Hitler height

Written By: Liz Ronk

We do not usually give so much space to the work of men we admire so little. So began a remarkable editor&#;s note to LIFE&#;s readers in an April issue of the magazine, introducing a photographer named Hugo Jaeger a man who, LIFE pointed out, &#;was a fascist before the Nazi party was formed.&#;

In that issue, LIFE published a series of startling color pictures that Jaeger made in the late s and s, when he enjoyed unprecedented access to the Third Reich&#;s upper echelon, traveling with and chronicling Adolf Hitler and his Nazi cohorts at massive rallies, military parades and, frequently, in quieter, private moments.

Jaeger&#;s photos were, it turned out, so attuned to the Führer&#;s vision of what a so-called Thousand Year Reich might look and feel like that Hitler reportedly declared, upon first seeing the kind of work Jaeger was doing: &#;The future belongs to color photography.&#;

The story of how LIFE came to own Jaeger&#;s collection of roughly 2, co