Leica 250 GG Reporter

Only 92 Leica 250 GG cameras have been equipped with an electric motor drive MOOEV requiring 24 volts to operate and used for aerial reconnaissance in German warplanes during World War II—to assess aiming accuracy and bomb damage—most of the MOOEV motors stayed permanently installed in the bellies of infamous STUKA dive bomber aircrafts such as Junkers Ju 87 (Hermann Pohlmann) while the cameras were detached only to unload/reload film cartridges.

There was a shortage of the Leica 250 cameras, which required some of them to be repossessed from Axis civilian owners, as less than 1000 of these specialist cameras had been made between 1933 and 1943 with significant number exported pre-war.

Many of these cameras were lost in the WWII air battles and only around 15 examples are known to exist today.

Photo credit: © Leitz Photographica Auction