Prior to WWII the German Wehrmacht (Army, Navy & Air Force) were given the job of photographing the Maginot Line to ascertain just how difficult it may be to either defend or assault.
My late father in-law was ordered into the Wehrmacht in the late 1930s as a photo assistant as he was available and knew how the chemistry of photography worked and was an assistant in the photographic section of an Apotek (?) (Chemist shop).
About 15 years ago on one of my visits to Germany he was in a talkative mood. The conversation swung round to photography; whereupon I learnt that he was an armed forces (Wehrmacht) photographer prior to and during the war.
Pretty much the most interesting thing, was his participation in photographing the Maginot Line. Basically the project consisted of one extremely huge lens, which had been manufactured in Jena. I understand it would have been a Zeiss Objective.
He had pictures of this lens, think of a coffin. The pictures he had, showed 6 men carrying, with difficulty, what looked like a coffin. This was then placed in strategic high places in Germany and then a series of pictures were taken through to France, which was between 12 18 kilometres away.
I obviously asked about this camera and lens set-up and was astonished to learn that it had a total length of 1.85 metres. The film used was AGFA 200mm wide colour and B&W aerial roll film. I know this part for a fact, I saw a few rolls of these films in my In-laws hands and looked and held them myself. Colour negative film in 1938!
The camera itself was quite interesting from the description given to me verbally and from the pictures my father in-law had. Apparently the camera had two shutter speeds. The image size was 6x6cm actual, not 55mm x 55mm. The film cartridge had a sliding mechanism, allowing the film to be slid sideways in one of three positions, thereby getting three pictures side by side on the 200mm wide film. There was no dark slide; the back lived in a big light tight box.
Now for the really interesting bit:- the lens was a 1.7m f5.6
Whilst I realise that Carl Zeiss Jena and the modern Zeiss Company are not really related, it is rather interesting.
As I write this my wife is flying to Germany to visit her mother, I will ask her if she can find the shoebox of pictures her father showed us that day. We may be able to see a picture of another great lens.
Mick.
