Leica LTM Mrs Churchill

Leica M39 screw mount bodies/lenses
Dralowid

Dralowid

Michael
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I woke up the other night in the middle of a programme about Churchill's 'indiscretions' of a personal nature. Didn't stay awake for too long.

But what did catch my eye was a picture of Clementine with Terence Philip on her Middle East tour in the '30s. It looked like she had a nice black II or III around her neck. I have looked around but can't find the picture now.

Before I went back to sleep I felt satisfied that there was a Leica, in the '30s, hanging round the neck of a significant figure who was not a member of the National Socialist Party...
 
Yes, I believe that there were most likely many Leica cameras hanging around the necks of people who were not members of the National Socialist Party. I remember reading somewhere (years ago) that when war came the British populace were asked to turn in their Leica and Contax cameras so they could be used by the military. Who were not silly and who understood how superior and useful these small cameras were notwithstanding their German origins. Of course they were expensive cameras and proportionately there would not have been many of them but there were nevertheless quite a few.

And of course the same applied in USA. Alfred Eisenstadt famously took his Times Square kiss photo at the end of ww2 with a Leica 111a for example.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...cture-end-Second-World-War-sells-150-000.html

article-2313418-1970FC5E000005DC-932_634x889.jpg


I suspect but am not by any means sure that he may have used a Leica to shoot his iconic photo of Geobbels scowling at him in 1933 too. If so it could not have been the one referenced in the article above as the 111a was introduced in 1935.

06d3069c9129ae5be4a97e9a62a36e16--s-joseph.jpg
 
I've also seen pictures of the Duke of Windsor in the 1930's (briefly Edward VIII) with a Leica also.
John Mc
 
peterm1 said:
Yes, I believe that there were most likely many Leica cameras hanging around the necks of people who were not members of the National Socialist Party. I remember reading somewhere (years ago) that when war came the British populace were asked to turn in their Leica and Contax cameras so they could be used by the military.
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Same for the American people; photography magazines like Popular Photography and American Photography ran government adverts asking people to sell them their Leicas and Contaxes.

The US Army Signal Photographic Company's Table of Organization and Equipment of 1944 called for some 13 Leica cameras per company, to be issued to officers, eventhough the camera was never officially adopted by the US Army.
 
Out to Lunch said:
And...as you probably know by now....his Times Square kiss photo was staged.
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Not according to Eisenstaedt it wasn’t. It was, however, captured by another photographer from another angle at the same time. As a matter of fact, Eisenstaedt didn’t even realize what he’d gotten until after he got back to the Life Magazine offices with the film and Wilson Hicks (his then picture editor) told him.
 
Even after the war (WWII) the US Army used Leica cameras. When I was temporarily stationed in Nicaragua (1971) our mission had a complete set of Leica stuff with a IIIf: camera, many lenses and finders, copy table (with a four pod for documents), slide copier, macro set up with a sliding device for focusing. I asked the Colonel about it, he said that they never used it.
 
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