It Would Make A Great Gift for the Führer

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Curt Herzstark was born in 1902 the son of a businessman in Vienna.

His father had founded in 1905 the company “Rechenmaschinenwerk AUSTRIA Herzstark & Co.”, which built different varieties of the Thomas-calculators with additional patented Herzstark-inventions. His father’s company produced adding machines, very precise but also very large. Some might be the size of a large desk.

Curt started an apprenticeship as precision mechanic and toolmaker in the factory of his father. Curt Herzstark was lucky to get a very decent education, despite the country being in a war. This was his dream job. Curt loved the intricacies of calculators and wanted to design the holy grail of calculators, the first hand held calculator. Remember, this was before batteries, chips, transistors, or anything like that. Strictly mechanical, no electricity!

So he started his internships in his fathers’ factory, where he worked in Assembly and Sales.

In 1926 he was made responsible for reorganizing sales of Austria products in Czechoslovakia. Things could have proceeded steadily from there-on, but the tremors of world history made that impossible.

On March 10, 1938, the German Wehrmacht crossed the border of Austria – the infamous Anschluss – and life would never be the same again for Herzstark.

Shortly after the invasion, he managed to register two patents for his invention in Austria but further development and production of his calculators were made impossible. Although his father had been Jewish, his mother was a Catholic who later had become an Evangelical.

This made Herzstark according to Nazi-Germany’s abhorrent race laws a half-Jew, an extremely precarious, if not deadly, position to be in. The Germans soon arrived to inspect the Herzstark factory and were impressed with the technical precision of the instruments produced. The company was instructed to stop all non-army work and to start producing gauges and other precision instruments for the Wehrmacht.

All went well until 1943 when two of Herzstark’s employees were arrested for listening to the English radio and translating and transcribing the broadcast using a typewriter. The employee owning the typewriter was summarily executed.

When Herzstark was called as a witness,he was immediately arrested for “helping Jews and subversive elements” and also for “indecent contact with Aryan women”. The last charge could easily have been raised if he had been seen kissing his mother.

After his arrest he was put in a Vienna prison for Jews and subsequently deported to the Pankraz prison in Prague where he had to share a cell with 50 other inmates without beds or ablution facilities and where torture had become a habit.

Finally he was sent to concentration camp Buchenwald.

Buchenwald Concentration Camp

Was located near Weimar in East Germany and had been in operation since 1938. More than 50,000 prisoners died there under the brutal Nazi regime through shooting, hanging, starvation, medical experiments and general hardship. When the American forces liberated the camp on April 11, 1945, only 21,000 survivors were found, in the most deplorable conditions.

It was in this death camp that Herzstark arrived in 1943. Initially he was ordered to do gardening, a heavy and exhausting job for him and soon his health started deteriorating.

Due to the fact that the Herzstark company had worked for the Wehrmacht he was defined as an “intelligence-slave” which was a semi-protected position for all prisoners with technical expertise and skills who could serve the German Reich.

Later, a SS-commander called him to his office and told him that if he followed their orders obediently he would be sent to the Gustloff factory which adjoined the concentration camp.

This factory was producing high-precision mechanical instruments, parts and tools for the German war machine – an environment where his life would be slightly more bearable.

Herzstark’s health soon improved and he even managed to help out his co-prisoners with the occasional item of food.

Hearing of his work on adding machines, the head S.S. officer instructed Curt that if he was able to produce a hand-held calculating machine, it would be presented to the Führer after Germany had won the war and he surely would be spared his life and rewarded.

Obviously Herzstark saw this as his ticket to survival. He started to reproduce the drawings for his Curta idea from memory using a drawing board made available to him. Only at night would he work on this new design, drawing and redrawing, over and over again.

But he had a big problem. If he worked too slow he might be sent back to hard labor. But if he finished his new calculator, he felt that they might not reward him, they might just take the design and execute him.

He spent all his spare time meticulously drawing and redrawing the design in pencil, hour after hour, in the dim light at night in this concentration death camp.

But he never had to present the design to the Fuhrer. Buchenwald was finally liberated in April 1945,  just when he had completed the drawings.

After leaving the concentration camp and with drawings in hand, Curt went to several companies to try to get his invention in production.

Finally the Prince of Lichtenstein, who was looking for products to start up a manufacturing base for his country, saw the invention and became amazed at it’s capabilities.

So the first hand held mechanical calculator,designed in a concentration camp at night, started production in 1948. Curta calculators started being produced by Contina Ltd., in Mauren, Liechenstein.

Curtas were sold at camera shops and business machine stores through the early ’70’s, or could be purchased direct through a US distributor.

Curta calculator capabilities are astounding in that it can calculate answers to 11 decimal places! It is all done with gears, levers, and intricate mechanical parts, all moving in perfect synchronization.

NASA engineers probably did a lot of their calculations for the Apollo program by using a Curta calculator. In fact, landing on the moon for Apollo 11 probably was aided quite a bit by Curta Calculators.

The Curta machines today have developed almost a cult following, with an avid base of collectors, usually selling for over 2000 dollars, despite having an original price of just over 100 dollars.

Liechtenstein Stamp commemorating the Curta acomplishments

Curta Calculators Model II and Model I

Assembly of the Curta calculator

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osori
13 years ago

Is it possible the struggle between Rohm and Hitler was not over the SA replacing the army but rather Rohm’s vision of a Third Reich based on manufacture and sale of efficient calculators vs Hitler’s plans for military conquest?

We may never know.

Reply to  osori
13 years ago

Good theory… but I think if that were true, it would have been the “Night of the Long Division” instead.

osori
Reply to  Krell
13 years ago

ROFLMAO!

Reply to  osori
13 years ago

Man oh Man, when was the last time I had an opportunity to do a Nazi Mathematics History Pun. It was a good day today!

osori
Reply to  Krell
13 years ago

Take mein Fuhrer-Bitte!

13 years ago

‘Rechenmaschinenwerk AUSTRIA Herzstark & Co’

I’d like to see any TV advert ‘jingle’ maker find a jingle that could fit that lot in!!!!

13 years ago

Here is a video of a Curta in action…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYsOi6L_Pw4

Now I know what I want for Christmas! I’m such a geek!

13 years ago

For the Fuhrer? I quit calling my dad that years ago.

Reply to  Mother Hen
13 years ago

What a great story. The Curta took the Charles Babbage idea to another level of excellence.

Reply to  Holte Ender
13 years ago

I thought that you might like this one, Holte. There is a long history of such things, especially Babbage and his “difference engine”.

I always thought that this Curta calculator story would make a great movie. Somebody like Tom Hanks playing the lead???

Reply to  Krell
13 years ago

It is truly a story worth retelling.

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