Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/11/23
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]I cannot forebear posting this interchange I had more than a year ago on another list. Doubtless it will raise many old ghosts, but, what the heck. The darts indicate the post to which I responded: > In his convincing book. "Hitler's Willing Executioners," Daniel >Goldhagen, a Professor at Harvard University in New York, expoused the theory >that every single German from Frederika Von Smightya(a mentally retarted >chamber maid in Dresden) on up to Hitler knew about the Holocaust. Since >publication of the Goldhagen book, a number of authors like Norman Finkelstein >and Ruth Bettinna Birn(obvious Nazi sympathizers) have attacked and ridiculed >Goldhagen and argued that he should be denied tenure. To me, there is a middle >ground between the two positions that reasonable people should take. Not all >Germans knew about the Holocaust. At least one, Frederika Von Smightya, did not >because she was too busy emptying chamber pots and because she doesn't >understand words that are not monosyllablic--like Holocaust. However, I >strongly disagree with the views of German congressional leader Fritz Von >Kaltenbruner IV that only "Der Fuherer" knew what was going on. Get real Fritz! > I was deeply moved by Gindes' penetrating analysis of Hitler's "willing camera makers." I well remember my own youth growing up amongst the hard-bellied, steely-eyed-killers of the 'old corps', most particularly the one who wanted to give me his prized Caracano carbine, except that he'd buried it in the back yard as a tribute to a noted marksman, and offered instead a live 50 cal round. Dad intervened before I could get hold of it. "Later, son," he said, the '03 Springfield 'll have to do 'till you're ten." To this day I can't look at an Italian rifle without a certain frisson, and after reading Goldhagen's book, I must say that Leicas, Contaxes, and Rollies have acquired a similar talismanic charm. Back in the '60s I worked in a camera store in central Illinois, and many an old boy in bib-overalls (held up--as was the fashon in that part of the state--by rusty nails) would wander in with his Medalist or some other equally trashy Kodak camera and say, "Boy, I'm a going back to Paree [or Normandy or Bastogne or Monte Cassino] and I want to take me some pitures. Couldn't, you know, when I was there the first time. But I don't want any of them Jap-Nazi jobs. I want a *real* camera." I'd dutifully sell the fellow an Instamatic, and he'd wander away exclaiming to his wife, "Look at this honey! You don't even have to *thread* the darn thing. Just *drop* the film in; don't got to focus, neither. That's what makes this country *great*! " But I digress. The point is that Goldhagen makes the utterly persuasive case that Hitler's willing camera makers were instrumental in the execution of the Final Solution (and we're not talking Rodinal here, folks.) He calls especial attention, for instance, on page 224, to a photograph taken by one of the members of the 101 Police Battalion in Lomazy, Poland, in August of '42. It shows "condemned Jews," but the tonal range, the exquisite contrast, the "bokeh," and the great clarity of the foreground image, clearly show off the extraordinary superiority of the Leica IIIa, the 5cm Summar (I'd estimate f:6.5 @ 1/100) and Agfa Pan. The German caption, which translates roughly into "weather's fine; wish you were here," is one of the crucial documents of the period, for it demonstrates without doubt that the whole point of the war was to create "photo-ops" for German amateurs. Think for a moment. In his magisterial -The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich-, William Shirer observes that totalitarian states are obsessed with the keeping of records. Leitz, Contax, and Rollei, owe their fortune to the happy coincidence of the rise of the Nazi state with the new vogue for 'miniature' cameras (meaning 35mm), which provided an unprecedented opportunity to catch those "decisive moments." Goldhagen offers yet other examples on, for instance, page 245, where he shows us "a man from Police Battalion 101 amus[ing] himself and the beaming German onlookers with their Jewish playthings." The whole doctrine of "lebensraum," then, must be seen as an attempt on the part of the German state to subsidize the photographic industry, to create, in effect, an expanding field of view, to encourage the consumption of film, of optical gear, to create, as we now recognize, the modern "hobby" of photography, or, as the Germans would have it, the "Leica weg." I hadn't thought much about this until I read Gindes' brilliant post, which has provoked much soul searching. As a consequence, I spent the better part of a wet afternoon digging a sizeable pit in the back year. At dusk, I deposited two Leica Reporters, an MP, two M3s, an M4-P, a Noctilux, a Biogon 21, a 75/1.4 Summilux, and miscellaneous lenses into the loamy earth. I paused for a moment with the Rollei 2.8 Planar, but I simply can't live with the guilt. It's all done, now, and I'm free. Those old farmers had it right. None of those Jap-Nazi jobs for me. I'm shooting disposables from here on. Thanks, Galen. You've changed my life. Chandos Michael Brown At 06:02 PM 11/23/1999 +0000, you wrote: >It's quite simple - I'm suggesting that I think the collecting of Third >Reich artifacts is repulsive and morally repugnant and vastly different from >collecting any of the other artifacts you mention. (I didn't say anything >about anti-Semitic.) ;-) > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us > > [mailto:owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us]On Behalf Of Kent Jon > > Peters > > Sent: Tuesday, November 23, 1999 11:46 PM > > To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us > > Subject: [Leica] ? what the? > > > > > > B. D. Colen wrote: > > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > > > From: owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us > > > > [mailto:owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us]On Behalf Of Frank > > > > Filippone > > > > Sent: Tuesday, November 23, 1999 3:19 PM > > > > To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us > > > > Subject: RE: [Leica] Military Contaces > > > > > > > > > > > > > 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. > > > > > > > > While we're into the excitement of collecting and owning > > Leicas and Zeiss > > > cameras made for the German military...anyone have one of > > those nifty > > > special models with human skin covering? > > > > > > WHY? WHY? Would anyone WANT to own a Leica or Contax used > > by the armed > > > forces or government of the Third Reich? And spare me the > > "study of history" > > > crap. One doesn't need to collect them to know that they > > were made and what > > > features they had. > > > > > > B. D. > > ------------ > > Why don't you just state your 'hidden meaning' in this message? What > > are you specifically asking. People might find collecting > > WWII, German > > or American; confederate or union; Roman etc artifacts just for their > > uniqueness and value. Are you presupposing that because one collects > > nazi artifacts that we harbour anti-jewish sentiments? What is your > > point? If you want to be a complete pragmatist, collect them > > for their > > intrinsic resale potential alone. Kpeters > > Chandos Michael Brown Assoc. Prof., History and American Studies College of William and Mary http://www.wm.edu/CAS/ASP/faculty/brown