KODAK FACTORY [DE]
Exploration #141. Since the beginning of the 1900s the area was occupied by Glanzfilm AG. After about 20 years business didn’t go well, so the American Kodak Corp. bought Glanzfilm. The factory was renamed Kodak AG Werk Köpenick and it was the second producing photo-chemical products aside German AGFA.
During World War II, the Nazis declared Kodak an “enemy property” and confiscated the factory in 1941. After the end of the war, the Americans waited in vain to get their factory back, but being located in the Soviet part of Berlin the factory continued to operate under Soviet control keeping the Kodak name (as did Agfa after the war) mainly because of the visible brand name and the possibility to make some profit.
In 1956, still under Soviet management, the name was changed to VEB Fotochemische Werke Köpenick, or FCW. As under Kodak, they continued to produce black-and-white film, radiographic film, photobase paper, and development chemicals.
Finally after Germany’s reunification the factory was returned to Kodak. But due to digital photography, the products were not needed anymore. Until 2010 X-ray-Retina was produced and then the factory was shut down and abandoned.
