1950
- 61 Contax II(a) is a completely redesigned camera from the Contax II.
After the end of World War II the Soviet occupying forces removed the
Zeiss Dresden factory lock, stock and barrel to Kiev in the Ukraine.
They had the plans, the die and tooling and the personnel (as many
employees as they could catch) and so created the Kiev line of cameras,
an identical post war version of the pre war Contax II (and III).
Faced with the prospect of retooling, Zeiss decided to completely
redsign the camera from the ground up. Flash synch was added to the
back of the top plate. This is a later 'color dial' version (1954 on)
with the shutter speeds painted in different colors. These cameras (and
lenses) were made in Stuttgart as Dresden and Jena was now in Soviet
territory. This example has a Zeiss-Opton f2 / 50mm