New to Forum

[Gary Schulz]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here…

Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!

[willeica]

Thanks Gary.

This looks like an inventory of plant and equipment. 

You may be interested in this story about the so-called 'visit by British Intelligence' to the Leitz Plant in November 1946 which Mike Evans and I put together some years ago.

https://www.macfilos.com/2018/04/12/2018-4-7-the-leica-camera-in-1946-report-by-british-inspectors/#:~:text=This is the start of,22nd of November that year.

The text of the report is found here;

https://www.angelfire.com/biz/Leica/page26.html

It was some years later that I learnt that the so-called 'Visit by British Intelligence' was in fact a visit by staff of Reid and Sigrist who were wearing borrowed British uniforms. They would have had close ties with the RAF https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reid_and_Sigrist . I have since learnt that the head of the firm 'Major Reid' may have just been Flight Lieutenant Reid during WWI. The source of this information was the late John Vincent, a collector of Reid cameras, who taped interviews with former Reid and Sigrist staff who had been involved in the affair. The company eventually produced a Leica Copy, based on the prewar IIIa and IIIb, called the Reid Camera, but it was not a commercial success. Because of their scarcity they are a sought after collectors' item today. I have two of them in my collection, a I and a IIIa.

I am now wondering why the inventory in the notebook was done . Was it connected to the 'British' exercise? Do you have any dates in that notebook?

William 

 

 

 

[derleicaman]

Thank you for posting Gary. One thing I noticed was the page headed “Hausetor”. This is an obvious misspelling of Hausertor. This would be the Hausertor Werke on the Lahn down the hill from the main Leitz buildings.

This is where camera production was based. Later in the war, after camera production had been curtailed, most of the production was devoted to Panzer tank gun sights. Several years ago, I wrote a two part story for Viewfinder on wartime production at Leitz. Titled “Eyes of the Panther”, I talked about the gun sights and also the groundbreaking work Leitz did on Night Vision during the war.

[willeica]

2 hours ago, derleicaman said:

Thank you for posting Gary. One thing I noticed was the page headed “Hausetor”. This is an obvious misspelling of Hausertor. This would be the Hausertor Werke on the Lahn down the hill from the main Leitz buildings.

This is where camera production was based. Later in the war, after camera production had been curtailed, most of the production was devoted to Panzer tank gun sights. Several years ago, I wrote a two part story for Viewfinder on wartime production at Leitz. Titled “Eyes of the Panther”, I talked about the gun sights and also the groundbreaking work Leitz did on Night Vision during the war.

Photo of Hausertor which I took when you brought us there last October, Bill. 

Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here…

Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!

For Gary, there appears to have been cooperation between the British and the Americans in this. Below is an extract from the British Report.

"3. Close co-operation with the U.S. Scientific Consultant

Section was necessary and it was considered advisable that the

team should be accommodated at Hoechst, near F.I.A.T. Head-

quarters, and proceed by road to Wetzlar for each day of

investigation. This proved to be a very happy arrangement

and cordial relations were established with the U.S. Scientific

Consultant Staff which were of inestimable value to both the

Americans and ourselves.

4. Before the investigation at the Leitz Works was

proceeded with the micro-films taken at the Leitz Works by a U.S.

Army Micro-film Unit, and filed at F.I.A.T. Headquarters, were

examined by one member of the team and it was soon established

that these films were, from a practical angle, completely use-

less. Although all drawings and documents at the Leitz works

had been filmed they had been so completely mixed up that it

would have taken a very knowledgeable Leitz executive many

months to sort out those relevant to the Leica Camera.

5. At a meeting with B.I.O.S. and the U.S. Scientific

Consultants Section it was agreed that the team should be author-

ised to remove copies of the drawings for the Leica III B and

III C or, alternatively, that another micro-film unit should be

sent to the Leitz Works to take a fresh set of films, under the

direction of a member of the Team. The U.S. Scientific Consult-

ants Section also indicated their interest in the investigation

at the Leitz Works and decided to send a team to join forces with

the British Team.

6. The investigation, therefore, proceeded as a joint Anglo-

American investigation although members of each team made their

own notes and reported to their own team leader. It is empha-

sized that this report is the result of the investigation of the

British Team and is not a joint report."

I wonder if there are any references to this in the notebook?

William 

 

[Gary Schulz]

3 hours ago, willeica said:

Thanks Gary.

This looks like an inventory of plant and equipment. 

You may be interested in this story about the so-called 'visit by British Intelligence' to the Leitz Plant in November 1946 which Mike Evans and I put together some years ago.

https://www.macfilos.com/2018/04/12/2018-4-7-the-leica-camera-in-1946-report-by-british-inspectors/#:~:text=This is the start of,22nd of November that year.

