I bought a Leica IIIc Luftwaffen-Eigentum

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RdEoSg

RdEoSg

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I posted asking about it in a round about way in the LTM forum but since I've now written a post on my very small blog with nice photos of the camera and all, I decided to make another thread in case anyone else is interested in such things!

My blog post.
 
RdEoSg said:
I posted asking about it in a round about way in the LTM forum but since I've now written a post on my very small blog with nice photos of the camera and all, I decided to make another thread in case anyone else is interested in such things!

My blog post.
Click to expand...


Very nice!

I would love to hold and shoot a camera such as this. It would be a great combo with the M3!🙂

Post some photos from that camera when you can!
 
Jim Lager has a very good book called 'Wehrmacht Leica', and is a valuable resource for anyone interested in Leicas from this era

Not that I'm up on these things, but wasn't the Luftwaffe just a generic term for the Air Force? If you were part of the Air Force, would it therefore follow that you were a member of the Nazi Party? Could you be part of one, but not a member of the other?

I've been fortunate to have three Luftwaffe cameras, including a scarce Leica IIIb, so they are quite something to hold, though aside from the engravings they are just a regular Leica camera.
 
Vince Lupo said:
Jim Lager has a very good book called 'Wehrmacht Leica', and is a valuable resource for anyone interested in Leicas from this era

Not that I'm up on these things, but wasn't the Luftwaffe just a generic term for the Air Force? If you were part of the Air Force, would it therefore follow that you were a member of the Nazi Party? Could you be part of one, but not a member of the other?

I've been fortunate to have three Luftwaffe cameras, including a scarce Leica IIIb, so they are quite something to hold, though aside from the engravings they are just a regular Leica camera.
Click to expand...

Vince, you are correct...Luftwaffe is a generic German term for AN air force. Even the Swiss Air Force.:angel:
 
So, following that line of thinking, should we have a distinction here, and not necessarily call these Luftwaffe cameras 'Nazi' cameras? Just trying to get my WWII history straight, as I'm not totally up on it....
 
There is a whole gamut of these things, some of the Italian air force mis-engraved ones being amongst the most interesting.

At one point I had my hands on the III from HMS Exeter, notable for it's role in the Battle of the River Plate, the ship that is, who knows about the camera...

I sometimes see NASA Hassleblads for sale at big prices. Who knows if they ever left this planet, as I understand it the ones that made it to the moon were left there to save weight on the way back.

Many of us probably have cameras that were 'liberated' either in exchange for food or so called 'spoils of war'. In a civilised society this would be called theft. Not something to be too proud of, I'd suggest.

I once spoke to a RAF pilot who used to bring boxes of Leicas back on the return trips from the Berlin Airlift. The immediate postwar period was a very dark time in most of Europe. Supply and demand, black market. We really cannot imagine what it must have been like to live in Germany in the latter part of the war and for some years to come...particularly if one was in the East.

I am rambling but what I am trying to say is that I have no problems with engravings from any period but keep the whole thing in perspective. They are historically interesting and highlight a point in time but do not prove particular use or 'seeing action' or anything more sinister.

Each to his own and a fascinating topic.

Michael
 
Thanks for the replies.

Yes it's true this isn't truly a "Nazi" camera in that respect, but it got the point across for people that don't follow WWII or Photography as the rest of us do. I understand and agree with what you've all said though. Perhaps I should have been a bit more specific in the post in that regard.

I am fascinated by WWII though. My grandfather fought in it. My neighbor was a P-38 fighter pilot who was shot down in the area of the Guadalcanal and spent over a week in a little rubber raft hoping to be rescued. On that note, I had the pleasure of tracking down the man that flew the PBY that found him 60 years later and put them in contact with each other! That's another story though. 😛

I don't particularly collect Nazi stuff. This camera is all I own connected to them, but I do have many books, mostly about the holocaust because I've been to Auschwitz and have plans of doing a photo story on it. I've only been once so far but it's a start. You can't walk around in that place and not feel something. I put one of my photos from there in a photography competition and won Second place. I specifically put not for sale on the print, only to have two sisters ask me to reconsider because they'd lost family members there. I ended up selling prints to them and am going to donate part of the money to something relating to Polish German relation/reconsiliation.

Anyways I'm rambling! This camera mostly fits my collection because I also own a black Nikon F that was owned and used by a photojournalist in Vietnam who was killed in action there. The previous post on my blog is about that camera. Sadly there is even audio you can listen to of him being killed. The media was doing radio with his group at the time.

Thanks again everyone for looking and reading!
 
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Chris,

from your previous post I get that you want to commemorate those that gave their lives to show the plain and simple reality of war, rather than the Great Big Political Truth. I respect that.

To me, the camera (any camera, ever) was made to show what things looked like and to make people take notice of that. And the fact that it is around allows for it to still do so today, since we are considering the horrors of that war again, simply by looking at it, holding it, discussing it, using it ect.

I really do not understand the juju-mentality that some have towards a camera like this. It is just an object, made with a purpose and it still serves that purpose today. The historical value is added with the engravings and intrinsical to its age and era. That's it, nothing more.

I hope you will show it more and shoot it, so we can see some of the things it is recording at present day! Enjoy!
 
It would be amazing if these things could talk - imagine the things they photographed!

About a year ago, I bought a Leica III off eBay that had its baseplate engraved. Normally I wouldn't buy a camera that was engraved, but this one was beautifully done, and had the name and address of the woman in Germany who owned it (most likely during the 1930's). I actually looked up the address on Google Maps (it was in Solingen-Weyer), and sure enough, I found the street. Hope to visit there on my next trip to Germany!
 
I've wondered about who owned or used the "stepper" IIIc Leicas that were made during WW II but were not marked with any military designation. I have two such cameras that have no unusual engravings, no military or K-shutter engravings. I can't imagine that a whole lot of civilians were wandering around taking personal photos, especially as WW II heated up in Europe.
 
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