Have you Ever been Zapped?

Walter Zapp, inventor of the Minox mini camera that is featured in many spy films died at his home in Binningen, northern Switzerland on the 17th of July this year. We look a little closer at this real -life Q's invention which has been featured in several Bond movies.

The Riga - the first minox camera

This amazing compact little camera that has become synonimous with the world of espionage fits into the palm of the hand and weighs less than a cigarette lighter. It was not originally invented with espionage in mind. However, due to it's obvious aid to espionage activities it has sold well over a million in various forms. It's inventor, Zapp, however was never to realise great riches from his invention having sold the patent for it after World War II.

The Man

A young Walter Zapp inventor of the minox mini camera.

Walter Zapp was born in Riga, Latvia in 1905, and finding the cameras when he was a 17 year old aprentice art photographer heavy began thinking about making them smaller. Fourteen years later Zapp managed to produce the prototype that could be held in a closed hand. The year was 1936.
In 1941 when Germany was at war with The Soviet Union, Zapp fled to Germany taking his prototype with him. After the war, he and a friend set up Minox in Wetzlar. Two of the companies main investors were cigar factories, they bought out the company and dismissed Zapp two years later.

However when Zapp was in his 80s he was able to return to the firm he founded, as the optics company Leitz bought Minox in 1989. With the role of development engineer he was able to work and oversee various developments up until his death.

An open Riga Minox Camera

The Minox

As we can see from this catlogue brochure sample the Minox is a remarkable piece of work, which the majority of intelligence agencies will have relied upon at some time or other.

A Factory catalogue page on a minox camera © minox

Quiz

It's size and weight made it a favourite of the CIA, and during the height of Cold War thrillers it was often seen on screen. As mentioned such camera's are familliar in spy movies and especially the Bond movies, which have seen various micro cameras in the series. Can you list the Bond films and scenes where 007 has had to use such a gadget? Post your answrs in the funhouse topic that this article will be linked to.

The final answer will be given in a weeks time. 20th September 2003

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