Wirgin was a German company which is still known for its brands Wirgin and Edixa

Edixa

Edixa is a brand of camera manufacturer Wirgin Kamerawerk which was based in Wiesbaden, West Germany. The product line included several 35mm cameras and 16mm Edixa 16 subminiature cameras designed by Heinz Waaske from the 1950s to the 1970s....

, and for its camera types like the Edina, the Edinex or the Gewirette. It was based in the Hessian capital Wiesbaden and made a line of quite inexpensive 35mm SLRs from the 1950s to the 1970s, including the Edixa Reflex and Edixa-Mat Reflex. Wirgin was West Germany's main producer of SLRs with focal plane shutter. It also produced some of the lenses for its cameras, among them several M42 screw mount lenses.

Wirgin was founded by the brothers Heinrich, Max and Josef Wirgin in 1920. They introduced their first distinctive camera in 1927, the Edinex, which they produced also as Adrette for Adox

ADOX

In photography, ADOX is a trademark with a long history. It was originally a brand name used by the German company, Fotowerke Dr. C. Schleussner GmbH of Frankfurt am Main, the world's first photographic materials manufacturer. The company's founder, Dr...

. In 1934 the company surprised the market with a very small viewfinder camera for type 127 film, the Gewirette. From the mid-1930s it also made Edinex 35mm viewfinder cameras. These came equipped with Wirgin Gewironar lens and Compur shutter or Steinheil

Steinheil

Steinheil is a surname and may refer to:* Heinrich Steinhowel , a Swabian author, humanist, and translator...

 Culminar lens (alike Tessar) with Prontor shutter.

In 1938 circumstances in Germany had changed since the brutally dictatorial regime of the Nazi party had reached the peak of its success, pushed by the Olympics in Berlin in 1936 and the economic upswing. In their delusion of grandeur the political leaders decided to start making true all their only ideologically justified abhorrent menaces against minorities in Germany, especially against the Jews. Heinrich and Josef Wirgin still lead their company in Wiesbaden, but with the help of one of their clerks they managed to escape from Germany. Max arrived in the US May 14, 1936, Max helped his brothers follow him to America. The Wirgin factory in Wiesbaden became incorporated into the Adox

ADOX

In photography, ADOX is a trademark with a long history. It was originally a brand name used by the German company, Fotowerke Dr. C. Schleussner GmbH of Frankfurt am Main, the world's first photographic materials manufacturer. The company's founder, Dr...

 company.

After the war Heinrich Wirgin came back from America, now as Henry Wirgin, and refounded the Wirgin company in Wiesbaden. An administrative officer of the American occupied zone of Germany sent Heinz Waaske

Heinz Waaske

Heinz Waaske was a German camera designer, notably father of the Rollei 35.- Early career :Born in Berlin, Heinz Waaske started his career as a precision mechanic apprentice at Telefunken in Sickingenstraße in Berlin, where he studied from 1939 to 1942...

 as promising aspirant to Wirgin. At that time Waaske had sold his prototype of a miniature camera to the Americans. In 1951 the talented mechanician Waaske became camera constructor. He constructed the company's first SLR

Single-lens reflex camera

A single-lens reflex camera is a camera that typically uses a semi-automatic moving mirror system that permits the photographer to see exactly what will be captured by the film or digital imaging system, as opposed to pre-SLR cameras where the view through the viewfinder could be significantly...

, a model with focal plane shutter, the first camera like that in Western Germany. He also constructed a more elegant SLR prototype, and later a complicated electronically controlled SLR with Compur shutter, and a stereo rangefinder camera.

In 1962 Henry Wirgin bought Franka Kamerawerk. Several 35mm viewfinder cameras had been made in the Franka-Kamerawerk in Bayreuth/Oberfranken, for example the one visible in the picture at the right side of this page, an Edixa with builtin selenium meter and a lens with selectors for shutter speed, aperture and distance.

Made in Bayreuth and Wiesbaden were the small Edixa cameras for 16mm film with removable coupled or uncoupled meter, all derived from an original model designed by Heinz Waaske in Wiesbaden and developed and produced in Wiesbaden and Bayreuth as Edixa 16, Franka 16, or, for the Karstadt warehouses, as alka 16.

Waaske left Wirgin since Henry Wirgin had decided to give up camera production sooner or later. Wirgin granted the rights on a new 35mm viewfinder camera to Waaske. This camera was none less than the prototype of what became the famous Rollei 35

Rollei 35

The Rollei 35 is a 35mm miniature viewfinder camera built by Rollei. The original Rollei 35, when introduced at Photokina in 1966, was the smallest existing 135 film camera. Still today, the Rollei 35 series remain the second smallest 35 mm camera after the Minox 35...

. Waaske had constructed it at Wirgin company.

In 1967 the Franka-Werk was closed. In 1968 Henry Wirgin closed his original company and continued the production of some camera models in a new smaller plant. In 1971, shortly before its closing, the company introduced a quite modern but heavy SLR camera.

Some cameras sold by Wirgin and its American sales branch Edixa were not made by Wirgin or Franka, mainly the Edixa 8mm movie camera which was made in Japan.

Henry Wirgin died in 1989, in the age of 90 years, in Wiesbaden. He had not only been one of the top entrepreneurs of the West German camera industry, he was also engaged in rewinning normal friendly relationships of non-Jewish Germans to Jewish citizens as chairman of the Society for German-Jewish co-operation.

35mm film

• Edinex series
• several Edina
• and Edixa models

M42

• Edixa Reflex
  Edixa Reflex
  The Edixa Reflex cameras were West Germany's most popular own series of SLR's with focal plane shutter. The original name of the first Edixa SLR was Komet. The Wirgin company had to change the name after complaints of two other companies with equally named products...
  
   series (beginning with the Komet)

variants of the Edixa Reflex series:

• Edixa-Mat Reflex (with rapid mirror)
• Edixa Reflex, budget variants S, BV, SV, Kadett, Ba, Ca, Edixa 500
• Edixa Prismaflex LTL (fixed prism)

bayonet

• Edixa Rex b, Edixa Rex d, Edixa Rex CdS
• Edixa Rex TTL (fixed prism)

bayonet and M42:

• Edixa Prismat TTL, Edixa Prismat LTL (fixed prism)

120 film

• some sophisticated bellows cameras and several other folding cameras like the Rofika (=Rollfilmkamera)
• Wirgin Reflex (export version of the Reflecta)
• Wirgin Reflex (export version of the Altiflex)
• Wirgin Reflex (name variant of the Hollywood Reflex)
• the simpler camera line Presto, also made as Adox Sport

General links

In English:

• History of Wirgin (German version) by Klaus-Eckhard Riess in his camera site

In German:

• Wirgin.info website by Stefan Schaum - Holzappel

In French:

• Wirgin page at Collection G. Even's site

Miscellaneous

In English:

• Edixa SLR cameras in Andrey's M42 pages
• Other manuals at butkus.org's Orphan Cameras:
  • Edina I and II
  • Edixa I and II
  • Edixa Reflex
  • Edixa Reflex (other)
• Wirgin / Edixa section at Retrography.com by Simon Simonsen, Denmark

In German:

• Edixa Flex and Edixa-mat Kadett in Klaus-Eckhard Riess' camera site
• Edixa Stereo IA and Edixa Stereo IIIA in Welt der Stereoskopie

In French:

• Cameras and user manuals at www.collection-appareils.com