The scene took place at the end of one of the many discussions that used to be fierce at Stern, sometime in the 80s. It is not known what exactly it was about. But colleagues do remember that stern photographer Mihály Moldvay clearly expressed that he had a different opinion than the editor-in-chief at the time.
Mischa, as everyone called him, got up to leave the boss’s office, but before he left he said: “If we were in Serbia, I would put a pistol on the table right now.”
Mihály Moldvay came from the Serbian province of Vojvodina, home of the Hungarian minority in what was then Yugoslavia. Throughout his life he remained a child of the Balkans – impulsive, sentimental, sometimes melancholic, combative and definitely hot-blooded. Of course, there was no exchange of fire at the time: Moldvay had no weapon – and the editor-in-chief had no idea of firing him either. Because Mihály Moldvay had long been one of the great photographers for stern. Also because he never denied his origins, but was authentic. “I’m a gypsy, I can say gypsy,” he often said. “I grew up with gypsies. They were all my friends.”
Moldvay had completed an apprenticeship as a car mechanic when he came to Germany in 1962 with the first generation of guest workers. He wanted to study mechanical engineering in Hamburg and shared a tiny apartment with six other newcomers from Turkey. When he saw an advertisement in the subway for training to become a photographer, he spontaneously applied, without ever having held a camera in his hand before. When he owned his first camera, he heeded the advice of his Turkish roommates that he should send pictures of himself home. He got himself a suit and imitation crocodile leather shoes and posed in front of the Hotel Atlantic with one foot on the bumper of an Opel Kapitan. Then he had his photo taken.
Years later, when he no longer just sent pictures home, but drove there himself with his wife Inge, he was a made man. “If you have money,” his friends there asked, half seriously, half jokingly, “why are you driving a car that doesn’t even have a roof?”
In fact, in the 1970s – after starting out as a photographer for the “Hamburger Abendblatt” – he had long been one of the big names in the scene and traveled around the globe for the stern. His apartment was full of photos that he brought from everywhere. They showed fishermen in Greenland, pop concerts in Russia, children in Ghana, drug-addicted minors at the train station in Bucharest. He was particularly proud of a picture with electricity pylons and an isolated tree. The star never printed it. “But in 1984 it was chosen as the World Press photo in the nature category,” Mischa proudly told visitors – and watched the reaction to the anecdote with narrowed eyes.
But his specialty was the Balkans and the former Eastern Bloc: with his Yugoslavian passport he was able to enter all of these countries without any problems, even before the wall fell. And he stuck with it because that was where he simply felt most comfortable. He spoke a number of the languages commonly used there, at least for domestic use. He was well connected. And above all: he had a heart for the people in the East, among whom he had found many friends. Once, a star author remembers, he and Moldvay got stuck in Wallachia, Romania, at night when their car broke down. They knocked on the door of a farm. The woman who came out beamed and threw her arms around the photographer’s neck: “Mischa, my friend, what are you doing here?”
Together with the author Kai Hermann, he often reported on the Balkan Wars. A close friendship developed between the two. “He had a heart for victims. The fates affected him. He could also cry,” says Hermann. “And you could rely on him 100 percent.” Hermann describes his colleague “as cautiously fearless.” Mischa Moldvay was not someone who “took incalculable risks.” He didn’t value luxury; the main thing for him was to be close to it. “He was more than just a photographer. He was a co-author. He put his heart and soul into the stories and took part,” says Hermann. Sometimes Mischa was so moved that he forgot to press the shutter button. He didn’t like everyone. But whoever he once let into his heart was lucky. His heart, some say, was as big as the sea.
Kai Hermann, known for his book about Christiane F. and the children from Bahnhof Zoo, raves about Moldvay’s talent for researching, networking and gaining the trust of influential interlocutors. With his contacts he managed to have a photo exhibition shown in the Hungarian National Museum in 2000 – the first at this location. All stern photographers were able to show their most important images there.
Stern author Heiko Gebhardt, who also previously reported as a correspondent from the Hungarian capital Budapest, remembers how Moldvay came alive when he was in the land of his ancestors. He was a legend in Hungary. “There he got a dancing step,” says Gebhardt. Whenever Mischa Moldvay came to his hotel, the band had to play the “Song of Sad Sunday” every time. “That made him happy,” says Gebhardt. And: “He suffered from Hamburg” – even though the city had once had a magical attraction for him because he had heard the name over and over again on the neighbors’ radio as a little boy.
Moldvay stayed in Hamburg for the rest of his life – also because the star there enabled him to live as a vagabond. For 35 years he traveled with his camera on behalf of the magazine. Later, long since retired, he said: “I miss traveling, being outside, always among people. I have to be among people, I have to communicate. I would prefer to be in Syria or Egypt right now.”
But he communicated through the pictures he had collected over the years. They hang or hung in numerous Hamburg cafés, in exhibitions that sometimes took place in an empty, four-story house, decorated with suitcases from emigrants. Moldvay then hung a poster on the facade: “This house is occupied.”
Above all, Mihály Moldvay communicated with people who most people just pass by with a sniff. Among other things, he devotedly looked after the homeless people who had set up home in Wehbers Park on Hamburg’s Emilienstrasse. He visited her once a week on his bike. He had specially mounted a device on the luggage rack for his large soup pot, in which he brought his home-made Serbian bean soup to the park residents, regardless of the weather.
Bean soup – that was the unifying element for him. Bean soup was served at every party he hosted in his life. She was only missing from the opening that a young cartoonist organized for him almost a year before his death from cancer, as if that were a sign. Mihály Moldvay had to be pushed to say a few words. Then he spoke heartwarmingly. “I have a lot to thank the star for. I have seen a lot and learned a lot through the star,” he said. “But it wasn’t always my world either. A lot of things were too smooth, too elegant, too expensive for me.”
was 83 years old. He leaves behind a daughter and two sons.
Anyone like Mihály Moldvay who wants to support the homeless in Hamburg: “Midnight Bus for Homeless Aid” Diakonie-Stiftung MitMenschlichkeit HamburgIBAN: DE76 2005 0550 1230 1432 55
