Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2001/07/21
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]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!