Walter Zapp

Zapp was born in Riga, Governorate of Livonia (now Latvia) to a Baltic German mother and a British father. In 1932, while living in Estonia, he began developing the then subminiature camera by first creating wooden models, which led to the first prototype in 1936. It was introduced to the market in 1938. Minox cameras were made by VEF (Valsts Elektrotehniskā Fabrika) in Latvia. VEF made 17,000 Minox cameras. During the Spring 1941 Resettlement of Baltic Germans, Zapp moved to Germany. From 1941 to 1945, he worked on the development of electron microscopy at AEG in Berlin. After World War II, in 1945, he founded the Minox GmbH in Wetzlar, Germany. The company still exists. In 2001, when he went to Latvia for the last time, he said that he had gone to celebrate his 100th birthday in Latvia. He died aged 97, in Binningen near Basel, Switzerland.

The innovative design and technical solutions of Zapp's camera were patented around the world. VEF received 66 patents in 18 countries for Zapp's inventions. In the 1960s, Zapp was named as the inventor in several patents granted to Minox GmbH for improvements and modifications of a subminiature camera. In the beginning of the 1990s, Zapp patented his last invention, the Minox T8 pocket telescope.