The Falling Soldier The Falling Soldier is a famous photograph taken by Robert Capa , understood to have been taken on September 5 , 1936 , and long thought to depict the death of a Republican , specifically an Iberian Federation of Libertarian Youth ( FIJL ) soldier during the Spanish Civil War , who was later identified as the anarchist militiaman Federico Borrell García . The full title of the photograph is Loyalist Militiaman at the Moment of Death , Cerro Muriano , September 5 , 1936 . There had been Falangist allegations from the beginning that the picture was staged , but outside Spain the picture was believed to be a true documentary image until the 1970s . However , recent research suggests that the picture was staged . It was definitely not taken at the battle site of Cerro Muriano , but at Espejo , some thirty miles away . Doubt has also been cast on the identification of the photograph ' s subject : Federico Borrell García is known to have been killed at Cerro Muriano , shot while sheltered behind a tree , and he did not greatly resemble the subject of the photograph . History . " The Falling Soldier " was thought to capture the moment of a Republican soldier ' s death . He is collapsing backwards having been fatally shot . He is dressed in civilian - looking clothing but wearing a leather cartridge belt , and his rifle is slipping out of his right hand . Photographs taken earlier in the day appear to show the militiaman alongside his comrades in the Columna Alcoiana waving guns and greeting the photographer or photographers . Capa ' s photographs of the Loyalist militia at Cerro Muriano , including two pictures of fatally shot militiamen , were first published in the September 23 , 1936 issue of the French magazine " VU " . Images taken at the same location were also published , a day later , in the magazine " Regards " . In the USA " The Falling Soldier " was reproduced first in " Life " and then many times . It has become a symbol of the Spanish Civil War and is one of the most famous war photographs of all time . Authenticity . While some authors , including Capa ' s biographer , Richard Whelan , always defended the photograph ' s authenticity , since 1975 , doubts have been raised . The 2007 documentary " La sombra del iceberg " claims that the picture was staged and that Borrell is not the individual in the picture . In his 2009 book , " Sombras de la Fotografía " ( " Shadows of Photography " ) , José Manuel Susperregui of the University of País Vasco concluded that the photograph had not been taken at Cerro Muriano but at another location about away . Susperregui determined the actual location of the photograph by examining the backgrounds of other photographs from the same sequence as the " Falling Soldier " , in which a range of mountains can be seen . He then e - mailed images to librarians and historians in towns near Córdoba , asking if they recognized the landscape , and received a positive response from a community called Espejo . Since Espejo had been at some distance from the battle lines when Capa was there , Susperregui said that this meant that the " Falling Soldier " photograph was staged , as were all the others in the same series supposedly taken on the front . Spanish newspapers , including the Barcelona newspaper " El Periódico de Catalunya " sent reporters to Espejo who returned with photographs showing an almost perfect match between the present day skyline and the background of Capa ' s photographs . Willis E . Hartshorn , director of the International Center of Photography , asserted the photograph ' s veracity , suggesting that the militiaman had been killed by a sniper firing from a distance while posing for a staged photograph . Susperregui dismissed the suggestion , pointing out that the front lines were too widely separated and that there was no documentary evidence about the employment of snipers on the Córdoba front . Susperregui pointed out other contradictions in the accepted account of the photograph in his book , noting that Capa mentioned in interviews that the militiaman had been killed by a burst of machine - gun fire rather than a sniper ' s bullet , and also that he gave very different accounts of the vantage point and technique he used to obtain the photograph . In a way , these findings also exonerate Capa . Before the latest findings on the topic , some writers had even suggested that Capa might have been responsible for the militiaman ' s death as the militiaman appeared to be posing for Capa when he was shot – possibly by a sniper . Richard Whelan , in " This Is War ! Robert Capa at Work " , states : Further materials , old films containing images by Capa , Gerda Taro and David Seymour , came to light in early 2009 , when a lost ' suitcase ' , containing hundreds of Capa ' s negatives was unearthed , having been taken to Mexico at the end of the war . These films are now with the Capa archives at the International Center of Photography in New York . The ' suitcase ' is actually three cardboard boxes of negatives . Hopes to find the missing negative of Capa ' s most famous picture were soon dashed , but the traveling exhibition of hundreds of images that toured major art galleries in 2008 showed pictures taken on the same location and at the same time . A detailed analysis of the landscape in the series of pictures taken with that of the falling soldier has proven that the action ( whether genuine or staged ) took place near Espejo . Many of the images in this show were clearly staged and posed , including many famous images by both Capa and Taro from the Spanish civil war . The " falling man " is part of a broken series of images and in the exhibition , the fifth in a sequence of seven shots . Other images from the sequence are missing . Images six and seven are of a second ' falling ' soldier , who is not the famous man of shot number five .