28. Curt Herzstark Handled the Pressure and Saved His Life by Creating the World’s Best Portable Calculator
Curt Herzstark did not crack under the pressure of having to invent or die, and successfully developed blueprints for a manufacturable mechanical calculator. The preferential treatment he received while doing so kept him alive until the Buchenwald concentration camp was liberated in 1945. Six months later, Herzstark found machinists skilled enough to make him three working prototypes. He secured patents, and eventually set up a company in Liechtenstein, a tiny microstate between Austria and Switzerland, to manufacture his mechanical calculator, the Curta.
At some point, Herzstark’s partners tried to kick him out of the company with some shady maneuvers. They miscalculated, however: the patents were in Herzstark’s name, not the company’s, so without him the company was worthless. He negotiated a new deal and cashed in on his invention. For decades, until electronic calculators were made obsolete in the 1970s, Curtas were the world’s best portable calculators. Over 140,000 were made, before production ceased in 1972. Today, they fetch thousands of dollars as collector items.