Oskar, with a 'C' or a 'K'

[willeica]

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2 hours ago, wizard said:

My vote is for 'Louie', as I have only heard his first name being pronounced that way, but since I do not live in Louis Armstrong's home country, there could be many variables involved 🙂.

 

2 hours ago, pippy said:

Knowing you are very knowledgeable about the jazz scene, William, I'm sure you are more than familiar with the upcoming recording but, personally, I've always thought of him as being 'Louie' primarily due to my having enjoyed this well-known track since my mid-teens.

First word;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9R0ThHOjU0g

OTOH I have other 'duet' recordings where Mr. Armstrong is referred to as 'Lewis'...but for the life of me I can't remember which ones.....

Philip.

Lewis is favoured in New Orleans, but his wife who was not from there called him Louie, so did most other people.

William

[Anbaric]

For that other great German innovator, it will of course always be 'Ludwig' to Brits of a certain age:

I'd heard 'Louis Armstong'  pronounced 'Lewis' a few times recently and was wondering if I'd just been getting it wrong all these years.

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[pippy]

26 minutes ago, Anbaric said:

For that other great German innovator, it will of course always be 'Ludwig' to Brits of a certain age...

Thanks for posting that, Anbaric!

Regardless of the fact that I was already in my late teens when that aired I was still a fan of the programme for some strange reason.

Philip.

[TomB_tx]

This all reminds me of the discussion about why Leitz branded the "Leitz-Kamera" as "Leica" instead of "Leika" as some early documents spell it. Spelling revisions from the native language are usually made to appeal to the largest target market - either the camera-using market or the richer collector market.

[willeica]

18 minutes ago, TomB_tx said:

This all reminds me of the discussion about why Leitz branded the "Leitz-Kamera" as "Leica" instead of "Leika" as some early documents spell it. Spelling revisions from the native language are usually made to appeal to the largest target market - either the camera-using market or the richer collector market.

There were no collectors, only users back in the 1920s when the camera was launched. This was, I believe, the first recorded use of the Leica name in an advertisement from early 1925. Note the long ‘L’ which does not seem to have reached its final form until early 1927. Note also the ‘K’ in Kamera. The first appearance of the Leica name on a camera was with the II Model D in 1932.

 

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I think I mentioned before that when we were looking for Barnack’s grave in 2018, local people in Wetzlar did not know who he was, but they had heard of the Leitz family. Fame always has its boundaries.

William 

[Matlock]

4 minutes ago, willeica said:

 

I think I mentioned before that when we were looking for Barnack’s grave in 2018, local people in Wetzlar did not know who he was, but they had heard of the Leitz family. Fame always has its boundaries.

William 

All this reminds me of the story of a Parish Priest who was leaving his church late one evening. As he stepped outside he heard a tapping sound, puzzled and slightly unnerved  he walked round the East End of the church to find a man with hammer and chisel working on the engraving of a tombstone. When the priest asked what he was doing the man answered "I had to change it as they spelt my name wrong".

[derleicaman]

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6 hours ago, M9reno said:

Thank you, Bill!  I hope you got the image that I sent you of Barnack's business card (with Oskar with a "k").  I also know of a signed personal letter (with a "k") and of Zeiss Ikon's condolence letter to Leitz, dated January 1936 (also spelling Oskar with a "k").

Perhaps in the latter document we might have a clue for why Conrad (surely born Konrad) used a "c" for his own and his father's name, both in correspondence as well as (in all likelihood) his parents' grave marker.  The Zeiss letter ends with the formal "mit deutschem gruss", a phrase which by 1945 was considered stained by its association with Nazism.

My hypothesis would be that, by the time that Emma Barnack died (1946), Conrad made the decision to anglicise his own and his parents' names, perhaps as part of the pride he felt (obvious from his correspondence with Forsyth) in his own English language skills, but perhaps also as a political gesture, turning his back on traditional German formulations.  As William has already pointed out, Conrad spent his time during World War II as a prison orderly, in which capacity he befriended an English POW.  It was perhaps here that he learned English and the language took on important personal connotations for Conrad.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Longest-Way-Round-Chris-Dorley-Brown/dp/0994791909

 

Thanks for that link to the book by Chris Dorley-Brown. This sounds very interesting, and might well be why Conrad favored spelling his and his father's name with a 'C', rather than a 'K'.

The war had a tremendous impact on so many people, some less obvious, and this might be one of those occasions.

