163rd Signal Photo Company Photographer - Filmed the Swastika blowing up at Nuremberg

February 14

Here’s a grouping from the photographer who filmed the swastika explosion at Nuremberg Stadium, earned a Bronze Star for his bravery with the camera, and was one of the first GIs to enter Berchtesgaden. I’ve included a summary here, but I encourage you to read through his whole story via the link as this doesn’t do justice to everything he did during the war, and it also showcases more of the photos included in the group.

https://www.36thdivisionarchive.com/pa-eto-fenberg

This grouping of items belonged to S/SGT L. Bennett “Elby” Fenberg from Detroit, MI. He experienced a rough childhood, with both his parents passing away by the time he was just 14. Despite his hardship, he found a passion in photography and started a camera club at the university he attended. After multiple attempts to enlist in the U.S. Army after Pearl Harbor, he was finally accepted in 1942, applying as a cameraman and receiving his assignment to the 163rd Signal Photo Company as a motion picture photographer.

Shipped overseas to North Africa and Italy in 1943, he took his camera directly into the action with the 36th Infantry Division at San Pietro, then also filmed the 3rd and 45th ID through San Vittore, Monte Cassino, Anzio, and the liberation of Rome. Coincidentally, while in Italy he found himself printed on national newspapers back in the states when he was photographed eating his Christmas dinner on the hood of a jeep with some GIs of the 3rd ID. Stepping foot in France, he followed the 45th ID as a stills photographer and accompanied troops sent to rescue about 75 members of the 157th IR who had been stuck in the town of Bundenthal and surrounded by German pillboxes for an entire week.

In 1945 he was mainly attached to the 3rd ID as a motion picture photographer. He followed them through Colmar and into many instances of house-to-house fighting where he found it hard to get usable film while under constant fire. Notably he accompanied advancing patrols in Nuremberg, where he earned a Bronze Star for filming while directly targeted by mortar, machine gun, and sniper fire, then went back through the battlefield by himself to hand-deliver the film to command. Once the town was captured, he also filmed the famous footage of the exploding swastika, where a 10-feet-long piece of metal landed directly in front of the camera and almost cut him in half. He continued on, becoming one of the first troops to enter Berchtesgaden with a task force from the 3rd ID, and filmed the Berghof as it was burning.

He returned home in 1945 and settled down with family in Houston, TX. There he ran a jewelry store with his brother, where he started a camera department, and lived with his wife and three children until he passed.