Heinrich Ernemann

Born into a poor farming family, Heinrich Ernemann was educated in Gernrode only to the primary level. Leaving Eichsfeld in 1866, he worked at the Krupp Gussstahlfabrik in Essen until about 1870. Exempted from military service, he studied in the business school in Pirna before working as a commercial traveller. He moved to Dresden and on New Year's Eve of 1875 married Marie Therese (née Grafe) with whom he turned his mother-in-law's haberdashery store into a thriving business. Living frugally, by 1888 they had saved 7,500 marks with which Ernemann purchased a share in carpenter Wilhelm Franz Matthias's camera shop on Pirnaer Strasse in Eschdorf, establishing himself in the still-nascent photo industry. Recognising and developing the market for such goods, he gave their small backyard workshop the brand 'Dresden photographic apparatus factory,' producing bespoke portable and studio cameras. In January 1891, Matthias departed, unhappy with Ernemann's industrialisation.

In 1908, after persuading thirteen fellow entrepreneurs to join him, Ernemann was instrumental in the creation of a chair for photography and a photo laboratory at the Technical University of Dresden, reflecting a desire of the photographic industry in Dresden to cooperate with the educational and research institutes. The group also supported a school for training photo retailers which in turn attracted 136 photographers and 90 manufacturers of photographic equipment and materials, as well as printing and press companies, to the city whose population then was a mere 399,740. Later, Ernemann and his son Alexander became founding members of the Society of Sponsors and Friends of the Technical University of Dresden. The awarding of the honorary doctorate (as Dr.-Ing. E. h.) of the Technical University of Dresden on 24. July 1924 was in appreciation of his life's work in the promotion of scientific and educational film.

Ernemann's wife Marie Therese had died on 22 August 1917, and eleven years later, he died aged 78 on 16 May 1928 in his summer villa Heinrichs Eck at 21 Am Hartheberg in the spa town of Hartha, built in 1900 and since restored. He was survived by his children Frieda Henriette Marie Therese (1876–1954), Alexander Karl Heinrich (1878–1956), Anna Katharina Gertrud (1880–1940), Dora Bertha Johanna (1883–1942) and Fritz Henry Otto (1886–1941). Heinrich Ernemann's grave is located in the Johannisfriedhof in Dresden-Tolkewitz.

The villa at 8 Justinenstraße in Dresden-Blasewitz, occupied in 1891 by the Ernemann family, was destroyed on 13 February 1945 in the bombing of Dresden, and its ruin was demolished in the post-war period. In its place today is a block of flats.

Ernemann's daughter Anna Katharina Gertrud was the mother of AEG manager C. Johannes G. Heyne.