The second miniature revolution

[Roland Zwiers]

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1935: German miniature cameras on the American market

In my article Exakta goes to Hollywood I discuss the relative position of German miniature cameras as compared to the much bigger American press cameras.
In the 1920s and 1930s, German manufacturers are making major efforts to get a foothold on the American market.
From December 1932 Leitz invests in a magazine, Leica Photography Magazine, which is offered free of charge to US-registered Leica owners.
Leitz, Zeiss and Rollei are big advertisers in film and photo magazines.
And salons are organized for photos taken with the Leica, Contax and Rolleiflex.
The following message occurs in a film magazine of June 1935.
The Leica exhibit may very well have featured big prints by Dr Paul Wolff.

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[Roland Zwiers]

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1937 – The German miniature invasion

In my article: The British market in 1937, the German miniature invasion I analyse the paradox that despite high import duties of 50% German miniature cameras,
including the Leica, still obtained a dominant position on the British camera market.
The advertisement of City Sale & Exchange of 3 March 1937 hardly shows a British-made camera.
The newly introduced Compass camera was of British design, but was manufactured in Switzerland. 
It is possible, however, that the Kodak SIX-20 was made in Britain.
Interestingly, the Leica is represented three times: the Standard Leica, the Leica IIIa and the Leitz Telyt combination.

[Roland Zwiers]

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1937 – An Oscar for 35mm Agfa film

In the 1920s and 1930s the increasing quality of 35mm cine negative film was still largely driven by the demands of the motion picture industry.
One development was a demand for ever faster black-and-white films without a corresponding increase in grain.
In 1937 Agfa Ansco received an Academy Award for breakthroughs in this field.

Obviously, Agfa did not forget to inform Leica and Contax users of the high quality of its 35mm films.

In the 1920s Agfa bought the American Ansco film company so as to produce films in the USA.
In this way Agfa could avoid the high American import duties.
Likewise, Kodak made a German acquisition so as to produce films in Germany. 

[Roland Zwiers]

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1943: Your Contax, your Leica for the RAF

During the Second World War Britain found out that German miniature cameras, that had faced import duties of 50%, came in handy for the war effort.
This led to advertisements asking British photographers to part with their miniature camera for patriotic reasons.
Several advertisements show that especially Leicas and Contaxes were in great demand. 

In the course of the war the British government was not prepared to pay the high, scarcity-related market prices for these German cameras anymore.
The maximum second hand price was limited to the new price of August 1939.
As the (black) market prices kept increasing, British photographers must have felt increasingly reluctant to part with their precious German miniature at “the maximum price”.
This explains the increasingly patriotic appeal of these advertisements. 

[Roland Zwiers]

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Another advertisement shows a similar request for the 6x6 Super Ikonta.
The Super Ikonta was the camera of choice for the British Signal Corps of military press photographers.
Very likely, therefore, the 1944 picture of the landing at Arnhem was taken with a Super Ikonta.

[Roland Zwiers]

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1947: Europe hunts Leicas

In my article: Exakta goes to Hollywood, I compare the fate of the Leitz and Ihagee factories in the period 1939-1945.
The Ihagee factory suffered irreparable damage in the bombardment of Dresden of February 1945.
With that, the problems for Ihagee were not over yet.
The designer of the Exakta, Karl Nüchterlein, was called up for military service during the war.
He was reported missing in action in April 1945.
After the war Johan Steenbergen was denied access to his company.
Ihagee could not count on American support, but rather had to contribute to reparations to the Soviet Union.
It is plausible, however, that Ihagee was given priority by the authorities in the allocation of factory space, manpower and material in order to meet this obligation.

The Leitz factory suffered no significant damage during the war.
Wetzlar had never been a primary target for Allied bombing.
One reason for this may have been that Wetzlar, unlike Dresden, was not a strategic target.
In addition, Wetzlar would be located in the American zone after the war.
If the Leitz factory could start up quickly, that would have a positive impact on the economy of the American occupation zone.

