From 1924 onwards, the serially manufactured, handy Leica camera from the Leitz company in Wetzlar made it possible to take pictures in previously unthinkable situations. For example, in mountaineering, on expeditions, in everyday life – and in war. A revolution in technology that has decisively shaped our image of recent history.

"Photographers from all over the world are now taking pictures that tell the story of the 20th century," says the voice-over commentary of the documentary "The Nazis, the Rabbi and the Camera", which is well worth seeing. The result is images that also make their photographers famous, such as Henri Cartier-Bresson. In the "Leitz Park" in Wetzlar, a selection of the most famous motifs hangs in the "Leica – Hall of Fame". In addition to portraits of James Dean, Che Guevara and Muhammad Ali, you can see Cartier-Bresson's street scenes. Or the photo of the naked, seriously injured girl in Vietnam, who has become a symbol of the screaming indictment of war. Old Leicas fetch top prices at auctions. On June 11, 2022, the Leica prototype of Leitz inventor Oskar Barnack will be auctioned for twelve million euros.

However, the example of the Leitz company and its owner Ernst Leitz II can tell more than the history of technology, the fascination with inventiveness and German economic history. As the film shows, Ernst Leitz II, as a supporter and savior of numerous Jews and politically persecuted people during the Nazi regime, could have made history like Oskar Schindler, albeit on a smaller scale, parallel to his most famous auratic product and its images.

Ernst Leitz II remained silent, according to his great-grandson Oliver Nass, but above all the New York rabbi and photographer Frank Dabba Smith, who researched Leitz's work for twenty years. He remained silent, in contrast to many others who, after the liberation by the Allies, wanted to present themselves as opponents of the Nazi regime.

An entrepreneurial story

Claus Bredenbrock's documentary, which at three-quarters of an hour is too short to be able to follow all his tracks down to the most vivid detail, begins with scenes that play a role in many company stories with brown coloring and that are less than half the truth here.

It starts on March 1, 1941, and on the occasion of the 70th birthday of the patriarch Ernst Leitz II, the company's own band plays in Nazi uniforms at the headquarters Haus Friedwart in Wetzlar. Goebbels and Goering send telegrams with messages of greeting. The "successes in Poland and France" were "largely carried out with their excellent optics". The propaganda department in Potsdam boasts that "our writing instrument is the Leica". The Leitz factories in Wetzlar produce products essential to the war effort, binoculars, optical lenses – and Leica cameras. Also with the help of forced laborers, especially from Ukraine.

Ernst Leitz II thanked and spoke, it is said, of "our brilliant leader". It was only after this birthday, however, that he applied for membership of the NSDAP. Forced, as it becomes clear later. In secret, he talks about the "brown monkeys". On May 1, 1933, he, a convinced democrat, marched through Wetzlar with his daughter at the head of the demonstration of his workers against the regime.