Ernst Leitz Optische Werke Wetzlar

Portrait of the Leitz company. After a view of the city of Wetzlar and the Leitz-Werke from the Kalsmunt, the film introduces various departments of the company: the milling shop, the engraving shop, the lens grinding shop, the adjustment department. The film also shows the assembly of a microscope and a Leica. This Leica helps to date the film: It is a Leica 1, whose production was discontinued in 1932 and which was replaced by a camera with interchangeable lenses.

Since the 1910s, Oskar Barnack, the inventor of the Leica, had captured events around Wetzlar on film with his self-constructed film camera. He documented flood disasters, city festivals, medical experiments, sporting events and the company where he was employed as chief designer: the Optical Works Ernst Leitz in Wetzlar. His films form the basis of a film archive in which local history has the same place as the effects of great historical events.