ONE THOUSAND LEICAS
During the years 1942-1945 the Leica IIIc within serial numbers 385001 – 386000 was sent to numerous destinations. In addition to Germany, the delivery records carefully preserved at the Leitz Park Archive list the following: Albania, Austria, Bulgaria, China, Manchukuo, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Rumania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey and Yogoslavia. Italy received approximately 14% of the deliveries. Allied countries are not recorded.
The Leica IIIc at 385001-386000 is usually absent in collections I have studied. Were many (if not most) of these artifacts lost/destroyed during the Second World War? The illustrations show several examples discovered during over four decades of research.
Leica IIIc 385441 delivered 9.4.45 (Allied Occupation)
Leica IIIc 385780 delivered 11.8.44 (Luftwaffe)
Editor Rosauer and I welcome yourcomments.