Walter Zapp

Walter Zapp (; – 17 July 2003) was a Baltic German inventor. Over the course of his life, he was granted over 60 patents.

Biography

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. 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.

Publications

Awards and honors In 2001, Walter Zapp received an honorary doctorate of the Latvian Academy of Sciences and was decorated with the Order of the Cross of Terra Mariana for his special services to the Republic of Estonia. Eesti Post has issued a Europa postage stamp in 1994 to commemorate Walter Zapp and his patented invention (Estonian patent No. 2628), the Minox subminiature camera.