Roger,
I've really said all I want to on this subject, but in exiting this thread, I do want to correct a perception that I feel is quite unwarranted.
There's an interesting attitude to history here. Someone -- I forget who -- would 'blow his nose' on a Nazi or Confederate flag.
That would be me. I have no respect for such symbols as they have come to be regarded.
Ok... would he blow his nose on a Royalist (or Roundhead) pennant from the Civil War? On a flag of the Knights Hospitallers or a flag of Soleiman's Janissaries from the Great Siege of 1565? On a Crusader or Saracen flag? On a Roman or Essene standard?
No, I would not. First, the chances are fairly high that I would not even recognize them if I saw them, without doing some research first. Second, and more importantly, neither would the general public. The Nazi flag and the Confederate flag (and yes, I am quite aware that the so-called 'Confederate' flag wasn't actually what it is now purported to be) have identity with the general public. They are symbols that are well-understood. More on that later.
It is all very well to take sides in long-past wars, but destroying symbols (from either side) smacks of book-burning.
My lack of respect is not for historical artifacts but rather for the value people place upon them. I would not, for example, set fire to a historical document written by Adolf Hitler or Jefferson Davis. They are truly part of history and the record should indeed be preserved - in a museum, library, or other public repository.
Both my grandfathers were killed in the war, one on the Russian convoys, one off Crete. The one who was killed off Crete was a keen amateur photographer and a holder of the George Medal. I have no doubt that they were fighting on the side of right. But somewhere I have a pfennig with the Reichsadler and swastika on it. Should I throw it away? Why?
I have never said or intimated that you should. Again, more on that later.
To return to the original question, if you're not going to use it, why 'restore' it? It's a piece of history; if you don't want to use it, why does it need to work? I once had a grey-paint Luftwaffen Leica with all the good stuff, including an engraved lens and field-gray case blind-stamped Luftwaffe Eigentum. It was in good working order -- it was in the late 70s or early 80s -- but I bought it (and sold it) as a usable curio. To me it was an interesting and unusual Leica like my Model A or my 9cm fat-barrel with the serial number ending a*. I certainly didn't (and still don't) associate it with the death of my grandfathers.
And I don't suppose I would, either.
If you want to boycott hideous, murderous regimes, don't buy anything Chinese. Very roughly, Hitler killed 16,000,000 people; Stalin doubled that at 32,000,000 (and I've had an NKVD Fed, too); and Mao doubled it again, at 64,000,000. Both German fascism and Russian communism have fallen from power; Mao's regime is still in power.
I've said nothing about hideous regimes and boycotting them. No one that I am aware of collects Chinese-made televisions in commemoration of their use by the Chinese People's Army. Do you begin to see my direction?
It is not the evil done by the Nazis that I object to (well, actually, I do, but there's not much anyone can do about that now, since it's over and done with). Nor do I deny the place in history that WWII, winners and losers, occupy. Things which are of that era and have historical significance are rightfully museum pieces.
And if people placed the same value on formerly-military-owned Nazi items that had been converted from civilian use as they do the non-Nazi items, I'd have no objections at all. A camera, after all, is a camera.
But I do object to the fact that people *do* place special value on Nazi historical artifacts that they can own, such as cameras, flags, letter openers, and etc.
There probably is a legitimate market for such things, since they exceed the requirements of museums in terms of sheer numbers of surviving artifacts. But if they were merely historically-valued items, they would command similar prices as a Swedish-military-owned Leica or a US WWII Graflex, wouldn't they? But they do not. The others are collectible too, but not in the same league as the Nazi Leicas.
The same is true of the value people place on collectible Confederate memorabilia. Note that people do not display 'real' confederate flags, other than the stars and bars (which is actually fairly inauthentic and/or historically obscure). They display the stars and bars - and why? Because of the symbolic value.
I do not object to cameras. I do not hate Leica or hold them responsible for what they had to do during WWII. I have a Krups coffee grinder and a Mitsubishi car, for God's sake. My skin does not burn if I touch a Leica that was once owned by the German military during WWII. This is not about the 'right side' and the 'wrong side' or even about the good or evil of the Nazis.
It is about symbols, and the value people place on them. Collecting Nazi symbols is not something I feel comfortable with. I would not, had I the power, stop others from doing so - have at it. But I have no use and no interest in such things. I do suspect the motives of those who are fascinated with Nazi memorabilia, yes.
This is why I get such angry responses by collectors who (intentionally?) mistake my motives or my reasoning. It is not the camera, nor the regime, I find objectionable. It is their fascination with a symbol of - what? Nothing but hatred. The Nazi regime now 'stands' for something as a symbol, like it or not. It stands for hatred, in the same manner that the Confederate flag 'stands' for slavery. No, that is not what they originally were for - it is what they symbolize now.
You, Roger, understand this. You know Roland Barthes, you know semiotics. When an item becomes a symbol, it is no longer signaling what it is, but what it represents. One can argue all day long from logic about the history of Leica, or how a camera is just a camera, and blah blah blah and it means absolutely squat - because the camera that was once owned by the Nazi war machine is now a symbol.
The proof is undeniable - it is in the value people place on it - both monetarily and by asking such questions as 'restore or leave as-is'? That's not camera talk, that's symbol talk. When pointed out, it brings about an quick and very angry response. No one likes to be told that their camera (flag, belt buckle, etc) is a symbol of evil and that others hold it in low esteem therefore.
Semiotics says that the image of Hitler is no longer that of a man, or a historical figure, or a leader, or whatever else Hitler was when alive. Hitler is a symbol of evil - universally understood, as is the Nazi flag. Semiotics says that Pol Pot is not, even though he killed as many or more, neither is Stalin, or Mao, etc. Those figures do not have the semiotic power the symbol of Hitler does. And there is no accounting for why - it just is. This is the value humanity has placed on the image of Hitler.
The same is true for the Confederate flag. It was not the only, or even the predominate, battle flag, and it was not the official flag of the CSA. None of that matters in the slightest. The CSA historically fought for state's rights, not to (specifically) preserve slavery, and that's of no consequence either. The fact is that the stars and bars represent (symbolically) slavery, and that's that. Sure, some argue. But logic does not change the value that a symbol has in how it is seen by others.
And again, I hold this only for myself. Sure, I look askance at collectors of Nazi memorabilia, including cameras (and cigarette lighters, table napkins, whatever). I don't 'get it' because I see the symbols as symbols and not as the items themselves. If I tried to see them as they are - historically-significant items from a particular period in time, then I am forced to confront the fact that Nazi items are worth more money and are more assiduously colllected than, say, Finnish items of a similar vintage and background. When I confront that, I'm back to symbols again.
I have no use for symbols of evil. No one can argue that a Nazi-owned Leica is not a symbol of evil because that is precisely why they collect it, QED. They just choose not to confront the symbology of their own psychology. It does not make them evil, nor do I dislike them. I have lots of friends who do things I don't like or that I don't approve of. Life goes on.
