Karl Heinz (also Carl-Heinz) Hargesheimer (born May 19, 1924, in Cologne; died between December 31, 1971, and January 5, 1972, in Cologne), known under the artist name Chargesheimer, was a German photographer and visual artist.

Life and Work

After the Second World War, Chargesheimer studied graphic design and photography at the Cologne Werkschulen. His artistic interests extended across various disciplines—including opera, theater, stage and costume design, and painting—but photography remained his primary medium. From around 1950 onward, he experimented with abstract light structures on photographic paper and with photomontage.

From 1955, Chargesheimer worked as a freelance photographer. He gained recognition for his sharply critical portraits of public figures as well as for socially attentive documentary work portraying everyday life in postwar Germany. Over the course of his career, he published fourteen photobooks addressing themes such as cities, landscapes, and theater. Alongside his photographic practice, he also created kinetic sculptures known as Meditationsmühlen—rotating, light-based objects made from acrylic glass.

Chargesheimer achieved national prominence with the photobook Cologne intime (1957). Shortly before the 1957 federal election, Der Spiegel publisher Rudolf Augstein commissioned him to photograph Chancellor Konrad Adenauer for the magazine’s cover. The resulting image—depicting Adenauer with a rigid, mask-like expression suggestive of political ossification—provoked widespread public outrage and brought Chargesheimer broad national attention.

Deeply attached to Cologne, Chargesheimer remained closely connected to the city throughout his life while maintaining a critical view of its postwar reconstruction and urban development. His photographic documentation of the street Unter Krahnenbäumen, begun in 1958, traced its gradual transformation. His final book, Köln 5 Uhr 30 (1970), offered a somber visual assessment of the city, described as a melancholic farewell to a Cologne increasingly hardened by concrete.

In 1968, the German Society for Photography (DGPh) awarded Chargesheimer its Cultural Prize. Friends and contemporaries described him as a solitary and demanding personality—both toward himself and others—yet exceptionally gifted and at times generous. He grew increasingly disillusioned with the photographic establishment, which he felt constrained independent thinking and treated photographs instrumentally. As a result, from the mid-1960s onward, he devoted more attention to his kinetic Meditationsmühlen. These works were shown in a solo exhibition at the Kunstpavillon in Soest, and in 1970 he received the Karl Ernst Osthaus Prize from the city of Hagen for this body of work. A large, fully functional Meditationsmühle is permanently on display at the Museum Wilhelm Morgner in Soest.

Chargesheimer was found dead in his Cologne apartment in early January 1972. He was buried at Melaten Cemetery in Cologne. His grave site, long thought lost, was rediscovered in the early 2000s. From the late 1950s to the early 1960s, he lived with the actress Gisela Holzinger. He was married from 1963 to Ann Redlin, from whom he later divorced.

Reference List

Chargesheimer. (n.d.). Wikipedia. Retrieved January 19, 2026, from https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chargesheimer