Kochmann Reflex Korelle

The Reflex Korelle is a reflex camera made by Franz Kochmann in Dresden.

It is one of the earliest 6×6cm SLRs and went into production 1935. The camera takes 6×6 cm exposures on 120 film using waist-level viewfinder with a matte screen and a magnifier.

The Korelle has an incredibly distinctive look and its innovative design made it to be one of the most important cameras of the 1930’s. It employed quite experimental approaches like using a piano string to move the mirror.

Unfortunately the Korelle also carries a very dark part of Europe’s history with it. Right before the war, Franz Kochmann and his family were driven to flee from the Nazis and the Holocaust. The Kochmann Fabrik was then seized and renamed Korellewerke KG in 1939.

For a very brief time during 1939, the Reflex-Korelle II was marketed in the United States through an agreement between the new “restructured” German company and Burke & James Inc. in Chicago who had previously marketed the Korelle cameras for Kochmann.