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Johann Heinrich Ernemann (28 May 1850, Gernrode, Eichsfeld–16 May 1928, Hartha), son of Catharina Ernemann and Joseph Brodmann, farmer, was a German inventor, entrepreneur and industrialist who contributed innovations in photography and cinema equipment, and was founder of Ernemann-Werke AG.

Entrepreneur

Born into a poor farming family, Heinrich Ernemann was educated in Gernrode only to the primary level. Leaving Eichsfeld in 1866, he worked at the Krupp Gussstahlfabrik in Essen until about 1870. Exempted from military service, he studied in the business school in Pirna before working as a traveling salesman. He moved to Dresden and on New Year's Eve of 1875 married Marie Therese (née Grafe) with whom he turned his mother-in-law's haberdashery store into a thriving business. Living frugally, by 1888 they had saved 7,500 marks with which Ernemann purchased a share in carpenter Wilhelm Franz Matthias's camera shop on Pirnaer Strasse in Eschdorf, establishing himself in the still-nascent photo industry. Recognising and developing the market for such goods, he gave their small backyard workshop the brand 'Dresden photographic apparatus factory,' producing bespoke portable and studio cameras. In January 1891, Matthias departed, unhappy with Ernemann's industrialisation.

Industrialist

Moving into larger premises in 1892 Ernemann then introduced steam power, contriving an operating structure necessary for industrial mass production and machinists to reduce dependence on suppliers for small metal parts. By May 1892 the company was granted its first patent, for a between-the-lens shutter, and published its first catalogue in 1896. Their 'Edison Universal' magazine camera of 1894 was the first to be stamped with the Ernemann name in an era when it was the retailers who branded the product.

In a visionary manner he thus expanded the company so that it became one of the most important photo and cinema companies in the German empire. Awards were received at prestigious trade shows, including the Great Trade and Art Exhibition in Dresden in 1896 confirming Ernemann, beside Emil Wünsche and Richard Hüttig, as one of the Saxon entrepreneurs in the photography industry whose businesses expanded, while others who did not industrialise were bankrupted or taken over; in 1909 even Wünsche and Hüttig were forced to merge as ICA (International Camera Aktiengesellschaft). Meanwhile, in 1903 Ernemann introduced its first movie camera, aimed at the amateur market, and registered as its trademark 'Lichtgottin' (Goddess of Light), the icon used on its equipment until 1920, after which it was used only for their chemical products.

In 1897, he built a new factory in the same street as the ICA factory, Schandauer Straße in Dresden, a city which thus became a centre for the photography industry. By 1923 his factory incorporated the landmark Ernemann Tower which still stands, rebuilt after a fire which destroyed it in 1923.

His son Alexander (1878-1956), who in America had become expert in industrial efficiency, joined the company as technical manager in 1904 and restructured it, introducing quality control and a system of apprenticeships. From 1907 the company ground its own lenses from Jena glass, and released a single-lens reflex and a 360º panoramic camera, the Rundblick. Their Imperator, a durable 35mm movie projector made from steel was an engineering advance on flimsy and unreliable existing models, was launched at the International Photographic Exhibition, and quickly taken up by almost all cinemas in Paris.

World War I

Increasing expenditure on its 400 employees, plant and advertising caused financial strain but a mooted merger with ICA was avoided and the company recovered quickly in 1910 and Ernemann was knighted. Likewise, during World War I which halved its workforce, military purchases quickly restored the company's wealth and its employee numbers. His prestige and influence continued to grow, so that in 1913 he was appointed to the Royal Saxon Commercial Council in the year that his new employee Dr. Hans Lehmann prototyped the Zeitlupen, an early slow-motion camera eventually capable of 1500 frames-per-second, as proven in demonstrations for the Dresden Scientific Society.

The end of the War confronted Ernemann with new financial difficulties that were remedied by cooperation with Friedrich Krupp AG, marked by replacement of the Lichtgöttin logo by a Maltese cross gear symbol over the three Krupp rings, to make and sell projectors; the licensing to manufacture J. P. Hansen's Norka studio camera; and the opening of a new chemical factory in leased, and in 1923, purchased, facilities in nearby Bannewitz. The 1922/23 period of hyperinflation, during which the company produced for the government the 50 million Deutschmarks voucher, was followed by recovery and expansion of the Schandauer buildings to accommodate the then 3,500 workers, then a recession that halved that number.