The text of the report is found here;

https://www.angelfire.com/biz/Leica/page26.html

It was some years later that I learnt that the so-called 'Visit by British Intelligence' was in fact a visit by staff of Reid and Sigrist who were wearing borrowed British uniforms. They would have had close ties with the RAF https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reid_and_Sigrist . I have since learnt that the head of the firm 'Major Reid' may have just been Flight Lieutenant Reid during WWI. The source of this information was the late John Vincent, a collector of Reid cameras, who taped interviews with former Reid and Sigrist staff who had been involved in the affair. The company eventually produced a Leica Copy, based on the prewar IIIa and IIIb, called the Reid Camera, but it was not a commercial success. Because of their scarcity they are a sought after collectors' item today. I have two of them in my collection, a I and a IIIa.

I am now wondering why the inventory in the notebook was done . Was it connected to the 'British' exercise? Do you have any dates in that notebook?

William 

 

 

 

Hi William,

Unfortunately I have yet to find reference to a date in the part of the notebook devoted to this rather extensive inventory (these pages being just a random sampling of what is in the book).  I am surprised at the overall scope of machines and tools present at this facility.  Their production capabilities must have actually been pretty significant and advanced.   The only thing I remember being told many years ago was their focus (US forces) was on making sure production and most importantly jobs/training returned as quickly as possible to aid in economic recovery.  They had a particular interest on ensuring that production here and many other places was not and could not be focused on military production though I do see reference to contract work for US forces here and there.  It is my impression that these fellows; Snyder, Hickman et. al. wound up spending time here very close to the end of the conflict starting in July, August ? 1945 through mid 1946.  Not sure if this timeframe overlaps with the visit by "British Intelligence" or not.  Would have been interesting to see what exchanges may have taken place between these various groups!

 

The information that you forwarded looks very interesting so I will definitely take a closer look...

 

 

[Gary Schulz]

3 hours ago, derleicaman said:

Thank you for posting Gary. One thing I noticed was the page headed “Hausetor”. This is an obvious misspelling of Hausertor. This would be the Hausertor Werke on the Lahn down the hill from the main Leitz buildings.

This is where camera production was based. Later in the war, after camera production had been curtailed, most of the production was devoted to Panzer tank gun sights. Several years ago, I wrote a two part story for Viewfinder on wartime production at Leitz. Titled “Eyes of the Panther”, I talked about the gun sights and also the groundbreaking work Leitz did on Night Vision during the war.

Thank you for providing this information Bill.  Without the level of expertise you guys bring to this community I would never have been able to put much of this in context.  I have had this material in my possession for something like 50 years and only really started thinking about what was going on during this time a few months ago.  I find myself always regretting not being able to ask questions of people like my uncles and my dad years after they are gone!

[derleicaman]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

Gary, I know what you mean. Many times I find myself wanting to talk to my dad about new discoveries and information about Leitz and Leica. He loved talking to me about this stuff. It’s been 13 years since he passed away, and he would have loved hearing about these new discoveries. At least I paid attention to his stories growing up.
It was fun last fall to explore Hausertor with William and my other friends. On the way to Hausertor, there is a historical signage commemorating Elsie Leitz’s arrest by the Gestapo for aiding Jews. This is in front of what was Gestapo HQ in Wetzlar. Knut is included on the picture of his mother. I miss Knut too!
I have been back to Braunfels many times over the years, and have seen the building and confirmed where Dr. Wolff lived at that time. I am sure this is where my dad met with him. It was a very different world back then, and I am very appreciative of the efforts your uncle and others made to ensure the survival of Leitz.

[beoon]

15 hours ago, willeica said:

Thanks Gary.

This looks like an inventory of plant and equipment. 

You may be interested in this story about the so-called 'visit by British Intelligence' to the Leitz Plant in November 1946 which Mike Evans and I put together some years ago.

https://www.macfilos.com/2018/04/12/2018-4-7-the-leica-camera-in-1946-report-by-british-inspectors/#:~:text=This is the start of,22nd of November that year.

The text of the report is found here;

https://www.angelfire.com/biz/Leica/page26.html

It was some years later that I learnt that the so-called 'Visit by British Intelligence' was in fact a visit by staff of Reid and Sigrist who were wearing borrowed British uniforms. They would have had close ties with the RAF https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reid_and_Sigrist . I have since learnt that the head of the firm 'Major Reid' may have just been Flight Lieutenant Reid during WWI. The source of this information was the late John Vincent, a collector of Reid cameras, who taped interviews with former Reid and Sigrist staff who had been involved in the affair. The company eventually produced a Leica Copy, based on the prewar IIIa and IIIb, called the Reid Camera, but it was not a commercial success. Because of their scarcity they are a sought after collectors' item today. I have two of them in my collection, a I and a IIIa.

