E. Leitz, Inc. New York: A lot more than an overseas branch office
Dating back to the late 19th century, it established the Leica in the U.S.A.
The New York branch of Ernst Leitz GmbH, Wetzlar, Germany was founded in 1893 by Ludwig Leitz, the eldest son of Ernst Leitz I. Ludwig Leitz envisioned the company as an international enterprise, and he had the uncommon foresight to understand that the United States, and its largest city and leading commercial hub, was the perfect place to plant the Leitz flag. To ensure the new enterprise would be a success, he personally traveled to New York with Wetzlar-born William Krafft, an expert in foreign trade, and established an office under the name of “William Krafft, Microscopes Importer” at 30 E. 23rd St., New York, NY. In 1903, the company name (at the same location) was changed to “Ernst Leitz Microscopes,” prioritizing a product line that was already held in high regard by the American technical/scientific community. At this juncture, E. Leitz Wetzlar was a maker of precision microscopes, optical instruments, and lenses—it wasn’t until 1907 that Leitz announced its first binoculars, and of course the Leica didn’t come along until 1925.
Tragically, Ludwig Leitz, who had returned to Germany after leaving Krafft in charge in New York, died as the result of a riding accident. He fell off his horse in front of the factory, suffering severe head injuries from which he never fully recovered, and died in 1896. In the meantime, William Krafft headed up the business of Ernst Leitz Microscopes in New York, which had moved to 411 W. 59t St. in 1904 and remained at that location until 1920. Krafft ran the New York enterprise until 1908, but in 1906 he returned to Wetzlar. and on his way back from New York, visited the major universities in England and, at the behest of Leitz Wetzlar, founded a branch office in London. Sometime after coming back to New York, Krafft became ill, returned to Germany, and entrusted the Leitz U.S.A. management position to Charles Rheinhold. But Rheinhold had no technical background and Ernst Leitz II wisely appointed Alfred Traeger as the manager of Leitz U.S.A.
Alfred Traeger began his career at Hensoldt & Sons, Wetzlar, a successful manufacturer of binoculars and microscopes. He first met Ernst Leitz II, then a partner in his father’s business and a forceful proponent of product diversification and the well-being of Leitz employees, at the Wetzlar rowing club. A friendship soon developed, and Traeger joined Leitz in 1907, where he underwent technical training and was appointed as manager of the Leitz Frankfurt branch. Traeger was sent to the U.S.A. shortly thereafter because the New York Leitz agency had been neglected and was no longer self-supporting. He landed in New York on February 10, 1910, with the mission of making Leitz New York profitable again, and quickly proceeded to prove that he was the best man for that challenging job.
Alfred Traeger was accompanied by Henry Dumur, commissioned by Ernst Leitz Wetzlar to travel the U.S.A. and study the production methods used by the American optical industry. Dumur spent more than six months working with the Spencer Lens Company of Buffalo, and Bausch & Lomb of Rochester, both in New York State. Meanwhile, Traeger was making steady progress in putting Leitz New York on a sound footing—and then, on July 28, 1914, World War I broke out and imports from Wetzlar suddenly stopped! To survive, Leitz New York took up the production and sales of laboratory equipment. It is fascinating to note that in the spring of 1914, months before the war began, Dr. Ernst Leitz II had traveled to New York aboard the newly inaugurated ‘Vaterland,’ a state-of-the-art four-screw steamship of the HAPAG-Amerika Line carrying a Leica prototype constructed by Oskar Barnack. Regrettably, the original negatives he shot while onboard have been lost, but some examples if his 1914 travel pictures have been preserved as reproductions from contact prints. During 1917, the New York company was officially incorporated as E. Leitz, Inc. and shortly after the U.S.A, entered the war on April 4, 1917, it was seized as “enemy property” by the Alien Property Custodian (A.P.C.) and was operated under the scrutiny and control of U.S. government agents.
