Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1998/05/11
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]On 11-May-98 Marc James Small wrote: > At 11:12 AM 5/11/98 -0400, BD Colen wrote: >>How about we all recognize that much that was developed by Germany during >>the years 1933-45 was developed under circumstances that should ashame any >>thinking person? That some of these patents/developments were taken after >>the War is a fact of international life - a couple of lens or shutter >>patents hardly make up for what Germany unleashed on the world during those >>12 years. Calling it "theft" raises all sorts of questions I don't think we >>want to delve into here, just as I think Tom is right that we should be a >>bit more careful in our national/racial stereotyping. > > The patents in question dated from 1931 or 1932. A bunch of them, in fact, > were taken out by Emmanuel Goldberg when he was head of camera design at > Zeiss Ikon. > > The only "stereotyping" being done here is by Mr Colen in attempting to, > through convulted logic, link German optical firms with Nazi terrorism. > This is downright silly: Voigtlander and Franke & Heidecke and Ihagee were > all noted, sourly, by the Nazis for their resistance to 'Party > Progressivism", while both Leitz and Zeiss were at the forefront of > disputing the excesses of the regime. One of the Leitz family was sent to > a concentration camp for her outspoken resistance, while the head of Zeiss > (and of the entire German optical industry), Heinz Kuppenbender, was tried > by a Nazi Party court for his refusal to stop using Zeiss as a shield for > those in danger of deportation to the camps. (Yeah, Schindler got all of > the credit, but Kuppenbender, directly, save several times as many of the > dispossessed, while Franke & Heidecke and Voigtlander were also noted > players in the same game, and deserve great respect for this.) > > Marc > > > msmall@roanoke.infi.net FAX: +540/343-7315 > Cha robh bas fir gun ghras fir! Is this documented anywhere? I would like to read up on it. Michael Garmisa------kilemall@shell.excelsior.net------11-May-98 16:41:33 - --------http://shell.excelsior.net/~kilemall/-------ICQ # 11583837------- - ------PGP key at: http://shell.excelsior.net/~kilemall/kilemall.asc------