June 2025
Photos: Dieter Wanke, NOBLEX E-Optics
NOBLEX E-Optics

Wetzlar Connection

NOBLEX E-Optics GmbH is based in Eisfeld, Thuringia, making it the farthest away member company of Wetzlar Network. Managing director Thorsten Kortemeier explains why this connection is nevertheless quite obvious.

NOBLEX E-Optics GmbH is a relatively young enterprise. And yet, the production site in Eisfeld has a turbulent history. If it is a coincidence that two people from Wetzlar have played a decisive role in it during the past thirty years?

Eisfeld is located only a few kilometers away from the border to Bavaria, in the Southern foothills of the Thuringian Forest. When the Wall dividing Germany still stood, the small town was situated closely to the inner border on the GDR side. As early as 1952, that is to say, nine years before the Wall was erected, the Nationally Owned Enterprise (or VEB) Carl Zeiss Jena opened a manufacturing site there, producing the system camera “Werra” at first. Later, the production included binoculars, telescopic sights, and optical analyzers. Immediately after Germany’s reunification in 1991, Bernhard Docter from Wetzlar kept the company in business and lent his name to the manufactured products. Six years later, Analytik Jena GmbH took over part of the enterprise. Finally, in 2016, NOBLEX GmbH purchased the Eisfeld site.



A company with special connections to Wetzlar

As managing director, Thorsten Kortemeier – who is also a man from Wetzlar – restored the company to profitability in 2020, forming today’s NOBLEX E-Optics GmbH. “I came into contact with NOBLEX through my business consultancy Marketing & Sales Solutions,” Kortemeier relates. “I was interested in the enterprise and also to a certain extent in the history with their special connection to Wetzlar.” For him, this connection had been obvious not only for historical reasons but with regard to content: “With MINOX in Wetzlar, I was working in the camera business and later in long-distance viewing optics and could directly incorporate my valuable experiences in this industry here in Eisfeld.”

Building on the classical product range of high-class binoculars and telescopic sights, NOBLEX E-Optics has intensified their focus on electronic products in the sectors night vision, laser range finding, and thermal imaging technology. The modern factory floor occupied by NOBLEX E-Optics was opened in Eisfeld in 2005 in order to not only advance the development of sophisticated precision optics but also to produce them at their location. In addition to mechanical manufacturing, surface treatment, and precision assembly, this also includes quality control. All of that is still gathered under a single roof although pre-fabrication and surface refinement were transferred to company Buchert + Feil. “Here, the interaction between optoelectronic expertise and precision mechanical accuracy works in a most excellent way,” Thorsten Kortemeier points out. “That is the basis for our NOBLEX high-performance products.”

Significant innovations and masterpieces from NOBLEX

The most significant innovations in the company’s history are the compact Red Dot Sights which were virtually “invented” by Bernhard Doctor and have been continuously refined over the years. They ensure intuitive and extremely quick target acquisition, especially with moving objects or under poor lighting conditions. Newcomers on the market are the ultramodern scopes and reflector sights with extended field of view and integrated motion sensor. NOBLEX’s advanced binoculars provide perfect vision for hunting or observing animals. The NF 8x56 advanced, for example, has been specifically designed for hunting at twilight and accomplishes a great transmission with peak values of over 90 percent. This allows the binoculars to convey a clear and detailed picture even under difficult visibility conditions.

One of the masterpieces from the house of NOBLEX is the rifle scope NZ8 2,5-20x50 inception – a hybrid model that is perfectly designed both for hunters and sporting marksmen in long range shooting. Equipped with an eightfold magnification range from 2.5 to 20-fold and an extremely wide height adjustment range it allows for accurate shots to distances of up to 2,000 m (32 mils) – without any special assembly for elevation control! Among the technical refinements is the new Mil Hunting Reticle MHR. Situated on the first focal plane, it prevents any form of point of impact shift when changing the magnification.

The two managing directors of NOBLEX E-Optics Antje Rückert and Thorsten Kortemeier.

Promising potential in the optoelectronics industry

“Today, we are well diversified with our red dot sights, binoculars as well as rifle scopes and spotting scopes for hunting and observing animals,” Thorsten Kortemeier explains, “but we also intensify our collaborations with weapon manufacturers on the development of sighting mechanisms.” The managing director of NOBLEX E-Optics is not the only one who is convinced that the business sector defense technology within the value creation chain of the optoelectronic industry has great potential. As a matter of fact, the spring meeting of the SPECTARIS specialist panel Security & Defense took place on the occasion of the W3+ Fair in Wetzlar. There, the focus was in particular on the opportunities and challenges for the manufacturers of optical and optoelectronic systems. Needless to say that Thorsten Kortemeier took part to make sure that NOBLEX will be involved at the very top in the time to come.

www.noblex-e-optics.com

Noblex E-Optics

Noblex E-Optics GmbH continues a proud tradition in the development of optoelectronic products at the Zeiss and later Docter production facilities in Eisfeld, Thuringia. Noblex E-Optics offers observation and target optics that are characterized by the highest quality standards.