Orwo
|
| ORWO 35mm B&W films, DIN 27 (ISO 400) & DIN 20 (ISO 80) image by Peter Wenzel (Image rights) |
ORWO is a film brand. It is the abbreviation for "Original Wolfen" because it was made in the Filmfabrik Wolfen, once a plant of Agfa in the East-German town Wolfen. In addition to film for still photography, Wolfen made cine film and film and plates for radiography. After the war the plant was in the hands of the U.S. occupying troops. Some assets, documents and film recipes were transferred to American and other allied competitors. Wolfen belonged to the Soviet sector of occupied Germany so when the Americans withdrew Wolfen became part of socialist East Germany. Some of the plant's equipment was taken in reparations by the Soviet Union, but the plant continued to work, still producing Agfa-branded products. As with other German brands divided after the War (such as Zeiss and Balda) there was difficulty over the right to the brand. In the west, Agfa built a new film plant in Leverkusen. The Wolfen plant could continue to use the Agfa name in eastern Europe; however, use of the trademarks in the western market was problematic. The ORWO was first adopted as the name of the organisation, and then (as late as 1964[1]) was registered as a trademark for the products to solve this problem.
In 1994, four years after German reunification, Orwo was liquidated by the Treuhandanstalt.[2] Heinrich Mandermann tried to privatise Orwo as one operation, Orwo AG but failed in 1998, and the organisation was instead privatised in several small parts.[3] The new company named FilmoTec was one of these; it took over the rights to make Orwo films, some made after original recipes.
- ↑ Article on Orwo (apparently system-translated from German) at EconomyPoint.org
- ↑ Treuhandanstalt: 'Trust Agency': the body created by the German government to privatise East German state-owned industries. When created, it was effectively the largest industrial company in the world.
- ↑ Über FilmoTec (about FilmoTec) at Filmotec.
