Agfa’s services – chemical and optical – were in demand: the company was involved in the production of Zyklon B gas used to exterminate undesirables in the concentration camps, and in return Agfa made free use of skilled prisoners in their factories. Although a prosperous decade, Agfa’s global reputation was tarnished by deep collaboration with the Nazi regime. However, it would be remiss to skip over the 1940s that established Agfa as a force in German production and built the foundation to create these exciting products.

However, almost forty years prior to the merger, the Agfa brand had become synonymous with the production of innovative cameras and lenses: from 1927, Agfa made a successful two-pronged attack on the then-disconnected European and American markets: contracting production and sales in the States to New-York based Ansco.Ĭommercially, Agfa-Gevaert’s ‘Golden Years’ are considered to be the diversified 1960s-1980s, but Agfa’s industry-leading days in the photography sector were probably earlier: in particular, the 1950s generated a glut of zeitgeist-capturing products that remain desirable today. From disparate backgrounds, in different countries, both companies were destined to become increasingly influential in the burgeoning field of colour film, processing and printing, and in 1964 merged to form Agfa-Gevaert. Meanwhile, in 1890, across the border in Antwerp, Lieven Gevaert established a workshop for the production of calcium photographic paper. Mindfulness of Agfa’s 19th Century decision to drop the F of ‘Fabrikation’ and its willingness to switch cases will help us identify lenses made decades later. Jordan’s chemical factory in Treptow in 1872 the suffix ‘Aktien-‘ (Shared) was added in 1873 – foreshadowing future collaborations, and giving rise to the acronym AGFA: less accurate than the full AGFAF – but shorter, typographically prettier, and less evocative of the Heimlich Manoeuvre. For the next 120 years, this expertise cast the die for Agfa’s successes and failures: aniline is a base ingredient in dyes, explosives, plastics, and photographic chemicals.įollowing the purchase and merger of Dr. The Agfa story begins in 1867 in Rummelsburger See, on the outskirts of Berlin, when chemists Paul Mendelssohn Bartoldy and Carl Alexander von Martius founded the Gesellschaft Für Anilin-Fabrikation mbH.

Agfa varioscope 60 manual