On May 6, 1937 a German flagship Zeppelin Hindenburg was about to land in Lakehurst, New Jersey when it suddenly ignited and exploded taking 36 lives in a process. Pretty much everything that was onboard of the airship was incinerated with the exception of a few artifacts including this one below.

The camera used to belong to Fritz Deeg, the steward on the Hindenburg who amazingly was not harmed in the explosion and later recovered the remains of his camera at the crash site. Now it lives in a vault of the Leica Museum and is being handled with the utmost care, white gloves only. I had a chance to photograph it in 2010 at the Leica Factory in Solms before its relocation back to Wetzlar.

Irakly Shanidze © 2018