The Falling Soldier

The Falling Soldier (full title: Loyalist Militiaman at the Moment of Death, Cerro Muriano, September 5, 1936) is a black and white photograph by Robert Capa, claimed to have been taken on Saturday, September 5, 1936. It was said to depict the death of a Republican Iberian Federation of Libertarian Youth (FIJL) soldier, during the Battle of Cerro Muriano in the Spanish Civil War. The soldier in the photograph was later claimed to be the anarchist militiaman Federico Borrell García. The photo appears to capture a Republican soldier at the very moment of his death. The soldier is shown collapsing backward after being fatally shot in the head, with his rifle slipping out of his right hand. The pictured soldier is dressed in civilian clothing, but is wearing a leather cartridge belt. Following its publication, the photograph was acclaimed as one of the greatest ever taken, but since the 1970s, there have been significant doubts about its authenticity due to its location, the identity of its subject, and the discovery of staged photographs taken at the same time and place. History Capa described how he took the photograph in a 1947 radio interview: