national hero in 1931 as co-founder of Swissair. With his flights abroad, he had already raised public awareness of aviation. Mittelholzer died at the age of 43. Not in a plane crash, but during a climbing trip to Austria.

The exhibition at Landesmuseum Zürich runs until October 7.