Leica's Invasion

In placid little (pop. 6,949) Midland, Ont. on the shores of Lake Huron, 24 newly arrived German workmen last week began uncrating $100,000 worth of optical machinery in a rented curling rink. The workers, from Leitz's famed optical works at Wetzlar, began setting up lens-grinders, buffers, drills, in preparation for moving into a new $200,000 factory near by. There they will assemble Leica cameras, photo accessories, special lenses, and aim for a share of rearmament's precision optical orders.

The plant is Leitz's first in North America since Pearl Harbor, when its U.S. distributing subsidiary was confiscated (the Alien Property Custodian will sell it this week to the highest bidder at an auction from which Leitz is barred). To choose the site, 81-year-old Dr. Ernst Leitz, son of the founder, sent over his 46-year-old son and namesake who thought that Midland, with its lake and nearby rivers, looked enough like Wetzlar to keep the emigre workmen from getting too homesick.

The Leitzes, who wanted a U.S. plant, had hoped that the Alien Property Custodian would permit the company to buy back its subsidiary (as it did after World War I). Unable to do so, they chose Canada rather than have two rival Leitz companies operating in the U.S. Another son of Dr. Leitz, Gunther, 38, will run the

Canadian show as president and general director.

Candid Cameras. Until the Leica (a compound of Leitz and camera) was invented in 1914 by Oskar Barnack, a Leitz employee, the company was one of the world's leading makers of microscopes.* Its founder, Ernst Leitz, a German who had worked with a Swiss watchmaker before settling in Wetzlar, introduced the watch industry's mass-production technique to microscopy. When the Leica was added as a sideline, the tail began wagging the dog. As a worldwide craze for miniature cameras and candid photography grew, so did Leitz. By World War II, the company had 3,000 employees and was grossing $10 million a year. Then it concentrated on war work, and was so vital to the Nazi war industry that U.S. heavy bombers tried thrice to knock it out. Though its eight buildings were straddled with hundreds of bombs, hardly any were damaged. At war's end, Leitz began making Leicas for sale in Army PXs. To help defray the cost of occupation, resumption of Leica exports was authorized in 1946.

The New Grind. The world's demand for Leicas proved greater than ever, despite the rise of formidable imitators abroad. Leitz stepped up employment to 5,000, production to 4,000 Leicas per month, 25% more than prewar, and its gross to $12.5 million. Leitz keeps many operations on a handwork basis simply to provide jobs. This, plus heavy taxes, has kept profits below prewar levels, but even so, Leitz made enough last year to finance a new $950,000 building at Wetzlar and the Canadian plant, which may expand Leitz's total capacity by 15%. At Midland, Leitz plans to train some 500 Canadians to grind lenses and make Leicas, eventually hopes to sell their output in the U.S. market.

* Paul Ehrlich, who in 1912 got the 150,000th Leitz made, used one in his work on Salvarsan ("606"), the cure for syphilis.

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