In 1919, after hostilities had ceased Alfred Traeger bought E. Leitz, Inc. from the A.P.C., becoming its sole owner. Since it was again possible to import equipment from Wetzlar, business steadily increased to the point where building space was again insufficient and E. Leitz, Inc. relocated to a leased 5-story building at 60 E.10 St. in New York City and remained there until 1937. During the 1920s business was brisk, until the Great Depression in late 1929. Despite the novelty and excellence of the new Leica camera introduced in 1925, its initial sales were lackluster, and it faced the dual problems of the slow, grainy films of the era that limited the size of high-quality enlargements, and inconvenient darkroom loading (the latter partially solved by the introduction of daylight loading inserts for Leica cassettes). Fortunately, the situation changed at the end of the ‘20s through the mid ‘30s, with many notable photographers taking up the Leica, the worldwide publication of the Leica Manual by Willard Morgan, and the very successful U.S. promotion of Leitz industrial and metallurgical microscopes by Adolph Buehler, a Swiss national. In 1926 E. Leitz Inc. of New York also manufactured its first of many products, a “micro-manipulator,” a device to facilitate the precise positioning of objects for microscopic examination, based on the suggestions of well-known American researcher, Professor Robert Chambers.
By 1928 Leitz U.S.A. issued a 290-page catalog listing its entire product line, from simple magnifiers and laboratory microscopes to metallographs, metallurgical microscopes, colorimeters, etc., and last but hardly least, the Wetzlar-made “Leica, the universal camera.” To quote from the catalog, “The Leica camera is an exceedingly small but highly developed instrument! … The Leica is ideal for traveling under all conditions, as it may be carried in a pocket, even the vest pocket. Its reliability under extreme climatic conditions was well demonstrated in its use with the Greenland expedition of the University of Michigan.” Others scoffed when shown the first Leica I (Model A) and its limited range of accessories. “How could such a small thing make pictures?” they exclaimed. They concluded that “it was but a brainstorm of the factory and destined to die out quickly.”
It now became a challenge to develop the market potential of the Leica and Willard Morgan and his brother Gilbert in Hollywood, owner of the Morgan Camera Shop, began to step up to that formidable task. Leitz U.S.A also used its connections to the scientific community to promote the camera, but as Ernst Leitz III observed during his U.S. visit in 1931, this was not enough. New dealerships had to be organized, photo salesmen had to be hired and trained, and camera dealers had to be persuaded that this new camera with a film area not much larger than a postage stamp had a future. As part of the “quality pitch” Leitz New York was compelled to develop its own “Fine Grain Laboratory.” Although the Great Depression of 1929 slowed the advancement of Leica sales, by late 1931 some segments of the economy were starting to improve and Willard Morgan and Karl Bartleben started a new magazine called Leica Photography, chock full of practical hints and tips and features on the latest lenses and gear, that was distributed to all registered owners of Leicas and other miniature cameras. In the same year, Leitz Wetzlar repurchased 50% of the assets of Leitz, New York from Alfred Traeger, who was suffering from crippling arthritis, and in 1935, Ernst Leitz III came to New York to negotiate the purchase of the remaining 50% from Traeger, making Leitz New York once again a wholly owned branch of Ernst Leitz, Wetzlar.
New management was needed at Leitz, New York, and Wolfgang Zieler, a longtime friend of Ernst Leitz III, became president and Alfred Boch was appointed vice president/treasurer. Significantly, Boch had been a mechanic’s apprentice in the workshop supervised by Oskar Barnack, where the first Leica prototypes were produced, and he was fluent in Russian. In the same year the new management was installed, Leica promoter Willard Morgan left Leitz, New York, and together with Henry Lester, published his first Leica Manual. In 1936 Morgan joined the staff of Life, then a weekly magazine that featured photojournalism by such notable Leica masters as Alfred Eisenstaedt. The new management at Leitz New York took advantage of this trend and promoted the Leica with exhibitions of outstanding Leica photographs all over the U.S., and enlisted Anton Baumann to hold lectures demonstrating the diversity of the growing Leitz-Leica system of photography. Other leading publications including the Saturday Evening Post, Collier’s, and Time now featured photographs with the Leica, including a widely circulated series of President Franklin D. Roosevelt at his desk. To ensure the continued success of Leica Photography Magazine, George Hess and Gus Wolfmann, both with strong backgrounds in both photography and journalism were brought onboard.
