John H. Noble

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John H. Noble (2007)

John H. Noble (born September 4, 1923 in Detroit ; † November 10, 2007 in Dresden ) was a German - American entrepreneur. He was a co-developer of the “ Praktiflex ” SLR camera in Dresden and a survivor of the Gulag .

Life

Noble's father Charles Adolph Noble was a German-born, American entrepreneur from Detroit. In exchange for his American photo business, he acquired the Dresden camera workshops Guthe & Thorsch . The family then moved to Dresden in 1938. The company was renamed the camera workshop Charles A. Noble and in 1939 Charles A. Noble brought the 35mm SLR camera "Praktiflex" onto the market. In the same year, after the beginning of the Second World War , the Nobles were subjected to reprisals as Americans, but were able to continue producing until 1945. The cameras were produced exclusively for civil use, were delivered to the USA and brought in foreign currency.

The Bombing of Dresden in World War II survived John H. Noble in the Villa San Remo in Dresden's Oberloschwitz than 21-year old young man. After the end of the war, he and his father Charles were arrested by the Soviet occupying forces in the summer of 1945, initially without any explanation. the camera works were expropriated. The company later became part of VEB Kombinat Pentacon , the manufacturer of Praktiflex's successor, Praktica .

John Noble and his father went through the Münchner Platz prison and several prisons and camps of the NKVD , including the special camp No. 2 Buchenwald until 1950. There, father and son were separated. When the special camps in the GDR were closed in the spring of 1950 , Charles was imprisoned in Waldheim; John was taken to the Soviet gulag in Vorkuta via other prisons .

In the Siberian Vorkuta labor camp it was a daily struggle for survival until in 1954 he managed to smuggle out a sign of life encoded on a postcard from a fellow prisoner. In this way, his family, who had meanwhile returned to the USA, could be informed by the West German addressee, whereupon the United States State Department in the Soviet Union demanded that Noble be dismissed. Through President Eisenhower's personal intervention , he was eventually released with other American prisoners. Noble reported on the suppressed Vorkuta uprising that took place after Stalin's death in 1953.

In January 1955 John Noble was released after almost ten years in prison, gave a press conference in West Berlin and went back to the USA. His book I was a slave in Russia , published there, has sold 1.3 million copies. He saw his mission in clarifying the consequences of dictatorship and inhumanity and gave numerous lectures.

On January 19, 1955, three days after the press conference, first appeared in East German newspapers publications of the former Prime Minister of Saxony max seydewitz (SED) and his wife, Ruth , was where claims that his father, Charles Noble from the balcony of his villa San Remo from the February 1945 controlled the air raid on Dresden. This defamation is seen as a reaction to the first reports by John Noble about the conditions in Soviet camps. In his book "The Invincible City" Seydewitz repeated this claim, which found its way into GDR propaganda. Until the turn of the century, there was a brass plaque at the gate of Villa San Remo, which reported on the alleged atrocity of the nobles.

After a career as a political advisor and economist in the USA, John H. Noble returned to Dresden in 1990. The Treuhandanstalt struck the trademarks, including "Praktica", the Pentacon division taken over by Heinrich Manderman . Noble only got the property of the former Dresden company back. Nevertheless, the development of the panorama camera " Noblex " soon succeeded . Another development was completed in 1996 with the “Loglux” security camera. Due to a lack of financing, he could not start production and had to sell the company.

In 2001 he met Katharina Förster, who soon became his partner and later his second wife. With her he founded a publishing house in which his book Banished and Denied appeared in 2004 . Two years later the documentary The International Gulag was released .

John Noble was a guest on talk shows and films and he gave lectures at schools, high schools, in churches, for example on the Day of German Unity in 1995 in front of the Dresden City Council.

On the morning of November 10, 2007, John Noble died of a heart attack in Dresden. The previous evening he had given a lecture in the Christ Church in Freital . Noble was buried in the Weißer Hirsch forest cemetery. Five children from his first marriage and nine grandchildren survived him.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Adam Bernstein: John H. Noble; Survived, Denounced Soviet Captivity , Washington Post , November 17, 2007
personal data
SURNAME Noble, John H.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-American entrepreneur
DATE OF BIRTH September 4, 1923
PLACE OF BIRTH Detroit
DATE OF DEATH November 10, 2007
Place of death Dresden