Kurt Kuhn & Photographia Zu Wetzlar (with an aside about Dr. Wolff)
In Viewfinder Volume 44, Issue 2 (2011) I placed this query (right). Recently and fortuitously I was put in contact with Dr. Knut Kühn-Leitz, who it turns out has information about Photographia zu Wetzlar, since his father, Kurt Kühn, was one of its principals; the other founder and partner was Friedrich von Rosen, who had previously represented E. Leitz in Bulgaria. Photographia indeed had only a brief life as a flourishing commercial entity, 1945 until 1949. The following article is mostly about the life and career of Kurt Kühn, touching also on his company Photographia, as well as interactions with Ernst Leitz and Dr. Wolff.
Both Knut and his Wetzlar classmate Gerhard Neumann, former general manager of the Industrie und Handelskammer, Wetzlar, have contributed to this article, as has Thomas Sommer from Dr. Wolff ’s photo archive. With their information, I have learned more about Photographia and also the career of Kurt Kühn.
Kurt Kühn (born Kassel, 1904, died Bad Homburg, 1981) had earned a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Kiel, and married Elsie Leitz, both in 1935. After that and before the War he worked first for the Adler-Werke in Frankfurt and later with the Glanzstoff- Werke in Wuppertal. After the War, Kurt Kühn returned to Wetzlar. Like many in immediate post-war Germany, he had to improvise for income. The original idea behind Photographia had to do with the art seminars at the nearby University of Marburg and its large image archive of art and architecture photos, Bildarchiv Foto Marburg. Foto Marburg had been started in 1913 by Prof. Richard Hamann, and immediately post-War had 230,000 negatives. Thinking that these images might be of interest and saleable to the German public, Kühn approached Hamann to have titles originating in their artworks published by Photographia under some sort of a contractual arrangement. Knut writes that publishing “the wonderful pictures of art of the Acropolis or the Bordesholmer Altar [was] a result of a close cooperation with Foto Marburg which had in Marburg / Lahn a large amount of negatives protected against U.S. bombardments during World War II.” Some of the Foto Marburg images were from Leica negatives, and are so labeled in Photographia’s offerings. It seems reasonable to assume that Kurt Kühn had a large role in making the choices of which topics and which images to publish, and that both he and Prof. Hamann also saw that such a venture made economic sense.
Per Mr. Neumann, Photographia had two departments, “the scientific and the photographical”. Since there are photos stamped [vide infra]: ‘Photographia, Gesellschaft für Photo-technik’, which would imply photo-technology rather than simply photography, it is not clear how these departments were differentiated. Perhaps the photographic enlargements themselves were made by the ‘scientific department’ person-nel, or perhaps it concentrated upon advertising, whereas the ‘photographical department’ implied the Verlag / Publishing House. We do not know either how many employees were involved in Photographia, or how many of the processes needed to make the portfolios were done in-house. Knut had speculated to me that the portfolio presentation boxes and envelopes themselves were likely contracted out.
From Knut, I found out that there was not, as I had assumed, any in-house connection between Photographia and the E. Leitz Wetzlar firm on the Leica Brevier or other projects. While it is not clear who thought up the idea of the Leica Brevier, it would not surprise this author if Kurt Kühn had proposed this as one of his cooperative business endeavors; the Brevier masthead states that Photographia was under contract to E. Leitz. Knut said that his father had hoped, futilely it turned out, that there would be cooperation on further issues of the Leica Brevier, as it was pretty clearly implied by Ernst Leitz II that the 1949 edition was only the first such book. According to Knut, to the degree that such a published outreach by E. Leitz to the Leica community existed later, it's place was likely taken instead by the publication of Leica Fotografie, edited by Heinrich Stöckler. Mr. Neumann writes that Photographia itself upon its ending in 1949 was apparently given to and integrated into the E. Leitz company. After the demise of Photographia zu Wetzlar, Friedrich von Rosen went on to found the Leitz Austria subsidiary, and Kurt Kühn established both a PR company and other side business arrangements.
Kurt Kühn Wetzlar REKA camera, from the early 1950’s. It apparently took 39mm SM interchange-able lenses and had a leaf shutter. There are also binoculars with this marking.
