19 Facts About Heinz Waaske

Heinz Waaske was a German camera designer, notably father of the Rollei 35.

Heinz Waaske started designing a 16mm miniature camera in his spare time, and sold the prototype in 1948 for 3.000 Marks.

From 1948, Waaske transferred to the Wirgin brothers company in Wiesbaden.

Heinz Waaske worked as a precision mechanic and soon rose to head of the prototype workshop, to technical designer, and eventually to chief designer.

Heinz Waaske first improved the medium format 6x9 cameras, allowing cheaper manufacturing procedures.

Heinz Waaske further designed all the successors to the Edixa, including the Edixamat reflex and the Edixa Electronica.

When he designed the Edixa 16, Heinz Waaske had to design the shutter himself, as suppliers could not provide sufficiently small mechanisms.

Heinz Waaske had understood that there was a market for small cameras which would use 135 film rather than the ultra-miniature formats.

Heinz Waaske made the design in his living room and had Wirgin Musterbau manufacture the parts for the prototype.

Heinz Waaske joined Rollei in January 1965, and at first did not mention his attempts for a compact 135 camera.

When Heinz Waaske showed his pocket camera prototype to Heinrich Peesel, the head of Rollei, he was so enthusiastic about it that he decided the camera should immediately be developed further by Heinz Waaske for mass production, but using parts only from Rollei's suppliers.

Later, Heinz Waaske introduced improvements in the loading system of small format reflex cameras which were mass-produced with the Rollei Rolleiflex SL2000F.

Heinz Waaske resigned his position at Rollei in 1978, before the introduction of the Rolleimatic on the market, in 1980.

From 1978, Heinz Waaske had his own technical design office in Braunschweig, working not only on cameras but, for instance, on loudspeaker systems which went into production with Blaupunkt.

Heinz Waaske's work was characterised by a "technical minimalism", with small and scarce pieces providing as many functions as possible.

Heinz Waaske was very inclined towards practical usefulness, and he was very critical of the collection edition of the Rollei 35, with casing made of precious metal.

Heinz Waaske's aim was at providing compact and functional to everybody.

Heinz Waaske tartly rejected requests for designing military equipment, arguing that after his experience of the Second World War, he had had enough with war.

Heinz Waaske died in 1995 in Braunschweig, and a street of the city was named Heinz Waaske Weg in his honour.