Obituary: Gregor Riethmaier

By ARNOLD PICKMERE

German-born photographer and traveller. Died aged 90.

Gregor Riethmaier, a senior photographer with the National Publicity Studios who snapped everything from visiting royalty to big-game fishing contests and scenery, reached New Zealand in a most unusual manner.

He was the radio operator and youngest crew member of the Seeteufel (Seadevil), the yacht owned by German Count Felix von Luckner.

Mr Riethmaier, attracted by New Zealand and its friendly people (and a disenchantment with the count), applied to sign off the vessel when it reached Auckland on a round-the-world cruise in February 1938, a Nazi swastika flying at the stern.

Von Luckner was the World War I Pacific sea raider who escaped from imprisonment on Motuihe Island in the Hauraki Gulf in 1917.

He and his companions fled in the prison's launch, seized the scow Moa off the Coromandel coast, and were recaptured by the cable-laying ship Iris off the Aldermen Islands 960km northeast of New Zealand.

Von Luckner was a hero of every German boy between the wars. Young Gregor, in his early 20s, bombarded him with letters to be allowed join the Seeteufel voyage.

Thousands applied, and Mr Riethmaier, who had never been to sea, was selected for his skills in woodwork, photography, weaponry, telegraphy and music.

Gregor Riethmaier, his mother and sister had seen bleak times in Germany after World War I, with rampant inflation and the Great Depression. His father had been conscripted into the Army at the start of the war and was killed very close to its end.

Before leaving Germany, Riethmaier had to do compulsory military service, introduced in 1935.

His bid to stay in Auckland in 1938 was aided by the German consul and the willingness of two New Zealand radio announcers to replace him and a photographer who was leaving the voyage for a time.

Mr Riethmaier had just two days to satisfy the immigration requirements: two people to stand as guarantors, £10 cash and a job. A well-known businessman found him work at the Glendowie Night Club.

After 10 months he went to the Waitemata Brewery, translating and assisting with work as German contractors re-equipped and modernised the plant. He also became a Bachelor of Commerce student at Auckland University until war broke out in 1939.

As a German he was interned with other enemy aliens on Somes Island in Wellington Harbour from 1939 to 1945, although he was rowed across and allowed to sit exams for a commerce degree at Victoria University.

After the war he became a naturalised New Zealander, married his New Zealand-born wife Elsie, built a house at Northcote in Auckland, had three children and started a photography business known as Mr Gregory.

He joined the National Publicity Studios, which photographically recorded many aspects of New Zealand life, and stayed until his retirement.

Gregor Riethmaier travelled widely and published four photographic books, including Rebecca and the Maoris, a 1960s photo essay of Rotorua.

He is survived by his wife, three children and grandchildren.