Carl Zeiss Jena Prototypes, Experimental, and Transition Lenses,

stuart_115 said:
Funny enough, while Soviet copies are considered quite inferior, the Japanese copies are considered up to the same standard.
Click to expand...

This is not 100% true. I have gotten some KMZ Jupiters that are good lenses. My '57 Jupiter-8 is a beautiful lens in resolving power and color reproduction. Granted QC was irregular, but there are some gems out there, to wit:

​
 
After owning one this Thiele book about the post-war photo production in east Germany for over a year I finally put a look inside. It starts with some internal Zeiss Jena annually reports for the years 44/45 and 45/46 that have tons of interesting information about this time. Although a lot might be already known I was surprised by some of it.
  1. From 1945-04-12 to 1945-06-31 the city of Jena was under military control of US forces. In this time the whole storage of civil photographic devices where sold or requisitioned by the US military. They took even took the whole lens collection of all of the 2.000 prototype and historical photographic lenses from the Zeiss museum. They took almost all original papers and designs of all photographic lenses. They forced CZJ to deliver lenses with LTM mount and CZJ delivered some samples. CZJ started the work to fill up the emptied storage shelfes.
  2. Immediately after the US military left Jena the Soviet military occupied Jena. (When they learned that the US "stole" the treasured CZJ property they were absolutely raging and it caused some heavy international tensions between the allied parties) The Soviets where mostly interested in Kleinbild (full frame), reproduction and projector devices. They ordered a huge deal of (immediately or shortly) available devices that should be delivered until February 1946. CZJ used some stalled delivery orders to start the new production for the Soviet administration. (This could mean that some of the serial batches where never finished or where startet before war and finished after the WWII)
  3. There is a captain Stepanoff that ordered 3,6M RM of optics for projectors and the FED camera and was scheduled until June 1946. The Soviets told CZJ that their FED camera was in line with the Leica I. Later CZJ got their hands on FED cameras and found out that there was a significant difference between the flange distance of the Leica and the FED. But when they did it was too late and they already manufactured all the lenses with the Leica measurements. In the report CZJ states that they purposely did not offer LTM versions of their lenses but they where forced to do so by the Soviet administration. The list of LTM lenses from the report
    1. Sonnar 1,5/5cm
    2. Sonnar 2/5cm
    3. Sonnar 2/8,5cm
    4. Sonnar 4/13,5cm
    5. Sonnar 2,8/18cm
    6. Sonnar 4/30cm
    7. Tessar 8/2,8cm
    8. Tele-Tessar 6,3/18cm
    9. Biogon 2,8/3,5
  4. CZJ was calculating to deliver all of the Soviet orders between February 1946 and January 1947.
  5. The Soviet orders where handled as highest priorities. Not only the orders directly for CZJ but for camera manufacturers with Soviet orders too. The orders kept CZJ in a way busy that they could sparely handle the requests from other firms in the Soviet zone and could not handle any orders from the US zone.
  6. A list from CZJ of immediate steps to take revealed that they needed to reconstruct all the lost design papers. A second task was to build up a manufacturing for Contax Sonnar lens frames ( Fassungen ). Those where build up to this point by Zeiss Ikon itself. Now that the Zeiss Ikon production was destroyed Jena had to redesign the frames and start the production of Contax and LTM lenses. The Soviet administration forced CZJ to offer the Contax lenses for their Russian FED camera. The lenses mentioned where
    1. Tessar 8/2,8cm
    2. Biogon 3,5/3,5cm
    3. Sonnar 2/8,5cm
    4. Sonnar 4/13,5cm
    5. Sonnar 2,8/18cm
    6. Sonnar 4/30cm
    7. Tessar 2,8/5cm
    8. Tessar 3,5/5cm
    9. Tele-Tessar 6,3/18cm
    10. Fernobjektiv 8/50cm
  7. When the Soviets learned that the US had requisitioned the Zeiss lens collection the Soviets insisted on getting an own collection too. Engineer Major Prof. Jachantoff from Optical Institute in Leningrad gave the order that from every manufactured device some examples should be provided to the Soviets to build up a second photo lens museum in Russia. The order was forced with the highest priority so that all departments were had to work on samples only and all other orders (even for the Soviet military) had to be stalled until this was finished. This caused some heavy delay in 1946 production.
  8. On 1946-10-22 CZJ got the Soviet order to dismantle the manufacturing in Jena. The whole production facility was moved to the FSU. CZJ got surprised by this order. They did not see this coming.
That are only bits from those reports and even if this sounds like a WWII heist movie that are only some highlights what had happened at that time.