Kurt Kühn was also the owner of an eponymous camera company in Wetzlar (“Kurt Kühn-Wetzlar”), which produced in the early 1950’s the Flexameter reflex viewing accessory, an electronic flash unit, and the REKA and other cameras. Knut recalls “as a twelve old boy (perhaps in 1948) my father told me that besides his PR business, he started (alone or with a partner) the production and distribution of a 35mm camera”. Because Wetzlar was a major optical center (not just Leitz, but also Leidolf and Hensoldt), a Kühn- Wetzlar optical company may have been fairly easy to set up, either de novo with local experienced personnel or via partnership or the relicensing of products from other small Wetzlar producers. Mr. Neumann spells this out further [text edited by the author]: "In 1952 he founded a second enterprise: Kurt Kühn Apparate-bau GmbH, in Wetzlar. In a paper from 14.1.1952, we find the information: 6 employees, and a second owner as well.
There exist today only a few pieces of information as to the company’s products. Most famous is an electronic flash unit (named the Kühn Blitz I or the Wetzlar Blitz), the REKA camera, and the FLEXAMETER. The first two of these products were intensively discussed at PHOTOKINA 1952 in Cologne. The Kühn Blitz was technically advanced and had good sales. It worked with a capacitor and it was possible to change the intensity of the electrical power. The charge allowed for about 1000 flashes. The REKA camera did not fare as well. This product was conventionally constructed, although with a variable 'Sucher' for 50 and 70 mm objectives. The camera had no economic success, and in the catalog of PHOTOKINA 1954, it is missing.
The Kühn/Oehler INFRA.
Another camera outfit, the INFRA, for 24 x 24 images on 35mm film, stemmed from cooperation with the firm Bernhard Julius Oehler, Wetzlar.
Kühn-Wetzlar Flexameter. This viewer would fit in the accessory shoe of Leicas or other cameras, and allowed reflex viewing and composition as well as focusing; focus distance, however, had to be transferred manually between the Flexameter and the camera lens.
When, in 1954, the trend demanded 6 x 6 cm cameras, Kühn offered such, too. He bought the cameras from Photavit GmbH in Nürnberg, made only a few changes and sold it as Kühn Reflexa.In 1954 The Kühn Aparatebau GmbH showed at Cologne the FLEXAMETER, a reflex viewing and focusing accessory. [N.B. from the author: currently one sees this device for sale occasionally on the internet with comments that it dates from the mid-1930’s; that date is not correct].In 1957 Kurt Kühn sold his company to the Armaturen und Installationsfirma, Dr. Konrad Wiegand. The company then relocated to Frankfurt early in 1958. [Per Knut, 'when my father ended his camera business in Wetzlar, Leitz took most of his employees and, maybe, some machines' as well.]" Kurt Kühn then continued to be involved in several industries. At the height of his career, Kühn ran primarily a large advertising and publicity agency in Frankfurt called “Griffon Gesellschaft für Marktpflege GmbH” with 70 – 80 employees. Knut writes: “besides advertising, Griffon produced many books of world-known companies. Unfortunately, Griffon and Ernst Leitz GmbH Wetzlar never worked together on any public relations projects.” In addition, Kühn secured from family connections a licensing agreement with a Swedish company affording a German monopoly on the production of advertisements on matchboxes. To see images of some of these, one should Google “deutsche zündholz monopolge-sellschaft”. As can be appreciated from this history, Kurt Kühn was definitely entrepreneurial, and repeatedly sought out mutually beneficial contractual arrangements with other business entities.
What ought to be of interest here, besides finding the answers to some of my earlier questions about Photographia and so much more, is the discovery of Kurt Kühn from a Leica perspective. As the spouse of Elsie Kühn-Leitz, he has been overshadowed historically by her formidable and inspiring story. While his direct commercial overlap with E. Leitz Wetzlar was fairly fleeting (essentially only the Leica Brevier), Kurt Kühn is definitely part of Leica history and should be remembered by us. And to return to this author’s original inquiry about Photographia zu Wetzlar, Kurt Kühn’s offerings to the public through his Photo-graphia firm display both an appreciation of a marketing niche and a fine sensibility towards filling that niche with a deluxe photographic product that often involved Leica images.