It's been over ten years since my dad passed away, and I would have loved to get his insight on this. His given name Karl, was changed from a 'K' to a 'C' in Catholic grade school in Chicago. He came to America when he was two, but returned to Germany as a GI as part of the occupation in 1946, just 17 years after he left. He spent about three years there, and it was the biggest impact on his life. While there, he had lots of interactions with average Germans, relatives, and even meeting Dr. Paul Wolff and obtaining a 9cm Elmar from him that I still have. He travelled to Wetzlar on one occasion trying to obtain a Leica, showing up one day at Haus Friedwart. When the butler answered the door to ask what he wanted, Elsie shouted down from the stairwell to the second floor, "Tell him to go away, we have no Leicas!" I know my friend Knut Kuhn-Leitz, Elsie's son, must have been there as well. It meant a lot to me to have Knut show us around the house three years ago before he passed away.

[willeica]

21 minutes ago, derleicaman said:

Thanks for that link to the book by Chris Dorley-Brown. This sounds very interesting, and might well be why Conrad favored spelling his and his father's name with a 'C', rather than a 'K'.

The war had a tremendous impact on so many people, some less obvious, and this might be one of those occasions.

It's been over ten years since my dad passed away, and I would have loved to get his insight on this. His given name Karl, was changed from a 'K' to a 'C' in Catholic grade school in Chicago. He came to America when he was two, but returned to Germany as a GI as part of the occupation in 1946, just 17 years after he left. He spent about three years there, and it was the biggest impact on his life. While there, he had lots of interactions with average Germans, relatives, and even meeting Dr. Paul Wolff and obtaining a 9cm Elmar from him that I still have. He travelled to Wetzlar on one occasion trying to obtain a Leica, showing up one day at Haus Friedwart. When the butler answered the door to ask what he wanted, Elsie shouted down from the stairwell to the second floor, "Tell him to go away, we have no Leicas!" I know my friend Knut Kuhn-Leitz, Elsie's son, must have been there as well. It meant a lot to me to have Knut show us around the house three years ago before he passed away.

It might be worthwhile looking at Conrad’s wartime and postwar experiences. There is a hint at unfortunate experiences in Munich in the letter to Jim Forsyth. Also Munich continued for some years to be something of a hotbed for certain beliefs. I have a vague recollection of something about the republication of Mein Kampf there. I am going to ask tomorrow morning if I can see a copy of the documents that came with No 105. The ‘c’ instead of the ‘k’ might have been a form of distancing and internationalising of his and Barnack Sr’s reputations. 
 

I have come across other stories where there was a postwar whitewashing of history in Munich from the 1930s and 1940s. Some this is material which I would rather not put on a public forum, but I can email you about this, Bill. You may recall that, about a year ago, you and I exchanged some organisation charts and a wartime map of Wetzlar. 
 

William

[sandro]

Bill, the matter of k or c seems to be cleared in favor of k, which is simply the german way of spelling the name of Oskar. I just checked in Paul Wolff's article 'Die Geschichte einer kleinen Kamera' (The history of a small camera) in the 1941 Festschrift für Ernst Leitz and he correctly wrote about Oskar Barnack.

Lex

[derleicaman]

26 minutes ago, sandro said:

Bill, the matter of k or c seems to be cleared in favor of k, which is simply the german way of spelling the name of Oskar. I just checked in Paul Wolff's article 'Die Geschichte einer kleinen Kamera' (The history of a small camera) in the 1941 Festschrift für Ernst Leitz and he correctly wrote about Oskar Barnack.

Lex

Hello Lex, thanks for that reference. It seems that everything associated with E. Leitz had it with a 'K', including the patent applications and his death notice. It seems the 'C' was more an affectation of Conrad's, for what reason we can only guess. 

Maybe when I am in Wetzlar in October, we should have a seance at Oskar's grave and ask him which is correct :-)!

[Studienkamera]

I found the definitive answer in an email sent by Leica Camera Classics GmbH Vienna:

"433 highly exclusive lots will be available, like the Leica 0-Series camera with the serial number 105 owned by Oscar Barnak."

That's it! The "c" travelled all the way from the surname to the given name where it replaced the "k".

[alemartinezc]

Small contribution  to this interesting topic. I have this small brochure printed in Spanish dated 1933. In page  2 we can see a very well known picture of Oskar Barnack under which is written “Oskar Barnack, the creator  of the Leica”. So, two things called  my attention: Oskar with “K” and “creator”.

