Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/02/21

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Subject: Re: [Leica] Leitz Record-Keeping
From: john eichorn <seich@InfoAve.Net>
Date: Sun, 21 Feb 1999 13:04:29 -0500

At 02:03 PM 2/20/1999 -0500, you wrote:
>
>Well, I have done a LOT of research into Zeiss-related number runs and
>quite a bit on Leica's, and I will agree that a manufacturer doesn't always
>now that precise records are going to be of grand interest a generation or
>two later.  (We now have access to the Carl Zeiss Jena archives:  fifty
>years of Bolshevik "workers' efficiency" means that we now have access to
>two entire floors of the main building at Jena, with odd lots of documents
>stashed where-ever, all out of order and, generally, not indexed at all.
>It is a lifetime's work for a loving researcher.)
>
>And, when Leitz became Leica and moved from Wetzlar to Solms, almost all of
>the old records were tossed, precisely as had happened with the Zeiss Ikon
>records at Stuttgart in 1972 (to Heinz Kuppenbender's dire regret!).
>Fortunately, the most, if not the all, of these were taken by employees, so
>we are now, slowly, trying to locate these mini-caches of paperwork from
>the '20's to the '70's.
>
>Marc
>
>msmall@roanoke.infi.net  FAX:  +540/343-7315
>Cha robh bas fir gun ghras fir!
>
Marc,

Is this an organized research project? It sounds like a formidable project,
even for someone with legions of grad students.

John Eichorn