I am now wondering why the inventory in the notebook was done . Was it connected to the 'British' exercise? Do you have any dates in that notebook?

William 

 

 

 

William,

I have a paper copy of a drawing that Reid produced following their "visit by British Intelligence to the Leitz Plant in November 1946".

The drawing is of a Leica IIIB at a scale of 3:1  and was traced from Leitz Drawing No 42215

Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here…

Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!

Edited May 6, 2024 by beoon

[willeica]

24 minutes ago, beoon said:

William,

I have a paper copy of a drawing that Reid produced following their "visit by British Intelligence to the Leitz Plant in November 1946".

The drawing is of a Leica IIIB at a scale of 3:1  and was traced from Leitz Drawing No 42215

Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here…

Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!

Interestingly, when the Reid design appeared it was based on the pre-war Leicas and not the post-war designs from the IIIc onwards. One must assume that they could have had access to the drawings for the IIIc in 1946. 

William 

[S. H.]

34 minutes ago, willeica said:

Interestingly, when the Reid design appeared it was based on the pre-war Leicas and not the post-war designs from the IIIc onwards. One must assume that they could have had access to the drawings for the IIIc in 1946. 

William 

Maybe it was easier to start a small production with the prewar design? The IIIc body being die cast in less pieces, its production may have needed bigger, costlier production machinery the English did not have at hand.

[willeica]

32 minutes ago, S. H. said:

Maybe it was easier to start a small production with the prewar design? The IIIc body being die cast in less pieces, its production may have needed bigger, costlier production machinery the English did not have at hand.

This is probably the reason. They also did other weird things and used their own bespoke parts and imperial measures. Some trays of Reid parts have been doing the rounds for years ) (some were offered to me, but I don't do repairs) and, unless you have these, repairing Reid cameras can be difficult. My CLA guy, who passed away a couple of years ago, put a Leica IIIa slow speed mechanism into my Reid IIIa as he did not have the correct one. This left the two sync plugs at the front open and I had to plug them in order to avoid light leaks. Reids look nice, but if you want to have a functioning LTM type camera, my advice would be to go for a Leica which can be easily repaired. My Reid I was bought as an RAF Model but a British expert told me it is Royal Navy. Either way, I have not tried to put a roll of film through it. What is good is the Taylor Hobson 2inch f2 lens which came with the Reids. 

From a collector, rather than a user, perspective, Reids are interesting. The whole project was, however, doomed as a commercial exercise from the outset, particularly as more Leicas and Japanese copies came on stream as the 1950s progressed. The final nail in the coffin for Reid cameras was the SLR, particularly models from Japan. The most interesting thing in all of this is that, when it came to cameras, the country which benefited most from the defeat of the Axis was Japan, which was one of the Axis powers. In the US and Britain, which had been two of the mainstays of the Allied victory, the camera industry went down the pan. I see the 1946 thing as being part of this whole story. Looking back at it now, it seems to be almost comedic. 

William  

Edited May 6, 2024 by willeica

[S. H.]

14 minutes ago, willeica said:

From a collector, rather than a user, perspective, Reids are interesting. The whole project was, however, doomed as a commercial exercise from the outset, particularly as more Leicas and Japanese copies came on stream as the 1950s progressed. The final nail in the coffin for Reid cameras was the SLR, particularly models from Japan.

Indeed. Cutting edge stuff in the 40s and 50s was the SLR and associated retrofocus short lenses (Exakta, Contax D, Praktiflex, Praktisix, .... for the German side). RF was old news for many technical and scientific applications (macro, reproduction,...), sports (needing long lenses), etc. Most SLR innovations were out of the English reach in the soviet sector, and they would probably have been unable to reverse engineer a complex Zeiss or Exakta camera. They just grabbed what they could.

 

But the Reid episode is a really fun footnote to learn about, in the grand scheme of the film camera evolution.

[Pyrogallol]

1 hour ago, willeica said:

This is probably the reason. They also did other weird things and used their own bespoke parts and imperial measures. Some trays of Reid parts have been doing the rounds for years ) (some were offered to me, but I don't do repairs) and, unless you have these, repairing Reid cameras can be difficult. My CLA guy, who passed away a couple of years ago, put a Leica IIIa slow speed mechanism into my Reid IIIa as he did not have the correct one. This left the two sync plugs at the front open and I had to plug them in order to avoid light leaks. Reids look nice, but if you want to have a functioning LTM type camera, my advice would be to go for a Leica which can be easily repaired. My Reid I was bought as an RAF Model but a British expert told me it is Royal Navy. Either way, I have not tried to put a roll of film through it. What is good is the Taylor Hobson 2inch f2 lens which came with the Reids. 

