The Development of Night Vision

 In World War I, the German military used large spot lights and flame throwers made from burning coal to try to locate the enemy and frighten them at night. 

In World War II, The first night vision technology was introduced by the German army in early 1939.  In 1936 a German company called AEG was ordered to start the development of infrared night vision devices and in 1939 the first successful prototype was used. Walter Schaffernicht, a German physicist who worked for AEG, published an article in the Journal of Physics in 1935 called A Black Light Telescope Sees in the Dark. On August 8, 1936 Walter and the head of the AEG lab filed a patent application titled electron image tube, the begging of night vision.

Journal of physics

Patent for the first type of night vision.