Telescopes Made in Berlin: from Carl Bamberg to Askania

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TELESCOPES MADE IN BERLIN: FROM CARL BAMBERG TO ASKANIA

Gudrun Wolfschmidt*

Introduction

Several important firms producing mechanical-optical instruments appeared during the nineteenth century. The center of astronomical instrument making was transferred from England to the German states, initiated by the blockade of 1806: chief players included Joseph von Fraunhofer (Optisch-mechanisches Institut Reichenbach, Utzschneider & Fraunhofer, founded in 1809),1 his successors, such as Ertel (founded in 1826) and Mahler (founded in 1826), and later the important firm Merz of Munich (from the 1840s). Independently, but also in Munich in 1855, Carl August von Steinheil (1801–1870) founded his optical- astronomical company “C. A. Steinheil und Söhne”. Germany was not a centralized country. During the nineteenth century, instrument makers also existed in Göttingen, Kassel, Braunschweig, Greifswald, Stralsund, Rathenow, Bonn, Köln and Wetzlar. Johann Georg Repsold (1770–1830) founded a mechanical workshop in Hamburg in 1799, which specialized in astronomical and geodetic instruments. He built a private observatory in 1802 and another observatory with a school for navigation in 1825. After his death his firm was continued by his sons Georg and Adolf, and later by their sons and grandsons until 1919. By 1836 the firm had started to cooperate with Steinheil—but also with Merz—concerning optics, and they delivered famous telescopes

* I would like to thank the staff in the archives of the Deutsches Museum Munich and of the Archive of the Deutsches Technikmuseum Berlin for their help and advice. 1 In 1806 Joseph von Fraunhofer (1787–1826) in Munich joined the firm of Georg Friedrich von Reichenbach (1771–1826), the mechanical institute of Reichenbach & Liebherr, founded in 1802. Fraunhofer became leader of the glass melting workshop in Benediktbeuern in 1807 and took over the whole optical institute in 1814 together with Joseph von Utzschneider (1763–1840); see Myles W. Jackson, Spectrum of Belief: Joseph von Fraunhofer and the Craft of Precision Optics, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2000. 178 gudrun wolfschmidt and meridian circles to observatories all over the world.2 Zeiss of Jena was founded by Carl Zeiss (1816–1888) in 1846. In 1888, when Ernst Abbe (1840–1905) became director, the company was structured in a new way, step by step, in four departments: in 1888, “Photo” Photographische Abteilung (photography); in 1893, “Mess” Abteilung Optische Messinstrumente (optical instruments like microscopes); in 1893, “Tele” Abteilung Erdfernrohre (terrestrial telescopes); and finally, in 1897, “Astro” Astronomische Abteilung (astronomy). By the beginning of the twentieth century, Zeiss had begun to play an important role as the leading firm of German origin for astronomical instruments.3 In Berlin, the only famous firm was Pistor & Martins (founded in 1813).4 However, during the Kaiserreich, in the 1870s, a number of firms were founded in Berlin in particular, as the capital city of the unified German Empire. There was no special market for telescopes in Berlin; the famous observatories and scientific institutions were to be founded later. In this article I will concentrate on the history of Carl Bamberg and its successor Askania of Berlin, which has not received much scholarly attention, although together with Zeiss it is the most important German firm of this period.

Carl Bamberg (1847–1892): Life and Activities

Carl Bamberg was born in Kranichfeld, Ilm, Thuringia, near Weimar. His father was a clockmaker and clothier.5 Carl Bamberg served his apprenticeship at Zeiss of Jena from 1862 to 1866. His mentor, Ernst Abbe, gave him lectures in theoretical optics in order to prepare him for admission to the university. Bamberg then studied physics, mathematics,

2 Johann Adolf Repsold, Zur Geschichte der astronomischen Messwerkzeuge, Leipzig, 1908–1914, 2 vols.: v. 1 “Von Purbach bis Reichenbach, 1450 bis 1830” (1908); v. 2 “Von 1830 bis um 1900. Leipzig: Emmanuel Reinicke” (1914). 3 Gudrun Wolfschmidt, “Die Weiterentwicklung von Abbes Geräten bei Zeiss/Jena und ihre Bedeutung für die Astronomie in der ersten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts”, in Rüdiger Stolz, Joachim Wittig (eds.), Carl Zeiss und Ernst Abbe—Leben, Wirken und Bedeutung, Jena, 1993, pp. 331–362. 4 Jörg Zaun, Instrumente für die Wissenschaft: Innovationen in der Berliner Fein- mechanik und Optik 1871–1914, Berlin, 2002. 5 Concerning life and work of Carl Bamberg, cf. Franz M. Feldhaus, Carl Bam- berg: Ein Rückblick auf sein Wirken und auf die Feinmechanik, Berlin, 1929; Marcus Popplow, “Franz Maria Feldhaus: Die Weltgeschichte der Technik auf Karteikarten”, Kaleidoskopien 4 (2002), pp. 100–114.