Mentor camera factory

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The company Mentor camera factory was a German camera manufacturer in Dresden (Saxony) and a trademark of cameras that were manufactured there.

Goltz & Breutmann OHG, a factory for photographic equipment, was founded in Berlin in 1898 by Hugo Breutmann . A year later he took on Franz Goltz as co-owner. The factory produced the focal plane shutter cameras , which were modern for the time . In 1905 Franz Goltz left the company and Gustav Adolf Heinrich took his place. In 1906 the company moved to Dresden.

The manufacture of single-lens reflex cameras established the company's general camera production. At the beginning of the First World War , the manufacture of aviator cameras replaced the civil camera production. In 1918 camera production finally began again under the trademark "Mentor", which had achieved an outstanding international reputation.

After the global economic crisis and the death of Adolf Heinrich, the master mechanic Rudolf Großer dared to change the strategic direction of the company. After the company got into financial difficulties, Großer acquired the bankruptcy assets of the Mentor plant and started the individual production of selected Mentor cameras with around 15 employees.

A short time later, the bombing raid on 13/14. February 1945 the entire operation. Reconstruction was out of the question. Despite everything, Rudolf Großer did not want to give up the production of the Mentor cameras. On July 1st, 1945 he started a small production. He hired three employees who took care of the repair of cameras and the production of simple accessories. In February 1948, the first post-war model was made by Rudolf Großer, the Mentor Atelier SLR camera in the format 9 × 12 cm. A few weeks later, he presented a sample camera for a smaller version measuring 6.5 × 9 cm. At the Leipzig Spring Fair they presented the entire series of Mentor Atelier SLR cameras in three different formats.

In 1953 they added a travel camera in the format 13 × 18 cm, which did not have a reflex system. However, this camera did not bring the desired profit because it lacked some properties for studio operation. That is why the company developed a new camera that was ideal for studio use. In 1965, Rudolf Großer presented a panorama camera 18 × 24 cm and a Mentor universal single-lens reflex camera 10 × 15 cm at the Leipzig spring fair. As the demand for panorama cameras steadily increased, the production of the Mentor SLR cameras was discontinued. Now the focus was placed on the production of the Panorama 1 and 2, which were produced until the end of the 1960s.

Rudolf Großer died on December 31, 1968 and his son Claus took over the business. Due to the nationalization, Claus Großer had to sell the company to the state in 1972. Thus, on April 24, 1972, the company VEB Mentor Großformat-Cameras Dresden was founded. The name Mentor expired after the company was dissolved as a legally independent company and from April 1, 1980 it was incorporated into the VEB Pentacon combine .

Models

The Mentor camera factory produced a large number of different folding and single-lens reflex cameras as well as stereo cameras. The best known were:

  • Mentor Klapp-Reflex 9x12
  • Mentor
  • Mentor Compour reflex cameras

literature

  • Richard Hummel: SLR cameras from Dresden - history, technology, facts Lindemanns, Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3895061271 .