Re: [Leica] The Inventor(s) of the M?

["Dan States" <dstate1@hotmail.com>]

I think a book of this type would be just as interesting if not more than an 
equipment based text.  While there are many sources of information about 
Leica products, the actual workings of the company, especially in the 
distant past are quite interesting and not well often discussed.

Best wishes
Dan States
>
>At 02:25 PM 7/20/01 -0700, Rich Lahrson wrote:
> >     Quite a bit is known generally and written about Barnak, the 
>inventor of
> >the Leica camera.  But I would like information, book, article or web 
>page,
> >about the person who could be credited with the M series, considering
> >the M's many basic changes and 'firsts'.
>
>This is a rather complex tale, but the short version is that Barnack,
>before his death, initiated work on the next evolution of the Leica camera.
>  Two design teams were charged with this project, a conservative one under
>Adam Wagner -- whose motto was "möglichst klein and so klein wie möglich zu
>bauen" (the smallest possible and build as small as possible) and who had
>been much influenced by Barnack  -- and a more progressive team under Willi
>Stein, a protege of Ludwig Leitz.  Stein's team produced the Leica IV in
>the late 1930's, which presaged the M3, though the War intervened in its
>development.
>
>After the end of the War, Leitz spent five years recovering its fiscal
>stability, a development vastly aided by the preferential placement Leica
>cameras received in the US PX system in Europe at the time.  Stein was then
>given free rein to update the Leica IV, and the M3 resulted.  (Had the War
>not come, we might have seen the M3 released at the Leipzig-Meße in, say,
>1941 ... Leitz was not as far behind Zeiss Ikon as the bare record
>indicates!)
>
>Stein wasn't the only engineer involved in this, of course.  The final
>development of the M Bayonet, for instance, was patented on 18th January,
>1951, by  Leitz designer H Wehrenfennig  (US Patent, 2,643,581).
>
>Wagner headed up the work on the IIIc, IIIf, and IIIg, and their
>off-spring, and his work was to culiminate in the half-frame Leica H.
>
>Someday, I'll really have to finish the book I am writing on the history of
>Leica -- I've been working on it for five years and still only have two
>chapters finished, as I keep learning things which have to be included!
>
>Marc
>
>msmall@roanoke.infi.net  FAX:  +540/343-7315
>Cha robh bàs fir gun ghràs fir!
>


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