At the age of fifteen Lebeck was drafted into the
Wehrmacht and sent to the
Eastern Front where he was captured as a
POW by the
Soviet Army. Finally
repatriated after
World War II, he finished high school at the
Donaueschingen Fürstenberg Gymnasium, and went on to study ethnology in Zurich and New York. Self-taught as a photographer, he started in 1952 as a
freelancer selling to various newspapers and magazines in
Heidelberg. Lebeck then went on to be employed by the magazines
Illustrierte wie Revue and
Kristall, and finally by the German weekly news magazine
Stern. He worked for
Stern for thirty years as a photojournalist, with a brief sabbatical during 1977 to 1978, as editor-in-chief of the monthly educational magazine
Geo. Since 2001 Lebeck resided in Berlin. Lebeck became well known in 1960 after his report on the independence of the
Congo "Afrika im Jahre Null" ("Africa in Year Zero") which included a photograph of an African man,
Ambroise Boimbo pinching the ceremonial sword of
Belgian King Baudouin. To this day that picture remains his "calling card". ==Awards==