Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2001/02/15
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]At 01:14 AM 2/15/2001 -0500, Douglas Cooper wrote: >Couldn't agree more. In fact, I used to feel more than a little >uncomfortable about using a camera from a company so strongly identified >with, for instance, the Luftwaffe. I've heard stories recently, however -- >I hope their true -- about Leica supplying "sample" Leicas to Jews trying to >escape, and that these expedited things at the border. Now if only I could >find evidence that Franke & Heidecke had behaved honorably, I might feel a >bit better about carrying a Rolleiflex. Doug PLEASE! The stories about the "sample" Leicas are true. And Elsie Kuehn-Leitz spent some time in a Concentration Camp for her anti-Nazi activities. And the Manager of Leitz, Henri Dumur, played up his Swiss citizenship so that he could tell off Nazi bigwigs on occasion. (And he flew the Swiss flag when the American troops approached, so they wouldn't shell the plant -- this went clear up to Ike, who said, "hands off until we find out what's going on!", thus saving Wetzlar from a conflagration.) Zeiss shielded more than 3,000 slave laborers from the camps on the grounds that they were "vital to the German war effort". The Nazi Party had the head of Zeiss, Heinz Kuppenbender, arrested and tried him as a traitor because of this -- it took the intervention of Speer to get the proceedings quashed, as Kuppenbender was also head of the entire German optical industry at the time. (And then the Allies tried Kuppenbender as well -- his former slave laborers testified in his behalf, thanking him for saving their lives. Even the US Army official in charge of Allied Optical Reparations, Colonel Dr Carl Nelson, testified in behalf of Kuppenbender.) Voigtlander refused all efforts by the Nazis to make them use slave laborers. Franke & Heidecke refused government contracts and attempted (rather successfully) to avoid manufacturing military items, making medical lab gear instead. I cannot think of a German camera or lens firm which DID co-operate willingly with the Nazis. Certainly, the ones listed above did not, nor did Jhagee nor Steinheil nor JSK. Marc msmall@roanoke.infi.net FAX: +540/343-7315 Cha robh bas fir gun ghras fir!