Optics

[Lumpybaby]

Leitz 7x50 Kreigsmarine - History?

My first attempt at a post - I hope I’m doing it right and it’s in the right place!

Just bought a pair of Leitz 7x50 binoculars. They are the early version with E Leitz , Wetzlar on the left prism plate and a Kreigsmarine eagle on the right along with the letter ‘N’ and a 4 digit number. I emailed Leica in Germany and gave them the serial number and asked if they could provide a date of manufacture. Very helpfully, they were able to tell me that they were ‘delivered’ on 30/09/1940 which was great. They couldn’t tell me where though and they said that the 4 digit number on the right prism plate was some form of military inventory number.

So, my question is essentially this - given the German military reputation for meticulous record keeping, does anyone have any suggestions where I could start researching records of Kreigsmarine Leitz binoculars delivered on a specific date in order to establish which vessel/location they were assigned to? Be fascinating to find out a bit more about their history.

Thanks folks.

[behblc]

good morning, unfortunately being able to track a binocular to a specific ship , craft or shore establishment will be almost certainly not possible, you did very well to get a reply from lecia to confirm a production date.

[Lumpybaby]

good morning, unfortunately being able to track a binocular to a specific ship , craft or shore establishment will be almost certainly not possible, you did very well to get a reply from lecia to confirm a production date.

Ok, thanks for that, but hear me out on this. I’m assuming that Leitz shipped large quantities of binoculars to the Wehrmacht in ‘batches’ (I.e. I’m guessing that they sent them in fairly big batches (probably at least 50+ at a time) otherwise the mechanics and logistics of wartime delivery would make delivery of smaller numbers less economical and impractical.

On that assumption, my guess is that several large boxes of binoculars from Leitz were delivered to a quartermasters store for eventual assignment on or near the date of delivery given to me by a Leitz.

Given they are Kreigsmarine marked, and marked ‘N’ for North Sea, it is reasonable to assume they went to a home base which I think I read somewhere in here was Wilhelmshaven.

Further, the Kreigsmarine clearly arranged for them to have batch numbers assigned for a reason and again, I presume that was for some form of tracking and accountability for their eventual destination.

Again, I’m guessing that the inventory numbers were sequential and my 4 digit inventory number starts with ‘6’ so perhaps numbers ‘6000 - 6050’ were sent to a particular base or ship and so on.

What I have in mind is a large Kreigsmarine Quartermasters depot where someone has signed for receipt of a shipment and then recorded where they have all gone - there simply must have been records made? The big question is though (as you rightly point out)- ‘where do you start?’.

I looked online for German military record access but they seem mostly related to personnel only but I’m sure that somewhere, there will be a dusty microfiche image of Quartermasters records from Wilhelmshaven, sometime between August and November 1940, does anyone have even the remotest clue how I might even begin to start looking?

Be fascinating to see where the trail starts and ends for these pieces of history, I hope the trail didn’t go cold years ago!

Many thanks again and kind regards.

[behblc]

There is no doubt that at sometime the inevitable paper trail did exist but it is unlikely that it survived the war , if it did probably only in a fragmentary nature.

[Mikedenmark]

For what it is worth:

Rumours will know that a gentleman in Germany do have some books from Wilhelmshafen.
They should be for sale, if anyone want´s them.
So far, no-one appears to have € 100.000.- to spare.
I like to see them and get a copy. But not at that price.

But then again, rumours only.

Regarding Leitz binocular manufacture. The company do have books with serial numbers. Just like they have on Leica camera production. ( I have a copy of one page here somewhere. So not completely hearsay.)
2 years ago, the books were purportedly in the process of being digitalised. Nothing new since then.