Alfred Krauth

Alfred Krauth (born March 24, 1878 in Karlsruhe , † July 12, 1956 in Düsseldorf ) was a German photographer , artist and developer of technical equipment. Before the First World War he was a multi-award-winning portrait photographer , after the First World War he dealt with stereo photography and developed the Indupor system , which is extraordinarily compact for this purpose . He had even greater success from the late 1920s with the manufacture and sale of money-changing machines . His business success made it possible for him to devote himself only to art at times. However, the Second World War destroyed all of his previous work. At an advanced age, after the Second World War, he founded a new apparatus construction company in Eberbach , which continues to this day as krauth technology GmbH .

Life

Education and early years

He came from an old Eberbach family. The father came to Karlsruhe as a tax officer and has also planned the son for a career in the financial service. He attended secondary school in Karlsruhe up to primary school and then took a job as a financial assistant in Boxberg . However, the financial administration did not agree with him at all, so he quickly gave up the position and attended lectures on scientific photography by Professor Precht at the University of Heidelberg . Then he was second assistant to the photographer Ausfeld in Ilmenau for over a year , then a year laboratory assistant and operator at the court photographer C. Ruf in Mannheim , then a year operator and managing director of the court photographer Michelis in Biel , one year operator at the court photographer Langbein in Heidelberg and One and a half years operator and first assistant to court photographer Nicola Perscheid in Leipzig .

In 1902 he ventured into self-employment with a photo studio and teaching institute for artistic portrait and landscape photography in Frankfurt am Main . He took part in the annual exhibitions of the German Photographers Association and was awarded several prizes. In 1905 he was awarded the court title of the Grand Duke of Baden. In 1906 he received the Cross of Merit of the Order of the Zähringer Lion , in 1908 the Gold Medal of Merit of the Order of Albrecht the Bear .

In 1908 he organized an exhibition in the Frankfurt Museum of Applied Arts with his own recordings and those of his students. He also published writings and gave lectures on modern photography and three-color photography. In 1910 he became a teacher of the eighth grade at the kk graphic teaching and research institute in Vienna , where he taught portrait and landscape photography as well as retouching. In 1912 he received the title of professor at the Vienna Institute and the Order of Merit for Science and Art from the Duke of Anhalt and returned to Frankfurt am Main, where he was again self-employed and gave other lectures. His photographic work from the time up to the First World War, which is still verifiable today, essentially comprises portraits, including a series of 61 glass negatives with photos of the grand ducal family in the castle of Karlsruhe in the holdings of the Badisches Landesmuseum, his portrait of his teacher Nicola Perscheid von 1912, which was distributed in photographic newspapers, and the collection of portraits of Frankfurt personalities, which appeared as a separate publication in 1910.

At the First World War Krauth participated as a volunteer.

Stereo photography with the Indupor system

Indupor stereoscope with Krauth's recordings from the Johannisberg Geisenheim machine works from 1926

After the First World War, Krauth devoted himself primarily to stereo photography . Together with Carl Neithold († 1939) he founded in Frankfurt in 1920 Stereo Indupor GmbH , which is a stereo photography system for Indu solicited by and Por trätfotografie with the negative format 9 x 12 cm developed. In addition to applications for the furniture industry, the fashion industry, for machine builders and architects, Krauth also had in particular the use of the system by sculptors in mind who could produce busts from stereo photographs instead of a real model. Based on this principle, the Frankfurt sculptor Carl Stock created a bust of the painter Hans Thoma in 1919/20 , whom Krauth had photographed on various occasions. In addition to the stereo image cameras, Indupor also developed the associated stereoscopes and sold stereo image series with city shots, some of which Krauth had taken on family outings, especially since his wife Lina, née. Schramm, and his son Arnulf (1912–1945) are occasionally in the pictures.

The most important stereo photo series by Krauth is undoubtedly that of the maiden voyage of the steamer Columbus from Bremerhaven to New York City , in which he took part in 1924. However, he did not immediately return home, but visited his brother Leo in Massachusetts, where he also photographed some industrial companies.

