#CONTAX VIEWFINDER E LEITZ WETZLAR FULL#

#CONTAX VIEWFINDER E LEITZ WETZLAR FULL#

For Zeiss-Ikon Dresden, deprived of key personnel, facilities, and the benefits of a free marketplace, to have gotten anything significant into production at all would seem a miracle the fact that such an advanced and original design was implemented a full year ahead of the West Germans’ Contax IIa is simply incredible. Erik’s Fair in Stockholm, Sweden, the first postwar Zeiss-Ikon design and one of the most significant cameras in recent history: the Zeiss-Ikon Contax S. It was into this inhospitable atmosphere that the Dresden-based group introduced, at the St. At first a sort of make-the-best-of-it attitude prevailed, with the two resulting firms both going back to work with the facilities left at their disposal, but as political tensions mounted, so did animosity between the two branches of the Zeiss-Ikon concern.

With major installations in Kassel and Stuttgart in West, and Dresden and Jena in East Germany, as well as in Berlin itself, the giant company found itself split right down the middle. The blockade and the airlift continued into May of 1949 the intense hostility between the Eastern and Western portions of Germany continued for decades.Ĭaught in the middle of it all was the proud firm of Zeiss-Ikon, the prestigious conglomerate which had been formed in 1926 by a merger of some of the oldest and finest optical houses in Germany. America’s response in return was the famous Berlin Airlift, flying tons of supplies over the Soviet roadblocks to feed the trapped citizens of West Berlin. The Allies themselves, however, were by now no longer friends: the relatively new phenomenon known as Cold War had reached its hottest point, the western powers having agreed in May to the formation of a separate West German state, and the Soviet Union countering in June with a blockade of the western zone of the city of Berlin, which was located deep within the Soviet occupation zone. Germany had been divided into a number of occupied territories, each under the jurisdiction of one of the victorious Allied Powers. Any additional information and corrections will be appreciated, and my feelings won’t be hurt.) I have tried to correct the more obvious errors of which I have become aware since the original publication however, some probably remain. (Note: This is a light re-edit of an article originally published in 1987. Left: the Contax S, launched in Dresden in 1948 Right: the Contax IIa, launched in Stuttgart in 1950.

Contax viewfinder e leitz wetzlar