From a collector, rather than a user, perspective, Reids are interesting. The whole project was, however, doomed as a commercial exercise from the outset, particularly as more Leicas and Japanese copies came on stream as the 1950s progressed. The final nail in the coffin for Reid cameras was the SLR, particularly models from Japan. The most interesting thing in all of this is that, when it came to cameras, the country which benefited most from the defeat of the Axis was Japan, which was one of the Axis powers. In the US and Britain, which had been two of the mainstays of the Allied victory, the camera industry went down the pan. I see the 1946 thing as being part of this whole story. Looking back at it now, it seems to be almost comedic. 

William  

When Peter Grisaffi serviced my Reid 111 he replaced the scratched pressure plate with one from a Leica 111b.

I just found this message he sent me in 2019 about his Leitz friend, who had worked for Reid at a time when Reid were desparate for money and apparently the cameras had to be thrown together quickly, which might account for them not running very well now.

"Dave Henning  worked from his home in Harrow . I went to his funeral  20 yrs or more ago . He used to work for Leitz as well , when they were in Mortimer St. In London .  He went to a Leica Historical Society meeting on a Monday , and went to the Royal Free hospital on the Tuesday for a cancer appointment and never came out . He died six months later ...       He was cremated , and , a few days later , at synagogue, his ashes were buried along with a Leica M2 , he was working on , and his broken specs , that were all sellotaped up , and a screwdriver !!! "

[Anbaric]

2 hours ago, S. H. said:

Maybe it was easier to start a small production with the prewar design? The IIIc body being die cast in less pieces, its production may have needed bigger, costlier production machinery the English did not have at hand.

There's some discussion of this in an earlier thread. It may be significant that Leitz didn't do the IIIc die casting themselves, but outsourced it to Mahle of Stuttgart, another factory investigated by BIOS. They concluded that Mahle 'would be considered first-class' in the UK or US, but were otherwise unimpressed by the German die-casting industry (or what remained of it). Similar work could presumably have been done in the UK, but may have involved a more complex supply chain. If Reid wanted to keep production in-house, then a IIIb copy might have been thought easier to achieve.

[willeica]

All the Reid you'll ever need. This two part talk is by my friend Tim Goldsmith who is now President of the Photographic Collectors Club of Great Britain. Look particularly from about 8 minutes in on the first link (Part 1). There was something Monty Pythonesque about the whole business. 

 

 

William 

Edited May 6, 2024 by willeica

[Gary Schulz]

I also came across this booklet from the Leica School dated September 1945.  Looks to be a mimeograph of a type written document which is 17 pages in length.  I suspect this is not new or novel information but was in the papers from my uncle and appears to be contemporary to the time they were at Leitz.

Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here…

Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!

[Gary Schulz]

Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here…

Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!

[willeica]

9 minutes ago, Gary Schulz said:

Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here…

Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!

The date here is remarkable. It seems that Leica was up and ready to run its education programs as soon as the war was over.

William 

[Anbaric]

27 minutes ago, Gary Schulz said:

I also came across this booklet from the Leica School dated September 1945.  Looks to be a mimeograph of a type written document which is 17 pages in length.  I suspect this is not new or novel information but was in the papers from my uncle and appears to be contemporary to the time they were at Leitz.

I see a 1946 version of that advertised for sale (perhaps it became an official publication) but I don't know if it's generally available - I think it would be worth scanning the whole thing if possible. On the author:

'The name of Heinrich Stöckler will be familiar to most Leica enthusiasts and readers of early Leica literature. He went to Leitz Wetzlar in 1929, set up a department for instruction in the then “new miniature” photography techniques and eventually became head of The Leica School. In 1938 and 1939 he wrote two articles on “2-bath” film processing for “Leica News and Technique”. In 1947 he went on to become the first editor of “Leica Fotografie International”… a position he held until 1973.'

[Advertisement]

Hallo,

Look here: Interesting Leica gear

[alan mcfall]

The Stockler booklet may occur in two forms. On the left is the cover of the 5 x 8.5 inch booklet, interesting it is not just the leica school but also the "research lab". In the middle is another booklet with a notation "Not to be sold-Published by Seventh United States Army", with the second page on the right from Wilhelm Schiess, Photo instructor,  I & E(?) School, Special Troops, again Seventh Army. Has anyone ever hear of Wilhelm Schiess?  The version on the right is 28 pages with many more photos.  I see now, the army version says "Labor" and the "Lab." has a period and may be an abreviation for Labor. The photo of the woman with the Leica is the cover page of the army version.

Edited May 6, 2024 by alan mcfall