Woldemar Beier camera factory
The camera factory Woldemar Beier was a German camera manufacturer in Freital ( Saxony ).
history
Until 1945
Company founder Woldemar Beier was born on March 30, 1886 as the son of a smelter and from 1900 completed an apprenticeship as a mechanic in Ferdinand Merkel's camera factory. During his time in this company he trained to become a master precision mechanic .
In 1914 he founded the Thowe camera factory in Potschappel as a co-owner . Due to some financial problems during the global economic crisis , Woldemar Beier left the company and founded the Woldemar Beier camera factory on April 1, 1923. In the beginning, plate cameras with wooden housings were produced, with lenses, shutters and leather bellows being obtained from other companies. The first plate cameras of the newly founded company had women's names such as EDITH , ERIKA or LOTTE . By 1925 the company had already produced and sold 15,000 cameras.
In 1929 cameras with a light metal housing were presented for the first time, which was an absolute novelty at the time. The rapidly developing photo industry in the Dresden area met a rapidly growing market and was therefore forced to continuously bring new models and technical innovations onto the market. Beier therefore passed the design on to his mechanic Bruno Plickert. Since the trend towards 35mm cameras emerged at this time, the Woldemar Beier camera factory also decided to manufacture a 35mm camera. In 1931 they presented the Beika at the Leipzig spring fair . A year later it was renamed Beira and produced for another two years.
At this time, Plickert developed a new type of rangefinder with a 6x magnifying telescope in collaboration with the Ernst Krauss company in Jena . Finally, in 1935, the Beira-Okula was presented in Leipzig. The camera took a top position.
In 1938 the company presented a single -lens 6 × 6 reflex camera as the Beier-Flex 6 × 6 in Leipzig. Just a year later, an improved version, the Beier-Flex II , was launched. The production of the models continued until 1941. After that, the production had to be interrupted due to the arms production. The company was spared the following bombing raids during the Second World War . However, after the end of the war it was completely dismantled by the Soviet occupying forces.
1945-1992
At the age of almost 60, company founder Woldemar Beier began repairing cameras and other household appliances again in 1945 in order to get money for cheap but scrap-ripe machines and equipment. Until mid-1946, production was limited to the manufacture of potato peelers, shoehorns and other things. Shortly afterwards, however, production of the Beirax began again. 1953 Woldemar Beer's son Werner took over the management of the company. From 1959, the state participated in the company. However, he was only a partner in the actually private company. In some things, the company therefore received state instructions. Little by little, the company expanded its trade at home and abroad.
In 1972 the company was nationalized. The former private company was now called VEB Kamerafabrik Freital . Werner Beier was appointed as technical manager. Due to the nationalization, there was a demand for new types of cameras. In the following time five companies were incorporated into the VEB Kamerafabrik Freital, whereby the camera production could now increase strongly.
From January 1, 1980 the VEB Kamerafabrik Freital was subordinated to the VEB Pentacon combine , which gave rise to a new company name. From 1981 the beirette-electronic 35mm camera with automatic timing was developed. 1985 the enterprise was subordinated to the combine Carl Zeiss Jena , whereby the affiliation to the combine VEB Pentacon Dresden expired.
From July 1, 1990, part of the company was re-privatized. The rest became a GmbH called Kamerafabrik Freital GmbH . Gradually camera production declined and production was only based on orders. From September 1, 1990, the company became OFE GmbH Freital, a company for optics, precision mechanics and electrical engineering , until it was finally dissolved on September 30, 1992.
Known products
- Beirax
- Beirette
- Precisa
- Rifax
- Ahead
literature
- Richard Hummel: SLR cameras from Dresden - history, technology, facts. Lindemanns, Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3-89506-127-1
