Pentacon

[ced]

Hope this doesn't intrude on infringements. Thought some regulars may enjoy this clip on the Pentacon group.

 

[AgX]

Pentacon was the largest german camera manufacturer, and the most longlived of those of substantial size.

This firm could have formed a stronghold against the japanese competition, had it been more flexible and had it got better access to microelectronics.
Nevertheless Pentacon got into the top league with their Praktica family concerning production figures. And one may argue that by sheer mass of typically more budget cameras it was profitable nonetheless.

However the business model of Pentacon for their cameras relied on the export for valuta. With the introduction of the Deutsche Mark in the GDR this concept collapsed.

The structure of GDR industry did not yield the chance of firms to get the valuta they earned into owns hands to source directly those investment goods not available on own soil. This made keeping up often difficult.

Especially for a country with few natural goods exporting high value technical goods is of major importance. If that was realized by the government also for the photo-optical industry can be questioned.

My impression of the GDR industry is that the government had a strong inclination to just have cash cow industries running as they are.
(To be fair, there had indeed been some large investment-programs, as for the chemical industry.)

In a world becoming more and more complex technically, there easily may come up new technics that are crucial, that form bottlenecks. Microelectronics was such bottleneck.
A bottleneck that was also politically intended by the Western World (esp. the USA). Something not to be overlooked when discussing Eastern-Block industries !


Of course one may ask what would have happened if earned valuta was free to the respective firms. To be spent on possible future earnings. What would the people say if goods for their daily lifes would not have been imported instead.
Things very fast get complicated in such decision-making...

 

[guangong]

One important obstacle for communist socialism is that management must be party functionaries first, and then secondarily managers.
Why, after years of production of Pentagon 66, was no attempt made to rectify faulty frame spacing on cameras right out of the factory?
I was presented with a 66 in 1970s. Surely they didn’t deliberately make a gift of a faulty camera.

 

[AgX]

No, managers had not be party functionaries. They were either specialists or economists. But at their side they had a firm-own party-secretary.

 

[markjwyatt]

I think the correct perspective (and AgX will correct me if wrong ) is that Pentacon survived on the momentum of the parts of Zeiss Ikon, Carl Zeiss, and other great German companies it swallowed up. This momentum kept them alive in spite of the huge burden of suddenly having a communist system imposed on them. Most of the great cameras they produced were based on older designs, but with some improvements. No doubt significant talent stayed within Petnacon, and they did succeed as best they could. When it came time where innovation was needed, communist systems fail. As a related example (tying into the communist issue) I have a Kiev 4a. It is a great camera and a great design. It was built in 1978, but is really a slightly modified mid-1930s design. I like the LTL/MTL Pentacons because they have a vertical travelling metal shutter. This is not a revolutionary shutter design, but likely based on Ernamann/Goerz/Contax designs. I wonder how many employees (especially talented designers and engineers, but really all employees) were truly enthusiastic working to be the Soviet system's showpiece company? I see some East German propaganda films and see the workers they interview and the subtle expressions on their faces and wonder how wonderful they really feel their system was. I am sure there were some employees who found opportunity in the system. But to their credit, even under this political pressure they managed to produce some great cameras. Politics do matter, especially in cases of extreme political changes.

 

[AgX]

I think the correct perspective (and AgX will correct me if wrong ) is that Pentacon survived on the momentum of the parts of Zeiss Ikon, Carl Zeiss, and other great German companies it swallowed up. This momentum kept them alive in spite of the huge burden of suddenly having a communist system imposed on them.

Not quite true, as Pentacon only evolved during the times of the GDR, starting just as the Dresden part of Zeiss Ikon, which had been legally cut off from Zeiss. Over time it swallowed up all GDR camera manufacturers except for the miniscule production by Zeiss Jena. But in the end it hit Pentacon themselves. In 1985 they got swallowed by Zeiss Jena, who by that turned into a super-combine.

The growth of Pentacon can be looked at from different pespectives. The bundling of forces, the no-competition situation made them stronger, the same time the unification and concentration of research may have led to a lack of innovation.
Nonetheless Pentacon was the origin of many "firsts" in camera design.