What I found most interesting is the part about the Contax lens frames. I was suspecting this already and had written to some people researching the Dresden photo industry but got no answer about this. It seems that pre- and wartime Sonnar lenses were finished by Zeiss Ikon in Dresden. CZJ manufactured the lens in a screw mount and Zeiss Ikon manufactured the casing / frame / barrel in Contax mount. When Zeiss Ikon was destroyed at the end of WWII Jena had to start manufacturing the whole Contax lens and had to redesign the barrel. That explains why the design language changed so dramatically after WWII. Well ... the Sonnar 5cm is missing from the above list but I don't think that the Sonnar 5cm is an exception to this.

Another interesting part is the LTM mount version of lenses. So the US and primary Soviet administration forced CZJ to build LTM versions after WWII.

There is another list that shows a Sonnar 5cm f2 for Pau 2 (a photographic machine gun???). So there was military use for the Sonnar after the war too.

The report shows the chaos surrounding Zeiss and the German photographic industry in this time. Starvation, Tuberculosis and escape is mentioned not only for CZJ but other known companies too. It mentions quality issues and missing material and parts. You see departing interests and a lot of force. Even after giving the order to dismantle the Jena fabrication the Soviets did not stop to force CZJ to push the rebuild of the photographic production. Until June 1948 the Soviets controlled the whole planing of all photographic companies in East Germany.

The subsidiary companies tried to escape the control of Jena. Zeiss Opton became the head later. But even Zeiss Ikon in Dresden wanted to build their own optics. The report mentions that Zeiss Ikon utilized the Dresden Zeiss site (that was not destroyed) and that they were better prepared for that task than Meyer Görlitz of that time. CZJ tried to keep the control over all the German industry even in this years.The history of the Zeiss Ikon site in Dresden Reick lies mostly in the shadow for now. But you can find a CIA report from 1952 here. 😄
 
Last edited:
Räuber said:
After owning one this Thiele book about the post-war photo production in east Germany for over a year I finally put a look inside. It starts with some internal Zeiss Jena annually reports for the years 44/45 and 45/46 that have tons of interesting information about this time. Although a lot might be already known I was surprised by some of it.
  1. From 1945-04-12 to 1945-06-31 the city of Jena was under military control of US forces. In this time the whole storage of civil photographic devices where sold or requisitioned by the US military. They took even took the whole lens collection of all of the 2.000 prototype and historical photographic lenses from the Zeiss museum. They took almost all original papers and designs of all photographic lenses. They forced CZJ to deliver lenses with LTM mount and CZJ delivered some samples. CZJ started the work to fill up the emptied storage shelfes.
  2. Immediately after the US military left Jena the Soviet military occupied Jena. (When they learned that the US "stole" the treasured CZJ property they were absolutely raging and it caused some heavy international tensions between the allied parties) The Soviets where mostly interested in Kleinbild (full frame), reproduction and projector devices. They ordered a huge deal of (immediately or shortly) available devices that should be delivered until February 1946. CZJ used some stalled delivery orders to start the new production for the Soviet administration. (This could mean that some of the serial batches where never finished or where startet before war and finished after the WWII)
  3. There is a captain Stepanoff that ordered 3,6M RM of optics for projectors and the FED camera and was scheduled until June 1946. The Soviets told CZJ that their FED camera was in line with the Leica I. Later CZJ got their hands on FED cameras and found out that there was a significant difference between the flange distance of the Leica and the FED. But when they did it was too late and they already manufactured all the lenses with the Leica measurements. In the report CZJ states that they purposely did not offer LTM versions of their lenses but they where forced to do so by the Soviet administration. The list of LTM lenses from the report
    1. Sonnar 1,5/5cm
    2. Sonnar 2/5cm
    3. Sonnar 2/8,5cm
    4. Sonnar 4/13,5cm
    5. Sonnar 2,8/18cm
    6. Sonnar 4/30cm
    7. Tessar 8/2,8cm
    8. Tele-Tessar 6,3/18cm
    9. Biogon 2,8/3,5
  4. CZJ was calculating to deliver all of the Soviet orders between February 1946 and January 1947.
  5. The Soviet orders where handled as highest priorities. Not only the orders directly for CZJ but for camera manufacturers with Soviet orders too. The orders kept CZJ in a way busy that they could sparely handle the requests from other firms in the Soviet zone and could not handle any orders from the US zone.
  6. A list from CZJ of immediate steps to take revealed that they needed to reconstruct all the lost design papers. A second task was to build up a manufacturing for Contax Sonnar lens frames ( Fassungen ). Those where build up to this point by Zeiss Ikon itself. Now that the Zeiss Ikon production was destroyed Jena had to redesign the frames and start the production of Contax and LTM lenses. The Soviet administration forced CZJ to offer the Contax lenses for their Russian FED camera. The lenses mentioned where
    1. Tessar 8/2,8cm
    2. Biogon 3,5/3,5cm
    3. Sonnar 2/8,5cm
    4. Sonnar 4/13,5cm
    5. Sonnar 2,8/18cm
    6. Sonnar 4/30cm
    7. Tessar 2,8/5cm
    8. Tessar 3,5/5cm
    9. Tele-Tessar 6,3/18cm
    10. Fernobjektiv 8/50cm
  7. When the Soviets learned that the US had requisitioned the Zeiss lens collection the Soviets insisted on getting an own collection too. Engineer Major Prof. Jachantoff from Optical Institute in Leningrad gave the order that from every manufactured device some examples should be provided to the Soviets to build up a second photo lens museum in Russia. The order was forced with the highest priority so that all departments were had to work on samples only and all other orders (even for the Soviet military) had to be stalled until this was finished. This caused some heavy delay in 1946 production.
  8. On 1946-10-22 CZJ got the Soviet order to dismantle the manufacturing in Jena. The whole production facility was moved to the FSU. CZJ got surprised by this order. They did not see this coming.
That are only bits from those reports and even if this sounds like a WWII heist movie that are only some highlights what had happened at that time.