*Ernst Leitz II’s reproduced handwritten greeting in the frontispiece of the book says, in rough translation: “My heartfelt wishes accompany this first Leica-Brevier on its way. May you enjoy it. Wetzlar 1 March 1949.” About the publication by Photographia of Dr. Paul Wolff ’s photographic prints, Knut had no specific information, but mentioned that the portfolios were very expensive at the time (I assured him that they still were today). We know that Dr. Wolff was a tireless if understated self-promoter. His images of old Frankfurt turned up everywhere: in pamphlets, brochures, a datebook, postcards, a three-volume monograph produced with art historian and Frankfurt preservationist Fried Lübbecke, specific books on the Frankfurt Roman Catholic diocese and the Frankfurt cemetery, as well as with Photographia zu Wetzlar. While it thus seems quite possible that it would have been Wolff who approached Kühn about this endeavor, Kühn was also keenly aware of what might do well in the marketplace. Contact between the two men would seem to have been quite easily facilitated, because as Thomas Sommer of the Dr. Paul Wolff & Tritschler Historisches Bildarchiv writes me: “After the war, Paul Wolff ’s beautiful prewar photos of Frankfurt and other cities were in high demand and he had the opportunity to earn money from them. Paul Wolff had moved to Braunfels in the spring of 1944 after the destruction of his house in Frankfurt. Braunfels is not far from Wetzlar, and Dr. Wolff had a good relationship with the Leitz Company and the Leitz family. Unfortunately, there are no documents in the archive concerning this time period for further information.”
It should be noted in this context that Dr. Wolff contributed a chapter to the Leica Brevier that Photographia published, as did also Wolff ’s partner Alfred Tritschler. This author also recalls seeing a wall calendar published by Photographia with images by Wolff & Tritschler. Suffice it to be said that Kühn and Wolff at that time period each saw a good business deal if they worked together, much as had happened previously between Kühn and Prof. Hamann of Foto Marburg.
Combined Dr. Wolff / Photographia stamp.
It appears that besides the formal publication of Dr. Wolff ’s portfolios by Photographia, there may have been also a more casual commercial interaction between the parties. There is at least one photograph taken by Wolff and Tritschler, seen by the author, which is stamped on its reverse with the usual type of label associated with Dr. Wolff & Tritschler’s own direct photo sales, but also added/incorporated is: “Alleinvertrieb durch ‘Photographia’, Gesellschaft für Phototechnik, v. Rosen und Dr. Kühn Wetzlar, Ringstraße 1." Mr. Sommer from the Archiv says “I am familiar with this stamp in connection with the Frankfurt images. The numbering of the pictures is identical to the negative numbers from the archive.” This stamp indicates that von Rosen and Kühn are clearly involved in “exclusively marketing” (“Alleinvertrieb”) this photo. [see illustration]. Very similar stamps occur as well for many Foto Marburg images outside of Photographia’s formal portfolio offerings, so it is probably safe to conclude that Photographia typically also marketed individual photographic prints as part of their activities.
Knut Kühn-Leitz also wished us at LHSA to know of his résumé, and indeed it is most interesting, as he is the last of a notable line of Leitz family persons involved with our favorite camera / optical system.
Kurt Kühn with his young son, Knut.
“I studied economics and in addition business administration, and got my Ph.D. in economics at the University of Marburg and my MBA from INSEAD (European Business School) in Fontainebleau, France.
I started my activities with Ernst Leitz Wetzlar in 1966 and became a member of the board of directors in 1971. I was responsible for the cooperation between Leitz and Minolta, which was very important in keeping the camera business alive. I was also very much involved in establishing the cooperation Leitz -Wild: my uncles Ernst and Ludwig Leitz delegated the responsibility in the negations between Leitz and Wild to me and Horst Siegfried, also a new member of the board of directors of Leitz in 1971/1972. We had to represent the interests of the company but also of the Leitz family - which we did.
When the Leitz family sold their shares to Wild Heerbrugg in 1986, I left the company and gave courses of Strategic Planning at the University of Witten - Herdecke. Then I joined for many years an M&A company in Düsseldorf.
Since 2005 I have written several biographies on the Leitz family and their company. Since 2012 I am the chairman of the Ernst Leitz Foundation, Wetzlar, which is the owner of “Haus Friedwart“ together with its complete furnishings.”