AOS News - The Australian Optical Society - Macquarie University

AOS News Volume 25 Number 1 2011Jung Precision Optics, AdelaideJung by name and Jung at heartIn 1940 Heinz Jung was 6 years old, and like many German children from theRhine regions, he was evacuated to safer climes to avoid the bombing raids.He grew up in Dusseldorf where his parents worked, although the family wasoriginally from Waldgirmes a village 200km away in Hessen. The area sufferedbadly during that time. About half his playmates died in the bombing raids. Heinzwas sent to a region adjacent to East Prussia near the Baltic Sea, as there was nowar there as yet. This early experience lead to Heinz’s two great loves, other thanmaking precision optics.He was billeted with a forester who lived3 km from the nearest school. Heinz hadto walk to and from school by himselfevery day, at first a daunting task for a 6year old boy. Fortunately the forester had abig Short Haired Pointer named Tell afterWilhelm Tell and a Dachshund namedChurchill, because of it’s stocky build.Chruchill was destined to stay at home orhunt foxes, while Tell heartily took on theresponsibility of being Heinz’s bodyguardand companion. Tell walked to schoolevery day with Heinz and kept a watch onhim. If in the school yard some older boysshowed any aggressive tendencies, the dogwould growl just once, and all of a suddenpeace would reign.On Heinz’s 7 th Birthday, as a specialtreat, the forester taught Heinz how to firea gun and how to hunt in the forest. Thatwas something very special many a boy ofthe time could only dream of. Thus beganHeinz’s passion for hunting which he haskept up all his life. And he still goes outoccasionally. Not bad for a 77 year old.And of course he takes his dogs, a big,brown Doberman and a classic femaleRottweiler.The serenity of the East was soonshattered and Heinz went back to hisvillage of Waldgirmes in Hessen where hecompleted his schooling. Waldgirmes hasa known history of 1200 years, all the wayback to Charlemagne’s time, though ofcourse Heinz would say Karl der Grosser’stime. The Jung family name was adoptedby Heinz’s ancestors in about 1460 whenfamily names became in vogue. Impressivecontinuity of family and community.After completing basic schooling at theage of 14 in 1948, Heinz did the Germanthing and chose an apprenticeship.Waldgirmes is also very close to Wetzlar,the city where Leitz (now Leicca ) hadbeen making some of the finest optics inthe world for decades. But Heinz did notgo to Leitz, there was a new company intown, Minox. It was founded by a fineoptics specialist whose surname was Zappand his partner, who provided the finance.They were both refugees from Riga, Latvia,where they had had a similar business.Some readers will remember the Minoxspy camera, as it was called. It was littlebigger than a memory stick, a remarkabledevice, and about 25 years ago cost about$400-. This camera required micro lensobjectives of very high quality. Heinzsigned up as an apprentice at Minoxstudying under Zapp, and attendedtechnical college one day a week. He stayedthere for 5 years until he had learnt all thetechniques.Making optics then was a very exactingscience then. As Heinz explained, “Ttherewere no computers or ray tracing programs.Everything had to be calculated by hand.It could take a year to design an objective.Then it would be made and tested,then the design corrected, and perhaps3 months later a final product wouldemerge. The problem was that there wasno practical way to calculate tolerances.Each variation would be a new design thatcould take a year to calculate. That meantthat the fabricators had to make preciselythe actual forms and thicknesses of thelenses. We had to have lens thicknessesaccurate to 5 microns! Nowadays youjust run a few tolerance simulations on acomputer to find out which dimensionsare critical, but then, everything had tobe made perfectly to the design to be ableto test the design.”After Minox, Heinz got a job as theleading hand in charge of precision opticsfabrication at E. Farber GmbH, where heworked for 6 years. Following this he gotby Alex Stancoa job as manager at Paillard-Bolex SA inSwitzerland. This was the Rheinlander’sundoing, though he stayed there 3 years.Apparently there is a strange pressurephenomenon in Swiss valleys. Due tothe height of the valleys and the generalterrain, the air pressure changes veryrapidly and some people are sensitive tothis. Heinz could not “feel” the pressurechanges but he would get bad headachesand life became intolerable.He and his wife decided that the timewas right for a change, a big change. Hehad offers from Rochester, but whenhe saw it was Rochester, New York, heassumed that it must be near New York.Where would he be able to go hunting,run his dogs? No New York was out.(Of course he found out years later thatRochester is delightful place, as far awayfrom New York city as can be found inNew York State, but by then the decisionshad been made.)Heinz had an excellent offer from acompany in South Africa. They contractedto Big Game hinting tours and neededsomeone to take charge of maintainingtheir gun sights, cameras and the like.Heinz was thrilled, but his wife not.Another geographical error. She had heardabout the Mau Mau uprising in Kenyaand had this fear that Kenya must be nearSouth Africa. So that was out.Australia was recruiting migrantsat the time so the Jungs decided toHeinz with three sons hunting near SwReach in SA. Danny in shorts, Brianthe right, now Major Jung in the AustralArmy, and Michael on the left, who worksAdelaide uni.30