Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/11/21
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]At 03:50 AM 11/21/1999 -0500, Andrew S Jordan wrote: >Marc and other historians: During the the horrors of WWII both sides both >sides to the conflict used Leicas. In particular, Leicas with Heer and >Luftwaffe markings are costly collectibles. Did the Contaxes play the same >role? Just wondering. The German military divided procurement among the three services. Hence, most -- but not all -- Leicas procured for military use came through the Luftwaffe, as the German Air Force had the assignment for E Leitz Wetzlar. Zeiss Ikon and Ihagee fell within the purview of the Kriegsmarine, and, thus, KM-marked Super Ikontas and Exaktas are known. SUPPOSEDLY, ever U-Boat had a complete periscope-camera kit consisting of a Contax camera and adapter and various related doo-dads, and supposedly this came about because Doenitz' father was a middle-level optical designer with Carl Zeiss Jena. While we have a slew of pictures taken with this gear, we do not have a single surviving example of such a camera kit, making me suspicious that these puppies were quite rare. (By comparison, the US Navy found the best camera for their use on our pig-boats was the Prewar Bentzin Primarflex, and they only managed to scarf up six such sets, which were given out at Pearl to departing subs as needed. Again, we have a slew of pictures taken with this gear, including a nice multi-mission set of recon shots of various islands taken by NAUTILUS (the real one, not the later Rickover-spezial) in '43 and '44, but not one of the cameras has ever surfaced. Probably sitting in the attic of the grand-daughter of some retired and long-deceased admiral.) So, yes, there are known Contax military cameras -- including a few "kalt-fest" models akin to the Leica IIIc (K) -- but not in anywhere near the numbers of the surviving military Leicas. (And it is a bit surprising the post-Soviet types haven't fabricated these as they have those "Lufthansa" FED's: the early Kievs are dead ringers for the Prewar Contax and, in fact, began production in Germany.) Marc msmall@roanoke.infi.net FAX: +540/343-7315 Cha robh bas fir gun ghras fir!