In any case, the Americans supported Leitz in every possible way after the war.
For example, during the first years after the war almost the entire production was bought up by the American army to help the soldiers stationed in Germany to a coveted Leica.
The Dutch photo magazine Focus of May 21, 1947 deals with this.
For transparency I will first show the original article in Dutch.
In the next slide I will provide my translation in English.

[Roland Zwiers]

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Europe hunts Leica’s (Translation Roland Zwiers)

They are made again, but for the time being the American army is asking too much.

If the situation was as clear and well-defined everywhere as at the huge Leitz factories in the town of Wetzlar in the Taunus Mountains, then the latest ambitious plan of the British and American military authorities, that West Germany would be economically independent in three years’ time, would be assured of success.
Leitz, the manufacturer of the famous Leica cameras, microscopes and other precision optical instruments, appears to be the first to benefit from a significant share in the imminent Reconstruction Finance Corporation loan of £ 194,000,000, which has the purpose of making the export of German products possible.
Once supplied with the necessary raw materials through the mediation of the R.F.C - raw materials that cannot be supplied anywhere else in the short term - the Leitz factories would almost immediately become a very important factor in the plan to use German exports for the payment of vital imports.

Almost undamaged Two uncommon factors contribute to this exceptional position of the Leitz factories.
First, their industrial installations survived the war almost without incurring any damage.
Before the war, Leitz employed 4,000 people. 3200 have already been put to work, while more workers can start working as soon as they show up.
Secondly, the Leitz family and Henri Dumur, the manager, understood that it would only be a matter of time before the Russians swallowed the Schott glass factories in Jena - Russian zone - which were Leitz’ s supplier of optical glass.
The US military government provided a solution by helping Leitz set up a similar company in the Bavarian town of Zwiesel, and by the time the Russians began to dismantle the Schott factories, Leitz already received the first instalment of optical glass from Zwiesel.
With his installations virtually intact and the influx of the important optical components assured, Leitz could currently do business on a pre-war scale if only there was no shortage of other raw materials.

250 a week
Copper, zinc, chemicals for varnish, leather, rough industry diamond for cutting glass, all these materials that Leitz uses to manufacture 250 Leica's per week and 1200 stage viewers per month, must be provided by the already heavily overburdened German economy.
Undoubtedly, the export of Leitz articles will be very welcome all over the world.
There is no object that the American soldier adores more than his Leica.
He has spread this preference all over America, with the result that in America this device yields more than 1000 guilders.
The camera is also very popular outside of America.
Out of a total of 370,000 Leica cameras that were manufactured until the end of the war, only 45 percent remained in Germany.
Switzerland, Italy, England, the Netherlands and Belgium were the largest buyers of Leica’s abroad.
At present, almost the entire Leica production, including the monthly 1200 stage viewers, goes to the army, which sells them to the soldiers throughout Germany.
The army pays in marks, with a 30 percent discount for its mediation.

Six years from now
The only exception to this buying monopoly of the US Army is France, which receives 6 percent of production in exchange for the lenses it supplies to the company.
Since the end of the war, the American army has already purchased 10,000 Leica's for the soldiers and this still appears to be insufficient.
According to Dumur, it is generally expected that the army will shortly reduce its orders, which would release the cameras for export.
Meanwhile, only 5 percent of Leica's manufactured go to German professional photographers.
There is a backlog of 8000 orders from German firms in the books of the company.
Managing director Dumur calculates that the German photographer who places an order for a Leica today can hope for delivery in six years!

[Roland Zwiers]

1946: The advance of the (German) miniature camera; 24x36 and 6x6

A British editorial of January 1946 observes that the (German) miniature cameras have become the cameras of choice for the British photographers that compete in the weekly photo competitions.
One must remember that before August 1939 German cameras and lenses had been subject to import duties of 50%.
From August 1939 onwards advanced German cameras could not be imported freely because of import restrictions.
So, in January 1946 the German miniature cameras mentioned in the editorial were at least 5,5 years old.