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Edited June 9, 2022 by alemartinezc
Misspelling

[willeica]

Wilhelm Oscar Barnack’s Marriage Certificate from 1903 

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For Bill Rosauer. I am told that Oscar Fricke, son of Rolf Fricke, has the original or a copy of the original handwritten document from 1903, which is signed ‘Wilhelm Oscar Barnack’. You probably know Oscar Fricke and should give him a call to see if he still has it.

The Oskar/Oscar thing is ‘comme ci, comme ca’ to me, but I’m really thrilled with  Wilhelm being the first name on his marriage certificate.

It seems that Oscar was a personal/pet/family name which he used, but Oskar was his official name. 

William 

[willeica]

12 hours ago, derleicaman said:

Hello Lex, thanks for that reference. It seems that everything associated with E. Leitz had it with a 'K', including the patent applications and his death notice. It seems the 'C' was more an affectation of Conrad's, for what reason we can only guess. 

Maybe when I am in Wetzlar in October, we should have a seance at Oskar's grave and ask him which is correct :-)!

Bill, see my previous post above . The ‘Oscar’ use may go back much further. You need to contact Oscar Fricke to cross check on this. He is going to be ‘Willi Barnack’ to me from now on. 

William 

[willeica]

Another piece. This time a signed photo from the estate of his daughter Hanna. It is, of course, an ‘official  photo’ showing him at his desk. This looks like a ‘k’ . 

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I’m going into the Leica Archive in the afternoon and will look around for more.

William 

[wizard]

vor 55 Minuten schrieb willeica:

... but I’m really thrilled with  Wilhelm being the first name on his marriage certificate.

Me too! I did not know he had a second (or rather first) first name besides Oskar, and still guessed in my above post that Oskar may have been called Wilhelm by his family members. I also mentioned Otto, but my success rate is 50% nonetheless 🙂.

I also note that on the above marriage certificate Oskar Barnack's mother is indicated as having Caroline as her first name, and that Ms. Barnack's father's name was Friedrich August Carl Leopold, which may be why Oskar is spelled 'Oscar'. Who would like to be spelled lowly 'Oskar', when everyone else on that same document uses the posh 'c' spelling 😉.

[dkCambridgeshire]

7 minutes ago, willeica said:

Another piece. This time a signed photo from the estate of his daughter Hanna. It is, of course, an ‘official  photo’ showing him at his desk. This looks like a ‘k’ . 

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I’m going into the Leica Archive in the afternoon and will look around for more.

William 

Definitely a 'k' if compared to the 'k' in Barnack 

[Matlock]

2 hours ago, willeica said:

Wilhelm Oscar Barnack’s Marriage Certificate from 1903 

Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here…

Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!

For Bill Rosauer. I am told that Oscar Fricke, son of Rolf Fricke, has the original or a copy of the original handwritten document from 1903, which is signed ‘Wilhelm Oscar Barnack’. You probably know Oscar Fricke and should give him a call to see if he still has it.

The Oskar/Oscar thing is ‘comme ci, comme ca’ to me, but I’m really thrilled with  Wilhelm being the first name on his marriage certificate.

It seems that Oscar was a personal/pet/family name which he used, but Oskar was his official name. 

William 

Interesting. If this certificate is 1903, how come it has a Nazi over stamp on it?

[derleicaman]

2 hours ago, willeica said:

Wilhelm Oscar Barnack’s Marriage Certificate from 1903 

Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here…

Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!

For Bill Rosauer. I am told that Oscar Fricke, son of Rolf Fricke, has the original or a copy of the original handwritten document from 1903, which is signed ‘Wilhelm Oscar Barnack’. You probably know Oscar Fricke and should give him a call to see if he still has it.

The Oskar/Oscar thing is ‘comme ci, comme ca’ to me, but I’m really thrilled with  Wilhelm being the first name on his marriage certificate.

It seems that Oscar was a personal/pet/family name which he used, but Oskar was his official name. 

William 

Sehr interessant Willi! Everytime this seems to be going in some logical direction, we are treated to another twist and turn!

I will reach out to Oscar. It just dawned on me the Oscar Fricke's name is spelled with a 'C' as well. I'll ask him is he has any insight on this as well. 🙂

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[derleicaman]

8 minutes ago, Matlock said:

Interesting. If this certificate is 1903, how come it has a Nazi over stamp on it?

That stamp is on top of the original Reichs stamp. I am sure that both the original stamp and the Nazi era stamps signify that this is an official record. My guess is that someone requested an official copy of the marriage certificate during the period of 1933 to 1945. For what reason we cannot know. This is long after Barnack went to work for Leitz, but during the period when he died in 1936.