Volkmar Kurt Wentzel was a German American photographer, writer, and filmmaker who worked nearly 50 years for the National Geographic Society as a darkroom technician and then photographer. His photographic career started in 1939 with an assignment to Sweden. He was the first to take photographs of Nepal and was noted for documenting the final years of traditional tribal kingdoms of Africa. Born in Dresden in 1915, he moved to the US in 1926. He started working as a darkroom tech at National Geographic in 1937, began photographing for National Geographic Magazine in 1939, and served in the Army Air Corps photo interpretation during WWII. Volkmar was one of the only photojournalists ever elevated to National Geographic Foreign Editorial Staff. In the late 1960 and throughout the 1970s Wentzel became an advocate for saving, preserving, and archiving National Geographic photographic negatives, plates, and prints, many of which were being lost due to damage or destroyed obtain filing space. Wentzel was appointed Director of the National Geographic Society Photographic Archives and put in charge of the preservation and archive effort that saved more than 10 million images and artworks.