Benno Thorsch

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Benno Bernhard Thorsch (born January 6, 1898 in Hohenems ; † September 2, 2003 in Laguna Woods , California) was a German entrepreneur in whose Dresden camera workshops important new developments in the field of photo cameras were made in the 1920s and 1930s . Thorsch was originally a Swiss citizen with one Jewish parent who emigrated to the United States in 1938 at the time of National Socialism .

Praktiflex 35mm mirror reflex camera, developed under Benno Thorsch and Alois Hoheisel

Benno Thorsch founded the camera workshops Guthe & Thorsch GmbH ("KW") in Niedersedlitz near Dresden in 1919 together with Paul Guthe , who had already been active in the field of camera production since 1915 . Important new developments in the period that followed were the "patent case camera", a very small folding camera for films measuring 9 × 12 cm and 6.5 × 9 cm, and the "Pilot", the first two-lens reflex camera for 3x4 cm Negatives. The Pilot Box for 6x9 cm medium format roll film followed in 1932 and the Pilot 6 for 6x6 cm negatives in 1939 . The Pilot Super , available from 1938, had interchangeable lenses.

Benno Thorsch and Alois Hoheisel also developed the Praktiflex from 1937 , the world's third series-produced single-lens reflex camera . The camera was presented at the Leipzig trade fair in 1939. Praktiflex cameras are considered to be the forerunners of the Praktica cameras produced from 1948 with M42 lens thread.

Thorsch paid Paul Guthe out in the 1930s. As a Swiss citizen with one Jewish parent, Benno Thorsch left after the divorce from his wife Gertrud geb. Hartmann with his two children Irmgard and Bernward 1938 Germany to the USA. He swapped the Dresden company, which traded under the name of Kamer-Werke Niedersedlitz after the war , for Charles A. Noble's photo shop in Detroit . In 1944 he opened the “Studio City Camera Exchange” in Los Angeles , which he ran for many years with his son, the photographer Bernward Thorsch. He died at the age of 105 on September 2, 2003 in Laguna Woods , California.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Benno THORSCH. Retrieved January 25, 2015 .
  2. ↑ Family Tree: Thorsch, Benno Bernhard. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on January 4, 2015 ; accessed on January 4, 2015 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / kastner.us
  3. ↑ KW. In: Camerapedia. Retrieved January 4, 2015 .
  4. ↑ KW , page on camerapedia.org, accessed on August 15, 2015.
  5. ^ Correction by Katharina Förster-Noble. to the article Sir John Noble is dead - farewell to a Dresden camera legend from the Saxon newspaper. In: www.john-noble.de. Retrieved January 4, 2015 .
  6. ^ Douglas Martin: John Noble, Gulag Survivor, Dies at 84. In: The New York Times . November 26, 2007, accessed January 4, 2015 .
  7. ↑ Annette Binninger: The boy with the camera. In: Saxon newspaper . September 21, 2011, accessed January 4, 2015 .
personal data
SURNAME Thorsch, Benno
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Thorsch, Benno Bernhard (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss entrepreneur
DATE OF BIRTH January 6, 1898
PLACE OF BIRTH Hohenems , Vorarlberg
DATE OF DEATH September 2, 2003
Place of death Laguna Woods , California