By the late ‘30s, a sizable percentage of the U.S. photo enthusiasts and professionals had adopted the Leica as their choice, and the 35mm format was experiencing a boom, with numerous Leica competitors emerging. At the behest of Leitz U.S.A., specially trained experts including Anton Baumann were sent all over the U.S.A on “International Leica Exhibits” where they demonstrated the camera and its accessories and held local photo contests, with the Barnack Medal awarded as first prize. One of Baumann’s greatest assets was the availability of Kodachrome film starting in 1936-37, which enabled him to project huge images to spellbound audiences. Into this generally rosy picture, financial matters began to intrude. The exchange rate between the German Mark and the U.S. Dollar had increased to the point that the cost of merchandise imported from E. Leitz Wetzlar had risen 50%, which was untenable. E. Leitz, Inc., New York devised a stratagem. It purchased American cotton and sold it to a German importer who paid them in “Aski-marks” at the old exchange rate. This ingenious arrangement lasted until 1939, when World War II broke out, and a naval blockade stopped all commercial shipping, and other ways had to be found to keep Leitz New York afloat.
As in World War I, Leitz New York’s alternative was to manufacture products that fit into its local marketing mix. Repair facilities were enlarged to accommodate these manufacturing facilities, and the technicians produced a colorimeter capable of reading out 40 clinical tests, slide focusing copying attachments, universal finders, flash units, enlargers, filters, carrying cases, and much more. When the U.S. entered the war in late 1941 and declared war on Germany, the Alien Property Custodian (A.P.C,) took custody of Leitz New York, a reprise of what happened at the end if WW I. While under that U.S. custody the company was closely monitored, an FBI agent was permanently assigned and a new president, John Slacks (representing the A.P.C.) supervised all activities. During that time the skilled staff, mechanics, and optical specialists were engaged in producing precision optical war material, such as gun sight components for the U.S. military, and performed experiments on photographing fluorescent screens for the U.S. Navy. It’s also noteworthy that Leitz New York’s U.S. military connections were already well established before the U.S. entered the war—by 1939 the U. S. Army Signal Corps had purchased several Leica outfits for observers on the European front. The Army wanted more Leicas, and Leitz, New York did its best by creating a patriotic program whereby registered Leica owners could have their cameras serviced and then “lend” them to the U.S. Army for the duration of the war.
In late 1946 to 1949 when all German industries, including E. Leitz Wetzlar, were struggling to get on their feet after the war, the demand for Leicas far exceeded the supply. By the early ‘50s the Alien Property Custodian finally relinquished the U.S. government’s grip and Leitz, New York was put up for sale with the stipulation that the new owner had to be American. It was briefly owned by the Alfred Dunhill Co., a purveyor of luxury goods, but they were unprepared to run it, so they resold it to Henry Mann in 1952. Mann in turn founded a company called Manca, which became the official Leica importer, and Manca then sold the cameras to E. Leitz, Inc, of New York, who then made them available to franchised Leica dealers. Indeed, Henry Mann controlled the distribution of Leica equipment in the U.S. for 30 years from 1952 to 1982, and at that time Leitz Wetzlar resumed control.
Finally in late 1969 Leica USA’s corporate headquarters moved from New York to Rockleigh New Jersey, thence to Allendale New Jersey, and more recently to Teaneck, New Jersey, its present location.
Heartfelt thanks to the late Emil Keller, whose authoritative book on E. Leitz, New York was the primary source of information and quotations used in this article, and to Leica historian James Lager, who provided many invaluable insights and all the images.