[Leica] Re: Oscar Barnak -MORE-

[Jim Brick <jimbrick@photoaccess.com>]

At 12:32 PM 6/7/00 -0600, you wrote:
>Oscar Barnack died on the 16th of January 1936, the last camera design he
>worked on was the IIIa. Professor Max Berek was responsible for the design
>(based on other people's earlier work of course) of all the Leitz camera
>lenses until his death on the 15th of October 1949.
>
>John Collier

A couple of years ago, Doug Richardson posted the following:

Thanks Doug...

Leica-related burials in the old graveyard at Wetzlar
by Doug Richardson

The old graveyard ("Alter Friedhof") at Wetzlar contains the graves of
the main individuals responsible for the development of the Leica -
Ernst Leitz I, Ernst Leitz II, Oskar Barnack, and Max Berek. During
the April 1999 Leica Historical Society of America (LHSA) visit to
Wetzlar and Solms, I used part of my free time to explore the
graveyard and locate the burial sites of all four.

Several Leica enthusiasts who plan to visit Wetzlar in the near future
expressed an interest in visiting the burial place of Oskar Barnack,
so I've prepared the following guide to the area from notes I made
during the LHSA visit.

The Alter Friedhof  is located in the eastern part of the town, on the
corner of Berg Strasse and Frankfurter Strasse.  The walk from the
historic district of the old town to the graveyard takes around 20
minutes. You will probably reach Berg Strasse either via Silhofer
Strasse, Friedenstrasse, or Bruhlsbachstrasse (where Barnack used to
live at No 18 before moving to what is now known as the "Barnack
House" in Alte der Platte to the south of Berg Strasse).

The graveyard has several entrances, but the directions which follow
assume that you will enter from Berg Strasse using the gate at the far
end of a long narrow car park on the east side of Berg Strasse. This
location is around 50 metres from the point where Friedenstrasse
crosses Berg Strasse.

Once through the gate, you will see a long paved path ahead of you.
Ignore this paved path for the moment, and take the path which runs
left from the gate. The Leitz family grave is on the right hand side
of this path, and less than a minute's walk from the gate. It consists
of a large pale-coloured main tombstone, whose style reflects the
taste of the early years of  our century, plus a series of small urns
engraved with the name and dates of birth and death of the individual
members of the family. Ernst Leitz I and II are not identified by
number, but Ernst Leitz I died in 1920, and Ernst Leitz II died in
1956. (If you own a copy of Dennis Laney's "Leica Collectors Guide"
published in 1992  by Hove Collectors Books, the Leitz family tree on
page 15 will help you identify the other members of the family.)

From the Leitz grave, walk back to the entrance gate, and turn left
onto the paved path. This runs down the centre of the graveyard, but
as you walk down its length, you will see that it ends at a war
memorial. To reach the Barnack grave you need to make a slight detour
in order to get behind the war memorial so that you can continue in
the direction that the paved path was heading.

I suspect that the network of paths within the graveyard started out
as two separate systems which originated at opposite ends of the
graveyard. Unfortunately, these two systems are not well
interconnected, but meet in a confusing network of small paths in the
area to the rear of the war memorial. The route I used to get to the
Barnack grave site is as follows:

Take the last turning on the right before the war memorial, then take
the first path to the left, then the first set of steps to the left.
You should now find yourself near the end of another long path which
heads in the same direction as the paved path from the gate - had the
war memorial not been built, this long path and the paved path would
probably have run continuously down the centre of the graveyard.

As you walk along this long path, you will pass the rear of a church
built from pale brown stone. (This is the only large building in the
graveyard, so if you have difficulty in following the detour sequence
of right-left-left, or have entered the Alter Friedhof from a
different gate, look for this church and find the long path which runs
past its rear.)

Once you have passed the rear of the church, walk on for another 50
metres or so, and you will see that the long path begins to climb and
turn to the left, while a second path branches off to the right and
heads downhill. You will be able to tell when you've reached this
junction - there is a water tap and a circular concrete sink on the
corner between the long path and the downhill path.

Take the downhill path - it is quite short, and Oskar Barnack's grave
is on the left-hand side, around two-thirds of the way down. The
memorial takes the form of a rough unshaped brown stone, whose
inscription describes Barnack as the inventor of the Leica, but spells
his first name as "Oscar" rather than the more commonly used "Oskar".

>From Barnack's grave, carry on down the path until you reach a T
junction. Turn right onto a long narrow path which will take you back
in the general direction of the entrance gate.

As you walk along this narrow path, look up to the right and you will
see the rear of the church which you passed earlier. Walk on until you
have passed the church, and you will see the grave of Max Berek on
your right. This has a relatively small black stone of modern style.

Carry on along this long narrow path until you reach a point where
another path branches off downhill and to the left. Take this
left-hand path, which will eventually take you round to the right and
towards the paved path which leads back to the gate on Berg Strasse.

The Leitz and Barnack tombstones face northwest, while the Berek
tombstone faces southwest, so the best time to photograph these is in
the late afternoon. The gate of the Alter Friedhof is open until 8pm
in summer, 5pm in winter. Assuming you spend five minutes at each
grave site, the entire visit to the Alter Friedhof will take around
30 - 40 minutes.