For Sale FS: for Leica Collectors

[CollinB]

If anyone is interested, a local store has a sealed, new R4 Jesse Owens.
Probably one of the last still-sealed in the world.
The shop wants $5K for it.

 

[benjiboy]

I don't think I'll be buying one, the thought of a German company making a Jessie Owens Leica must be the ultimate irony.

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

That's not as ironic as it might at first seem. The Leica company was never a Nazi supporter - they set up shop in Canada and transferred their Jewish employees there to protect them.

 

[segedi]

And from what I heard, they had a lot of "employees" that they saved.

 

[jmooney]

In fact Ernst Leitz daughter spent a few months in Gestapo custody for helping Polish forced laborers in their factory. Google "Leica Freedom Train" before you judge the company.

 

[BrianL]

I too find it ironic. Whether or not Leica supported the NAZI regime is not the issue but, that a German company honored him where in the US almost immediately after winning other than for propaganda reasons he was ignored like so many other great black Americans.