The WW2 Leica buried by a German soldier’s widow

Thanks for that story.

Germany at the end of the war was a terrible place to be. Terrible destruction, little food or housing and a great struggle just to survive. It was even worse if you were in the Soviet sector.

My Leica IIIc stepper was brought to America by a GI. I'm told that at that time a Leica could be had for a few packs of cigarettes, some chocolate or just plain taken, stolen. I hope it was acquired in an honorable fashion. Joe
 
Quite a History...
Loves, Life, Sorrows

A Leica Standard soon to be repaired and Live another long Life of story telling
Thank You Pan !
 
A beautiful and sad story in many ways.

The photos are really good, and man is that some dueling scar!
 
pirx70 said:
Sorry for hurting anyones feelings, but judging by the SS uniforms with death skull right collar patch, these were more than just mere "German soldiers": https://kosmofoto.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Grandfather-far-left-Training-France-1941.jpg. Looks like SS-Panzerdivision Totenkopf: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3rd_SS_Panzer_Division_Totenkopf
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Yes, and supporting this, that Waffen SS division was based in Bordeaux to retrain in 1940. By †his stage it was not just the concentration camp guards and special police units that executed Jews etc en masse (and British surrendered soldiers, and black and Moroccan French troops) but had been reinforced by the then mostly fanatical Nazi Waffen SS.

There's so much more to this all than this article depicts.
 
If anything, this article, and the revelation about the owner, show how there are different sides to everything. The Totenkopf soldier who took skiing holidays, and whose wife adored him so much that she buried his beloved camera so it wouldn't be taken as spoils of war.
 
The '38 photo also shows him clearly as a 'Hitler Youth' member.

That said, we can't choose who our (grand)parents are, and wanting to save a historical family heirloom isn't a bad thing in my opinion.
 
Mr_Flibble said:
The '38 photo also shows him clearly as a 'Hitler Youth' member.

That said, we can't choose who our (grand)parents are, and wanting to save a historical family heirloom isn't a bad thing in my opinion.
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As an adult leader too. So most probably a party member.

I quite agree with the second sentence, but a more interesting and complicated picture has emerged from the family man with a camera who never returned from Russia.

I wonder what the other pictures show?
 
When I first saw the photo of him with his comrades I was a little unsettled. I could see that his uniform was not a standard Wehrmacht issue. As a reader of history of 20th century history, at first I thought it might be a Fallschirmjäger (parachute detachment) blouse or the similar top worn by some SS units. But I looked for the SS symbol and could not see it, but did not think to look for a totenkopf badge, so concluded I was probably misjudging. It is hard to see from the image but it seems the general shape of the badge on the right hand collar is correct for that badge. As to my reaction, perhaps his short back and sides haircut and duelling scar also made him look more menacing too (though having recently read a story about how such scars were attained by German students in highly structured and formal matches (somewhat like boxing matches in terms of having strict rules of conduct) I probably am reading too much into it - duelling scars were once a point of honor amongst a certain class in Germany)

And my unease may have in part been engendered by a certain similarity with this actor (from the film "The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas").

I pass no judgement on the article (which has some interest when stripped of its moral element), nor of Gunther whose grandfather is depicted in the article (it is normal to feel some pride for family and forebears, especially when they have sacrificed their life, whatever the circumstances). But it appears that his grandfather was not "just" a German soldier, he was a member of an organization with a very odious and ugly history..........

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Even more interesting is the fingerprints one finds on the internet. Gunther has been busy in the past researching him. Turns out he joined the Nazi party in 1933 and was a member of the SS. This information is here - from 10 years ago. Yet absolutely nothing in the recent article. The Totenkopf were fanatics, even by the standards of the SS!

Too much airbrushing going on here.

Let's remember the victims of one of the Totenkopf's massacres. At Le Paradis, Northern France in May 1940 99 members of the Royal Norfolk Regiment surrendered having run out of ammunition. They were taken by the 14th company of SS Totenkopf and machine gunned. Any who survived that were individually bayoneted. 2 survived and testified against troop commander Knochlein in a 1949 war crimes trial. He was executed by hanging, having appealed for clemency on the grounds of having a wife and children dependent on him.
 
A comment from Stephen (the author) himself:
yes, I was aware from talking to Gunther which unit his grandfather was in. I didn't want to identify this as a "Nazi Leica" and make it clickbait. I wanted to stress the family connection this camera has, to a grandfather he obviously never met. Obviously, it's an emotive subject, and is it's in no way an endorsement of the Nazis.
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The history of the camera and it’s original owner it are undoubtedly fascinating. I’m sure we can all understand Gunther’s quest to understand his family history and learn about this beautiful heirloom.

However, the article airbrushes the story of it’s context, romanticising Nazi era Germany and the life of a Waffen SS soldier that was present in a regiment that committed numerous atrocities and war crimes.

In it’s current format, as told on the Kosmo Foto website, this is a story that I don’t think any modern brand should be endorsing or associating itself with and has certainly made me think twice about buying their products.
 
When I referred specifically to the Le Paradis massacre, I didn't know enough about the others the Totenkopf committed.

The first were in Poland (Herr Bosler drove an Opel truck there). The Totenkopf was recruited from two main elements, SS Concentration Camp guards, and from ethnic German police battalions. Their fighting task in the invasion of Poland was the mass murder of Jews (and the destruction of synagogues) and Operation Tannenberg, the execution with other SS units of around 100,000 Polish professionals. I wonder what he was driving in his truck?

The other massacre, together with the SS GrossDeutschland division, was near Lyon in June 1940, when a force of Senegalese Riflemen (colonial African soldiers serving in the French army) put up spirited resistance to the German advance on Lyon. When they surrendered, they were separated from their French comrades, and were machine gunned by SS Panzers. Their bodies were left to rot, but a local Vichy official had them interred in a cemetery nearby. There are 188 bodies (some of which are from the pre-surrender fight) there. Unlike at Le Paradis no culprit was tried.
 
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