Leica Luftwaffe Serial Numbers
Leica Luftwaffe Serial Numbers
Leica IIIc Copy Luftwaffe Camera. Serial number, 387354, Military Leicas have been a source of fascination from the beginning of collecting interest in the. * Serial numbers and batch total from Gandy's List ** Serial numbers from Serial Numbers Leica Cameras with computed batch total. Unmarked SN's match between both lists and Gandy's batch total was used without recalculation.
During a short period in World War II, the Carl Zeiss Otical Factory at Jena built their famous Sonnar lenses in a lens mount that was used by their biggest competitors in the market, Ernst Leitz Cameras in Wetzlar. The president of Carl Zeiss was appointed by the German government to coordinate export of German products during World War II. The Germans needed foreign currencies for their trade with other countries, but trade with Nazi Germany was either restricted or forbidden in most countries.
Various German military organizations were also commissioning Leica cameras to be used by their personnel, most notably by Kriegsberichters, German journalists that were assigned to Luftwaffe, Kriegsmarine and the Wehrmacht to deliver heroic images that Joseph Goebbels used to uplift moral with civilians and soldiers. All in all, Ernst Leitz in Wetzlar still had some business going for them.