[Roland Zwiers]

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Note that in Januari 1946 the two dominant miniature sizes had become the 24x36mm format of the Leica (1925) and the 6x6 format of the Rolleiflex (1929). 
Indeed, in my analysis these two cameras are the principle standard bearers of the second miniature revolution.

In a next contribution I would like to focus on the first miniature revolution, that began in the 1880s and 1890s.
This can be included again in my thread on 100 years Null-serie.
I would like to make the point that Oskar Barnack, working for Zeiss Palmos and ICA in the period 1902-1910, was fully aware of what was going on.
In 1914 he did not create his Ur-Leica in a vacuum.

To be continued.

Roland

[willeica]

1 hour ago, Roland Zwiers said:

Note that in Januari 1946 the two dominant miniature sizes had become the 24x36mm format of the Leica (1925) and the 6x6 format of the Rolleiflex (1929). 
Indeed, in my analysis these two cameras are the principle standard bearers of the second miniature revolution.

In a next contribution I would like to focus on the first miniature revolution, that began in the 1880s and 1890s.
This can be included again in my thread on 100 years Null-serie.
I would like to make the point that Oskar Barnack, working for Zeiss Palmos and ICA in the period 1902-1910, was fully aware of what was going on.
In 1914 he did not create his Ur-Leica in a vacuum.

To be continued.

Roland

Roland, I have just received the latest copy of Photographica World, but I have not had time yet to read your latest article on Steenbergen, but will try to so over the weekend. The PCCGB meeting in Bradford on Sunday 26th October will feature an intriguing talk by yourself on a 'comparison between the development of the Leica and the Rollei in the period 1910-1960'. Unfortunately, I won't be able to attend that as I will be in Montreal, Canada for the Leica Society International Annual Meeting where I am due to be elected President. On the historical side we will have Lars Netopil speaking to us about the Leica MP and we are hoping to have somebody from Ernst Leitz Canada to talk to us about the work done there by Dr Walter Mandler.

I look forward to your piece about the late 19th Century. I hope that as well as the usual suspects, such as Eastman Kodak, you will look at early all metal cameras such as the CP Stirns Vest Camera (hardly a miniature, but hidden) and the Kemper Kombi. The latter took the concept of miniaturisation to an extreme for its era. And then there are the 'watch pocket' cameras.......etc

Two really interesting topics are:

1. The democratisation of photography through miniaturisation, and

2. Why did Leica succeed where so many others failed?

William 

[Roland Zwiers]

William,

There are indeed many aspects to the first and second miniature revolutions.
Any presentation can only cover so much.

I have the feeling that post-1950 Leica literature already pays a lot of attention on why the Leica was succesful where other (35mm) cameras failed.
There is not much attention in Leica literature for the relationship between Oskar Barnack and the first miniature revolution.
So the environment in which he created the Ur-Leica of 1914 and the Null-Serie of 1923.

The second miniature revolution started with the Leica in 1925.
Here I miss the realisation in Leica-literature that the Leica was not the only succesful post-1925 miniature camera.
E.g. in pre-1950 literature one can see that the Rolleiflex of 1929 was equally succesful. 

Please give Lars Netopil my regards.
I hope that one of these years he can make space in Vidom for one of my contributions 😉

Roland

 

  

 

 

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[pedaes]

5 hours ago, willeica said:

due to be elected President.

First time I have seen it in print. Many congratulations! First non-American President?

Keith

 

Edited August 8 by pedaes

[willeica]

2 hours ago, pedaes said:

First time I have seen it in print. Many congratulations! First non-American President?

Keith

 

Thanks, Keith. Yes, indeed, it needs to be confirmed in a vote, but I have been nominated. 

First big step will be a meeting in London next May to fit with Photo London and, hopefully, Photographica. Frank Dabba Smith has agreed to be a speaker. 

William