![ernst leitz wetzlar microscope review ernst leitz wetzlar microscope review](https://assets.catawiki.nl/assets/2017/10/28/d/d/9/dd946e03-8cf7-40d1-9485-5a001e4e8ed6.jpg)
![ernst leitz wetzlar microscope review ernst leitz wetzlar microscope review](https://i.etsystatic.com/24541531/r/il/36bfaf/3628281770/il_794xN.3628281770_6zol.jpg)
It only all came to light in the mid-2000s, earning him a posthumous Courage To Care award from the Anti-Defamation League in 2007. Typically altruistic, Ernst Leitz II kept it all secret even after the war and forbade others, including his son Günther, from ever telling the stories. In the 1940s, the Nazis imported slave labour from eastern Europe to work in German factories, replacing military conscripts, and Elsie worked hard to improve the lot of those assigned to Leitz, again risking imprisonment. She subsequently spent three months in prison in Frankfurt. His daughter, Elsie, was also involved in helping Jews leave Germany and was arrested by the Gestapo while assisting refugee women across the Swiss border. Leitz’s pre-WWII activities subsequently became known as “The Leica Freedom Train” and saved perhaps as many as 100 lives. They also each got a new Leica IIIB camera to take with them from Germany. These refugees were even paid a stipend until they could find work, with Leitz executives scouring the wider photography industry, particularly in the USA, to secure them legitimate positions.
![ernst leitz wetzlar microscope review ernst leitz wetzlar microscope review](https://acmerevival.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/official-11.jpg)
In fact, it wasn’t just his employees and their families, but also camera retailers and even friends of family members who were sent to Leitz’s sales offices in France, Britain, Hong Kong and the USA. Realising that much worse might lie ahead under the Nazi dictatorship, he began systematically but secretly assigning many of his Jewish employees to fake positions or training courses at Leitz sales offices overseas, giving them a legitimate excuse to leave the country. Bigger risks: the Leica Freedom TrainĪfter Adolf Hitler was named Chancellor of Germany in 1933 and the persecution of Jews began, Ernst Leitz II’s social conscience really came to the fore and he began taking risks that could have had fatal consequences. The familiar red dot logo appeared in the mid-1970s and was worded either “Leitz” or “Leitz Wetzlar” up to 1986. The Leitz name continued to appear on Leica cameras up until 1986, when it was decided to concentrate all the company’s photographic activities under the Leica brand. The camera was finally launched in 1925 at the Leipzig Spring Fair and called the Leica, the name derived from ’Leitz camera’. “This small camera is an opportunity to create work for our employees – if it lives up to the promise I see in it – through the years of the Depression and to get them through the difficult times ahead.” Ernst Leitz II assumed control of the company and began to take more of an interest in Barnack’s camera, primarily because he believed diversification was the key to survival in Germany’s challenging economic climate, and he was concerned about the future of his workforce. The early work on the camera was overseen by Ernst Leitz Sr, but he died in 1920 when the project still only consisted of prototypes.
![ernst leitz wetzlar microscope review ernst leitz wetzlar microscope review](https://www.microscopemaster.com/images/LeitzAristoplan-Phase.jpg)
The basic design was refined a number of times prior to being put into production in 1924, but the big innovation was to use a film created from two 18x24mm cine frames to give an image area of 24x36mm, and so reduce the amount of enlargement required to make high-quality prints.Īn advertisement from 1925 for the new Kleinfilmcamera (Image credit: Leica) However, Leitz’s secret weapon was a compact and lightweight Kleinfilmkamera – a small format camera – which had been developed just prior to the First World War by one of the company’s talented optical engineers, Oskar Barnack. It’s perhaps not so surprising that most of Leitz’s senior managers were against the idea, forcing him not to make a risky-looking ‘executive decision’. What’s more, the plan was for a completely new type of camera never seen before. The German economy was reeling from the effects of hyperinflation and extreme unemployment, and Leitz would be a newcomer in a market dominated by Zeiss and Kodak. (Image credit: Leica)Īnd it was quite a risk. Ernst Leitz II joined the family company in 1906 and famously, in 1924, gave the green light for the production of an all-new 35mm camera designed by Oskar Barnack to commence, introducing the world to Leica.