Intelligence Services
This section is about the Minox's use in intelligenece gathering

- Introduction
- French Resistance
- Germany
- Sowjet Union
- United Kingdom
- United States of America
Introduction
Interview
with the inventor Walter Zapp (translated from german):
[..] the first
officially sold VEF Minox Riga went to a foreign diplomat, and
unfortunately I understood immediately what that meant in plain
english: Espionage! I was horrified! I never though of the Possibillity
to use [the camera] for this application. Until today I did not
(verschnatzt?) that [the camera] has been used in this area further.
This was the best free advertisement, but the meanest! [..] - Later sources indicate that this may have been a french diplomat
Strength & Weakness of the Minox camera
Characteristic
|
Score
|
Comment
|
Concealment
|
10/10
|
Smallest precision camera availble, easily hidden
|
Covert photography
|
02/10
|
While easily concealed the telescopic film advance was a major drawback in taking sequential shots unnoticed
|
Picture quality
|
06/10
|
Negative size limitation, Fast film requirement for observations and indoor shots
|
Document copy ability
|
09/10
|
Perfect short focus ability, good document copy film available
|
Availability
|
08/10
|
Hundreds of cameras were immediately available at the start of the war
|
Overall
|
35/50
|
|
Its strongest advantage was its size.
The Minox was just absolutely ideal, It could be shipped into the
enemy territory through various channels (in inconspicuous objects) and
then easily hidden by its operator when carrying out dangerous covert
operations. You need to be able to hide a camera as best you can.
Especially when observing or even entering top secret areas or
buildings you inevitably had to pass numerous checkpoints.
For example you could hide the camera dircetly on your body as you
would rarely or never be subjected to a full strip search. Equally you
could conceal it in an object and walk away from it in danger. It
really depended on the situation.
Its strongest disadvantage was the film transport.
Manually advancing each
frame by opening and closing the camera was a huge obstacle and shows
that the camera was not designed as a spy camera. Either you had to
blow your cover and take
shots rapidly when you had the chance, or painstakingly advance
each frame in secret. This costed valuabe time making sequential shots
almost impossible. Moving was always better and as you would almost
always be surrounded by someone. The rule of thumb would be not to
behave any diffrent as the rest of them. No-stopping, no-lingering on.
The
later post-war Minox copy Tochka solved this by building a spring
loaded mechanism into the camera allowing pictures to be taking rapid
without revealing any movement at all.
How the Minox could be used
Different uses of the Minox camera
Documents, Secret observation of buildings, access etc
45-50 hour training in microfilming (US)
Containers for smuggling Minox film (Empty batteries in torch, Shaving brushes)
French Resistance
Potential agencies:
- Bureau Central de Renseignement et d'Action (BCRA) - Free french intelligence & sabotage
- Local resistance groups
Persons identified:
- Michel Holland,
in Marseilles, he disguised himself as a workman and secretly
took pictures with his Minox of a naval dock under construction
underneath a large shipping warehouse. He later send the Minox film via
Switzerland to London. He also used his Minox to secretly photograph
german installations at Dieppe. To get into the no-go areas, he devised
a plan and convinced the local officials to sign him a permit to carry
out
social work. With this idea he loaded a suitcase full of
religious literature and bibles entering the no-go areas with the
cover of aiming to boost the morale of the forced labor employed there.
It turned out that these installations were V1 flying bomb bases aimed
at London and over the course of 3 weeks he managed to locate and
photograph several of these with his Minox. Michel Holland was later
catured by the Gestapo tortured and send to a concentration camp. He
survived
the war by pure chance
Germany
Potential agencies:
- Abwehr (1929-1944) - Military Foreign Intelligence
- Reichssicherheitshauptamt (RSHA)
- Amt IV: Geheimer Staatspolizei (Gestapo) - Secret Police, counter intelligence
- Amt VI: Sicherheitsdienst Ausland/Abwehr (SD-Ausland) - Foreign Intelligence
- Amt Mil: Military Foreign Intelligence (1944-1945)
Persons identified:
- Kurt von Rohrscheid (Military attache, Embassy Madrid, Abwehr
counter-espionage section) was observed testing a Minox hidden in a
cigarette lighter
- Herbert Rittlinger (Abwehr) using the Minox and the Punktsystem (micro-dot?)
