Born on February 19, 1887, in Mulhouse, Dr. Paul Wolff studied medicine until 1913 (degree in 1914). After the First World War, he worked in film and as a photographer, meeting Oskar Barnack in 1921, and acquiring his first two Leica cameras in 1926. His standard work, Meine Erfahrungen mit der Leica (My Experience with the Leica), was published in 1934. In 1934, he also founded the company in Frankfurt on the Main with Alfred Tritschler, who had been working for him since 1927. The company headquarters were destroyed during an air raid in 1944, but the archive of 35mm pictures, which was stored elsewhere, survived. Wolff passed away on April 10, 1951.
Alfred Tritschler was born on June 12, 1905. He completed photographic training in his home town of Offenburg (Baden), then began studying photographic technology in Munich in 1924. In 1927, he applied for a position with Paul Wolff’s company in Frankfurt. Later on, he became co-owner. He continued to run the Wolff & Tritschler company, independently, after Wolff’s passing on April 10, 1951. Tritschler himself passed away on New Year’s Eve, 1970. His nephew, Robert Summer, had already taken over the firm in 1963.
