I can remember when Zeiss or Leica cameras were the cameras to own. My first "proper" camera was a folding Zeiss Ikon Nettar folding camera taking 2.25in by 2.25in photos on roll film. This was in the mid-1950s.
In the 1960s, my father had a 35mm Zeiss Ikon Contaflex Super SLR and also, later after he had sold then and then restarted photography, a second hand rollfilm Zeiss Ikon Ikonta I bought him as a present (it was maybe even a Super Ikonta).
In those days, there were also Carl Zeiss cameras and my first 35mm camera was a Carl Zeiss Werra.
The reason for there being two Zeiss camera makers was WW2. The old Carl Zeiss factory was in East Germany, but many of the workers there had fled to West Germany at the end of the war to avoid the Russian occupation of the region. There were long legal tussles over names and tradmarks and names, and eventually the West German company was recognised as Zeiss Ikon and the East German one as Carl Zeiss Jena.
I actually still have a pre-war Zeiss Ikon Ikoflex 1 twin-lens reflex camerain working order. I must try it out.
Entirely irrelevant to Playmobil, but your knowledge has been enlarged.
