First Half of 20th Century
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	The first year starting with 19 sees the Carl Zeiss company employing no less than 1070 people, and there is no end of growth. While activities over the first fifty years were exclusively devoted to microscopes, the enterprise now gets busy in more and more other lines of optical instruments. Still, the history of Zeiss is primarily a history of microscopes. So let us stick to the subject in this tribute to Carl Zeiss, the more so as there is no lack of sensational development, inventions and innovations during the first decades of the century. Their mere enumeration would go beyond the scope of this brochure. At least the most essential ones deserve mentioning, though. In 1903 Ernst Abbe retires from the management, handicapped by severe health problems. He lives to see in this year the limits of classical microscopy finally exceeded by the ultramicroscope, an invention by Henry Siedentopf and Richard Zsigmondy, which makes submicroscopical colloids visible. He lives to welcome August Köhler's study reports about the ultraviolet microscope in 1904 (which is followed by the luminescence microscope in 1913).
	1904: Ultraviolet microscope
	On January 14, 1905, the man who jointly with Carl Zeiss wrote a decisive chapter of the history of microscope making dies, deeply mourned by all Zeiss employees. The ultramicroscope, the UV microscope and the luminescence microscope exemplify the inventive genius of those years and reflect three goals of microscopy, which have remained topical to date: Making ever smaller dimensions accessible to observation; observing living objects without damaging them; and finding methods to contrast the substances in such objects. In 1911, Zeiss implements Köhler's idea of parfocalizing all objectives used on a microscope, which means that the image remains in focus when the observer exchanges one objective for another. In 1920, the comparison eyepiece is introduced, which allows simultaneous observation of two specimens under two microscopes. 1924 sees the world's first lot production of infinity-corrected objectives for the Large Metallograph of the LeChatelier type.
	1924: Path of rays in a microscope
	Let us jump to 1931 to see the development of the first electron microscope, devised by Max Knoll and Ernst Ruska. Two years later, Zeiss once more revolutionizes microscope design with its legendary L stand. Curved tube arm, inclined viewing head, invariably horizontal stage and low-positioned controls - features that are enthusiastically welcomed by users for the operating convenience they provide. Photomicroscopes follow - the Neophot in 1934, and the Ultraphot in 1937.
	1934: NEOPHOT, a large epi-microscope with camera
	In 1938, Zeiss presents another "first": After long and tedious experimentation, Hans Boegehold succeeds in flattening the image field of objectives, so that the company can market the first planachromats. Upon a suggestion by Frits Zernike, Zeiss in 1936 creates the prototype of the phase microscope.
	1936: The L stand, prototype of a phase microscope
	During World War II, microscope development has to be soft-pedaled, on government order. Nevertheless, the microscope development laboratory designs and builds a cine-micrographic apparatus and in 1943 shoots the first cine record of a cell division through a phase microscope - an examination method that opens up a new era of cell research.
	1941: First photograph of a living cell nucleus
	This may suffice as a fast glimpse of the near-half century of Zeiss since 1900. The grief over Abbe's death, enormous technical progress, successful business, setbacks: all considered, a great time. Now imagine, in striking contrast, the drastic consequences of the war and its aftermath.