- Adolf Clauss (Abwehr, Huelva Spain) Sometimes he would
take photographs using a Minox camera and a long-distance lens. The
information was then relayed to Berlin by a team of Abwehr
wireless operators, working out of the German consulate at 51 Avenida
de Italia
- Hauptmann Berthelen, recieved orders in January 1943 and January
1944 to surrender much of his camera collection including a Minox due
to the destruction of photographic euipments in the bombings of Berlin
Sowjet Union
Potential agencies:
- Glavnoye Razvedyvatel'noye Upravleniye (GRU) (1942-) -foreign military intelligence
- Narodnyy Komissariat Vnutrennikh Del (NKVD) (1934-1954) - secret police
- (NKGB) (1941, 1943-1946)- secret police, intelligence and counter-intelligence
- Glavnoe Upravlenie Gosudarstvennoi Bezopasnosti (GUGB) (1934-1943) - Soviet intelligence service, secret police
The Sowjet
Union had perfect access to Minox cameras from 1939 - Spring 1941.
That they were still in short supply shows a now declassified top secret document.
- 29.10.1942 Moscow requests from Washington a Minox camera and film to be send to London for
Rear-Admiral N.M. KhARLAMOV (Head of Sowjet Military Mission London
1941-1946)
United Kindgdom & Commonwealth
Potential agencies:
- Military Intelligence Unit 5 (MI5) - Counterintelligence
- Military Intelligence Unit 6 (MI6) - Foreign Intelligence
- Military Intelligence Unit 9 (MI9) - aiding resistance fighters in enemy occupied territory
- Special Operations Executive (SOE) - espionage, sabotage and reconnaissance (1940-1946)
- Naval Intelligence Department (NID) - Specialised Intelligence
Note:
Ian Fleming worked for NID and later after WW2 he wrote his famous
James Bond novels. By the way the head of MI6 was not "M" but "C" and
"Q" may be a fictional character in James Bond devising spy gadgets but
the "Q" Branch and "Q" gadgets really existed. The letter Q originally comes from WW1
were the term Q-ships refered to merchant ships luring in the enemy and
destroying it with concealed heavy weaponry on board.
Just before and particularly after September 1939 when war was declared on Germany, intelligence
gathering was paramount and sourcing Minox cameras relatively easy.
Only in the late summer of 1940 did the fortunes turn, and Minox Ltd
ran out of all supplies and the agencies had to find new ways to obtain
cameras.
- September 1939 - Autum 1940 --- Minox Ltd able to supply all agencies
- End 1940 - 1945 --- Buy-back and sourcing cameras through alternative channels
Buy-back program
By the end of 1940,
Minox Ltd had run out of cameras and no new supplies were coming in.
Agencies thus had to actively buy back
cameras from the considerable number of civilial owners. Similar in
both UK and US this was not done
directly but employing agents, not to raise german suspicion of their
plans or their shortage of cameras. They contacted Wallace Heaton who
owned a camera store on Bond Street and was more importantly
the President of the Photographic Dealer Association. Through him
several camera chains and stores would start calling their original
customers and send low key adverts out. Through this, they were
immediately able to buy back several dozens of cameras from their
original owners. While the Buy-back
program was initially a success, it became more and more difficult to
source cameras. Always one or two would turn up but no large
quantities.
During the War, many shrude business man would achieved huge
financial profits by trading rare materials and parts. This war
profiteering was strictly forbidden and any trade required an official
seal of approval. This didnt stop many from doing so in secret and one
day the Ministry of Supplies recieved an anoymous tip off. An
american business man had 60 Minox cameras in his possession and was
about to send them for a huge profit to the USA. This was a big find and they impounded the
cameras immediately and forwarded them to their agents.
Later, the search became
more desperate! In 1943 Advertsiements would now be made in the
mainstream newspapers such as the Times even though they were regulary
checked by the enemy. By 1944 and 1945 they didnt hide their true
intention anymore and pleaded dircetly on the loyalty of british
citizen to hand in their cameras.
The Times London 30th Jan 1945
Building an english Minox alternative
It was clear that Minox
stocks were finite and the market almost empty. Even offering higher
and higher prices would not deliver the amount of cameas required. This
was the case both in in the UK and the US and both tried to evaluate
building their own spy cameras. In England the Lines Brothers were
contacted and given a Minox to reverse engineer. The company already
had the precision tools and skills needed as they produced miniture
models and toys (e.g. Dinky toys). They dissassembled the camera and
evaluated making it and return their dossier to the Ministry of
Supplies. To assemble the production line and start making all the
required parts was in the region of 100,000 pounds. This was far too
much for any cash straped war budget and it never went any further.
