If you do a search for “German Pentax” you will likely come across a reference to a German camera. Of course the name brand Pentax is most often associated with Japan’s Asahi Optical, but it wasn’t always the case. The name Pentax started life behind the Iron Curtain at VEB Zeiss Ikon Dresden. Zeiss Ikon was one of the photographic companies formed in East Germany after the division of Germany into East and West.

In 1954 Zeiss Ikon, based in Dresden, began work on a new 35mm camera. It was designed to use the new Zeiss 50mm f/2.8 lens, but was quite radical from a design perspective, looking more like a 120 film camera of the period. There only seem to be prototypes of this camera, and if you want to learn more you can check out the post on Marco Kroger’s website zeissikonveb.de. He says the first version of the camera was intended to be a 6×4.5 120-film camera, with the film loaded in removable cassettes. The page includes some interesting technical drawings of the camera.

But where did the name Pentax come from? Well due to the division of a number of German camera companies, there were some issues with product naming, mostly related to trademark infringement. As East German companies wanted to sell their products in the West, they often had to come up with new names. For example the name Contax was already being used by the West German Contax company. To circumvent this, East German companies often created portmanteau words by blending two words. For example, Pentacon was derived from “PENTAprism” and “CONtax”. Therefore it is thought that the registered trademark Pentax was derived from PENaprism ConTAX.

Because Zeiss Ikon had a name but no camera, it sold the name to Asahi in 1954 who attached it to their first Pentaprism SLR in 1957 – the Asahi Pentax.