The Ermanox

Company employee since 1919, and only twenty-three, the self-taught optical engineer Ludwig Bertele designed, under the supervision of August Klughardt, the ƒ2.0/125mm Ernostar lens for a 'miniature' press camera, the Ermanox (Latin: nox, meaning night, darkness). A triplet lens into which an extra positive meniscus element he introduced, its advantage to low-light photojournalism, such as the famously and surreptitiously made by Erich Salomon of politicians, was due to its increased light-gathering power while reducing the aberrations that the wide aperture would otherwise introduce. In 1920 he widened the aperture to ƒ1.8.

Merger

In 1926, Ernemann-Werke AG merged with Carl Zeiss, the Optical Institution C. P. Goerz, the International Camera Actiengesellschaft (ICA) and the Contessa-Nettel to Zeiss-Ikon AG, for which Bertele continued innovations in lenses including the Sonnar series based on the Ernostar, and a wide-angle lens, the Boigon.

While the Dresden family business came to an end after 37 years, Heinrich Ernemann continued as member of the supervisory board of the new company.

Personal life and legacy

Ernemann was intensively responsible for the creation of a chair for photography at the Technical University of Dresden. Later, he and his son Alexander became founding members of the Society of Sponsors and Friends of the Technical University of Dresden e. V. The awarding of the honorary doctorate (as Dr.-Ing. E. h.) of the Technical University of Dresden on 24. July 1924 was the appreciation of his life's work.

Ernemann died aged 78 in 1928 in his summer villa Heinrichs Eck (21 Am Hartheberg) in the spa town of Hartha, built in 1900 and since restored. His grave is located in the Johannisfriedhof in Dresden-Tolkewitz.

The villa at 8 Justinenstraße in Dresden-Blasewitz, occupied in 1891 by the Ernemann family, was destroyed on the 13 February 1945 in an air raid, and its ruin was demolished in the post-war period. In its place today is a block of flats.

Ernemann's daughter Anna Katharina Gertrud was the mother of AEG manager C. Johannes G. Heyne.

References

1. Schulz, Walter (1959). "Ernemann, Johann Heinrich". Neue Deutsche Biographie (NDB) [The New German Biography] (in German). Vol. 4. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot. p. 604. ISBN 3-428-00185-0.
2. Forster, Ralf (25 November 2011). "Biografie Heinrich Ernemann". Sächsische Biografie, Institut für Sächsische Geschichte und Volkskunde (in German). Retrieved 26 December 2024.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
3. Hummel, Richard (1989). "150 Jahre Kameras aus Dresden" [150 years of cameras from Dresden]. Jenaer Rundschau (in German) (2): 59 ff. ISSN 0368-203X.
4. On the trail of the Contax Vol. 1. Contax history from 1932 until 1945. Hückelhoven: Wittig. 2003. ISBN 9783930359363.
5. ^ Stienen, Raimund (January 2000). "History of the Ernemann Company - Dresden". Back Focus: The Journal of the Australian Photographic Collectors Society (Inc.) (36): 3–9. ISSN 0155-4824.
6. Blumtritt, Herbert (2001). Geschichte der Dresdner Fotoindustrie [History of the Dresden photo industry] (in German) (2nd ed.). Stuttgart: Lindemanns. ISBN 3-89506-212-X.
7. Kingslake, Rudolf (1989). A history of the photographic lens. San Diego, CA: Academic Press. pp. 111–112, 206–207. ISBN 978-0-08-050817-7.
8. Göllner, Peter (1995). Ernemann Cameras. Die Geschichte des Dresdner Photo-Kino-Werks. Mit einem Katalog der wichtigsten Produkte [The history of the Dresden Photo-Kino-Werk. With a catalogue of the most important products] (in German). Hückelhoven: Wittig Fachbuchverlag,. ISBN 3-930359-29-4.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link)
9. Frohmut V. Barsch (ed.): Informationsbroschüre zur Einweihungsfeier der restaurierten Villa Ernemann. Bissendorf / Kurort Hartha, 24. Juli / 26. Juli 1998.
10. André Kaiser: Abschluss der Rekonstruktion der Villa „Heinrichs Eck“. 70. Todestag des kgl. sächs. Kommerzienrates Dr. e.h. Heinrich Ernemann. Begründer der Dresdner Fotoindustrie. In: Harthaer Gemeindeblätt'l vom August 1998.
11. Oehme, Dorit (February 2012). "Happy End fürs Sommerhaus". Sächsische Zeitung, Freitaler Zeitung. 4 (5): 16.