Cameras used in His Majesty's Services:
Camera
|
Used by
|
Survived
|
Mission History
|
No.06638
|
SOE
|
Yes
|
France (1943), Greece (1944)
|
|
|
|
|
Persons identified:
- John Cairncross (MI6, double agent) recieved a Minox and instructions from
Henrys colleagues during a car ride through London. Between 1941 and
1945, Cairncross supplied the Soviets with
5,832 documents, according to Russian archive.
- Charles Fraser-Smith
worked for the Ministry of Supplies (Portland House, Tothill Street,
Westminster, London). He regularly sourced Minox cameras for the
intelligence services (MI6, SOE,MI9, etc)
- Clay Hutton (MI9) devised a cigarette lighter containing a Minox
United States of America
Potential agencies:
- Army, Navy, Airforce Intelligence
- Office of the Coordinator of Information (COI) (1941-1942)
- Office for Strategic Services (OSS) (1942-1945)
The Minox was widely sold throughout the States starting from July
1940. By the time the US entered the war with Germany and Japan in
December 1941, the majority of cameras had already been sold to
civilian customers. That the intelligence agencies were already
interested in the Minox before this shows a document from the Sixth
Army Corps.
- 28.05.1941 HQ 6th U.S. Army Corps (G.R. Carpenter) requests 2 Minox from Washington for the office of A.C. of S. (G-2)
- 12.06.1941 Counter-Intelligence branch Washington (J.A.Lester)
approves the purchase requested by the Intelligence Police of 6th Army
Corps
At
the time intelligence was gathered by several
different agencies and departments within the US government and
military. It is difficult to know how many cameras were already
purchased by these individual departments before the OSS was founded.
In 1942 the US goverment bundled a
majority of intelligence gathering under one agency, the office of Strategic
Services (OSS). The same year, 1942, the OSS, requested 50 Minox
cameras with the option to purchase more.
- 1942 OSS founded
- 1942 OSS requests 50 Minox cameras + option to purchase more
Cameras were issued to OSS
agents, the Minox miniature camera being the most ideal.The OSS
parachuted trained Minox equipped agents into France and other areas
where they photographed secret documents, installations, bridges and
approaches.By 1944, the Minox was a standard intelligence gathering
tool and the camera, daylight developing tank and enlarger feature in
the OSS Catalog.
- 1944 Minox found in the OSS Catalogue under "Weapons, Special Weapons and Devices"
The number of Minox
cameras which served for
the USA is unknown but must have been significant.
Buy back
program
The surviving OSS purchase order from 1942 already
indicates the scarcity of these cameras and that they had to be located
and bought back from original owners. As the
50 cameras had been located in 1942 it is likely that the OSS and other
agencies did request more camras, hence the continued
buy back program.
- 1942 The Buy-Back program is first mentioned
- 1943 -1949 Surviving cheques
- 1948/49 The german Minox A (II) is introduced
Surviving cheques found so far (pls email if you found another one):
Camera
|
Bought back
|
Original Owner
|
Used by
|
Survived
|
Mission history
|
No.03292
|
20 May 1943
|
Rudy Vallee (cashed Los Anegles)
|
|
|
|
No.03622
|
08 March 1943
|
Oscar Lieberman (New York)
|
|
|
|
No.03935
|
01 September 1943
|
|
|
Yes
|
|
No.04459
|
01 November 1948
|
|
|
|
|
No.04581
|
17 March 1943
|
|
|
|
|
No.04769
|
12 July 1943
|
Mis B N Woodward
|
|
|
|
No.05204
|
21 April 1943
|
RA Stranahan (New York)
|
|
|
|
No.08771
|
28 July 1949
|
|
|
|
|
No.08843
|
27 February 1946
|
|
|
|
|
No.08863
|
27 May 1949
|
|
|
|
|
No.08987
|
27 May 1949
|
|
|
|
|
No.10130
|
06 July 1948
|
|
|
|
|
No.10866
|
17 December 1948
|
|
|
|
|
Building an american Minox alternative
As the Minox
remained scarce despite a nationwide search, the OSS tried to find ways
to make up
for the shortage. I am sure they came to the same conclusion as the
English that building a Minox production line was far too cosly. Thus
with the collaboration of Kodak they developed a cheap and easily
assembled miniature Matchbox camera. This
camera, the Kodak-X was manufactured for the OSS close to the end of
World War II but due to the cost and time constrains remained inferioir
in picture quality.
Persons identified:
- Joseph R Lears (OSS), still had a VEF Minox in his possession after WW2
- Lieutenant Maurizio Giglio (Italian Police, double agent for OSS) used a
Minox. Betrayed by his radio operator and tortured by Pietro Koch (Head
of special police Rome)
- Major John Roller (OSS) agent in Italy