The Indupor system found various commercial users. Among them were the photographer Alfred Kahle in Pulsnitz, from whose estate Indupor portrait series are known. In addition, the Verlag der Schönheit in Dresden used the Indupor system from 1927/28 for series of nudes, later also for series of cities and landscapes. The Indupor stereoscopes have also been imitated several times, e.g. B. by the Nuremberg manufacturer Bing , which produced a completely identical stereoscope in 1927, or by the Berlin Omniplast company, which probably also launched a stereoscope that was outwardly different but technically identical in 1927.

Gallop changer

During his trip to the USA in 1924, Krauth first got to know the tram conductors' money changing machines. He was fascinated by these devices and back in Frankfurt he first founded a sales company for American money changers, which he obtained from a company in New York City. However, these import devices proved impractical. Krauth then developed his own money changer, which he had patented under the name Gallop changer , and in 1928 expanded the business purpose of his sales company to include the production of such machines. However, he soon gave up production and had his machines manufactured by Rudolf Wächtler & Lange in Mittweida . Krauth had great business success with the gallop changers , so that he was able to give up his profession as a photographer.

In 1928 Krauth also had the design of an electric hair dryer protected.

Artist and art lover

As a portrait photographer, Krauth had already been in contact with numerous artists. In addition to the multiple portraits of Hans Thoma, these were above all Albert Haueisen and Albert Urban . In the 1930s, now well-off, Krauth turned more and more to the artistic circles and also to the fine arts. In 1936 he resigned from the Indupor management and moved to Düsseldorf, where he worked as a painter and graphic artist and a circle of artists, including the painter Will Czech , gathered around his two properties on Wilhelm-Klein-Straße . At the same time he had his father's birthplace in Eberbach converted into a summer house, where he was also artistically active. Divorced from his first wife, he married his second wife Lucie, born in Düsseldorf in 1939. Viethen († 1974).

The Second World War destroyed almost everything that Krauth had created to date. The properties in Düsseldorf and Eberbach went down in the hail of bombs. The production plant of its gallop changer in Mittweida was expropriated in 1946 and in a state-owned enterprise converted.

Another major stroke of fate was the loss of his son Arnulf, born in 1912. He had studied electrical engineering and radio technology, but then fell out with his father because of his commitment to the Communist Party. He was arrested for the first time in Frankfurt am Main in 1937, but initially acquitted of charges of high treason. After another arrest in Berlin in 1939, he began to suffer through various prisons and finally to the Neuengamme concentration camp , where he was evacuated in May 1945 on the freighter Thielbek in the Neustädter Bucht with 2,800 other prisoners in a British bombing attack.

New beginning after the Second World War

After the Second World War, Krauth initially hired himself as a painter and lived from selling his paintings. By his 70th birthday in 1948, he had the destroyed house rebuilt in Eberbach and set up a studio in it. Around the same time, there was also a demand for money changing machines. The company in Mittweida was no longer considered a producer due to political developments. A factory in Gevelsberg that offered itself as a supplier of individual parts could not meet the relevant requirements. So Krauth started again with a few workers in his painting studio in Eberbach to produce money changing machines himself. In 1950 he handed over the technical management of the company to the engineer Otto Langkait. In 1951 the company moved from the painter's studio to a rented former carpenter's workshop. Soon the company had 22 employees. In 1953 Krauth acquired company premises in Eberbach, where he had a new factory built the following year.

Although business in Eberbach developed extremely successfully, Krauth also missed the big city life in Düsseldorf. He sold one of his ruined properties there and had a new building built on the second property with the proceeds, which he moved into in 1954. He also died in Düsseldorf in 1956.

Krauth's newly founded company in Eberbach initially traded as Professor Alfred Krauth Apparatebau GmbH & Co. and is now one of the leading manufacturers of fare collection systems for local public transport with around 140 employees at locations in Eberbach, Überlingen, Hamburg and Dresden as krauth technology GmbH .

literature

• Dieter Lorenz: Professor Alfred Krauth - An eventful life between photography, art and apparatus engineering . In: Eberbacher Geschichtsblatt 104, 2005, pp. 131–159.

Web links

Commons : Alfred Krauth  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files