Looking for Leica photos from WW I

[Paulus]

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I was wondering, since the Leica is 100 years now, if any pictures are made during World War I, with a Leica.Especially on the front.

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[giordano]

I was wondering, since the Leica is 100 years now, if any pictures are made during World War I, with a Leica.Especially on the front.

 

No - because the first Leica cameras weren't sold until 1925. The "100th anniversary" is of the first prototypes, the so-called Ur-Leicas.

[Guest Mr. B]

You could look at the photos that Andre kertesz took during WWI while he served in the Austrian army. Kertesz later used the leica after 1925 when the camera became available.

That is about the closest you can get. Kertesz once said that he took photographs in the leica style before the camera was available.

Mr. B

[adan]

There are some WW I "era" photos (1914-1920) taken by Oskar Barnack with the Ur-Leica, on Leica's site:

 

Leica Camera AG - Culture - Oskar Barnack

 

Since Barnack was not in the best of physical health (his main reason for inventing his tiny easy-to-carry camera in the first place) and approaching middle-age by the time of the war, he did not go into the combat zones.

 

The first real "war photographs" taken with a Leica (or 35mm cameras in general) date from the Spanish Civil War or the Italian invasion of Ethiopia. 1935-39.