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Yevgeny Khaldiei with his Leica that is up for auction, which is estimated between £230,000 - 340,000. The camera is up for auction on November 30th at Bonhams Leica Centenary Sale in Hong Kong.


A camera which took one of the most iconic photographs of the Second World War has emerged for sale for 340,000 pounds.

The Leica camera belonged to Soviet photographer Yevgeni Khaldei who was with the Red Army when they captured Berlin in May 1945, bringing about an end to WWII.

Khaldei scaled the Reichstag on May 2 to capture on camera a soldier raising the Red Banner, the Soviet flag, to claim the symbolic building as under their control.

In fact it was a restaging of a moment which had happened two days previously but resilient Nazi fighters had taken the original flag down overnight.

The final image was heavily edited to add more smoke to the scene and also cover up the watches on the wrists of the soldiers which had been looted.

It went on to become one of the most famous images of the war and was reproduced in publications around the world.

It is often compared to the photograph of US troops raising the Stars and Stripes on the Japanese island of Iwo Jima.

The camera is now tipped to fetch 340,000 pounds when it goes under the hammer at Bonhams.