Wassersport / Kopfsprünge (mit Günther Leitz am Rollenende) (ca. 1920)

Men in swimming trunks jump one after the other from a wooden jetty into the Lahn. In the first half of the film, the footage runs backwards. The film ends with a close-up of Günther Leitz (1914-1969), the youngest son of Ernst Leitz II, then sole shareholder of the optical company Leitz in Wetzlar.

"Wassersport/Kopfsprünge" is the original camera negative version of Oskar Barnack as found by the DFF. The title of the film is confirmed thanks to the inscription on the historical film can. In Oskar Barnack's workshop book, the film is named "Wassersport" (water sports) in a list of rental transactions. On the film can of the original negative compilation reel it says "Gunther Leitz as a boy" was the next film on the compilation. The DFF presents both negatives together, according to the handed-down compilation of both films by the Leitz company archive in the 1950s. A later version of the film is "Im Freibad an der Lahn".

Since the 1910s, Oskar Barnack, the inventor of the Leica, had captured events around Wetzlar on film with his self-constructed film camera. He documented flood disasters, city festivals, medical experiments, sporting events and the company where he was employed as chief designer: the Optical Works Ernst Leitz in Wetzlar. His films form the basis of a film archive in which local history has the same place as the effects of great historical events.