What I found most interesting is the part about the Contax lens frames. I was suspecting this already and had written to some people researching the Dresden photo industry but got no answer about this. It seems that pre- and wartime Sonnar lenses were finished by Zeiss Ikon in Dresden. CZJ manufactured the lens in a screw mount and Zeiss Ikon manufactured the casing / frame / barrel in Contax mount. When Zeiss Ikon was destroyed at the end of WWII Jena had to start manufacturing the whole Contax lens and had to redesign the barrel. That explains why the design language changed so dramatically after WWII. Well ... the Sonnar 5cm is missing from the above list but I don't think that the Sonnar 5cm is an exception to this.

Another interesting part is the LTM mount version of lenses. So the US and primary Soviet administration forced CZJ to build LTM versions after WWII.

There is another list that shows a Sonnar 5cm f2 for Pau 2 (a photographic machine gun???). So there was military use for the Sonnar after the war too.

The report shows the chaos surrounding Zeiss and the German photographic industry in this time. Starvation, Tuberculosis and escape is mentioned not only for CZJ but other known companies too. It mentions quality issues and missing material and parts. You see departing interests and a lot of force. Even after giving the order to dismantle the Jena fabrication the Soviets did not stop to force CZJ to push the rebuild of the photographic production. Until June 1948 the Soviets controlled the whole planing of all photographic companies in East Germany.

The subsidiary companies tried to escape the control of Jena. Zeiss Opton became the head later. But even Zeiss Ikon in Dresden wanted to build their own optics. The report mentions that Zeiss Ikon utilized the Dresden Zeiss site (that was not destroyed) and that they were better prepared for that task than Meyer Görlitz of that time. CZJ tried to keep the control over all the German industry even in this years.The history of the Zeiss Ikon site in Dresden Reick lies mostly in the shadow for now. But you can find a CIA report from 1952 here. 😄
Click to expand...

Vielen Dank fuer Alles. That is a lot of work and deep research. And fortunately it seems you can understand Technical German. Immediate postwar Germany had to be just hellishly confusing and depressing. And there were a lot of low-level decisions over who got what. Fortunately Germany has been re-united and the immediate postwar Sturm und Drang is a distant memory. And still the CZJ lenses command respect over their design and manufacture, some almost a century old. So wie Oma sagtete, "Es ist immer Deutscher besser." ;o) Thanks for your persistent and excellent work.
 
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