Ihagee
A brief history of Ihagee, Dresden, Germany:
In 1912 the Dutchman Johan Steenbergen founded in Dresden, Germany the Industrie- und Handelsgesellschaft to produce photo cameras. Soon the name was shortened to Ihagee, the way Germans pronounce IHG. This factory would become world famous for the design of the Exakta, world's first SLR for 35mm film. In 1918 six woodworkers joined Johan Steenbergen in the (from then on) Ihagee Kamerawerk Steenbergen & Co.
The company produced many normal camera models and much photographic equipment but also quite an amount of interesting models:
- Plan and Roll Paff Reflex (reflex boxes)
- Tropen Neugold (beautiful tropen version of the Patent Duplex)
- Zweiverschluss Duplex (with both central and focal plane shutter)
- Patent Klapp (Folding) Reflex (folding in a very peculiar way)
- Corona (wooden travel camera in 5 sizes)
- Parvola (with double-helical extension mechanism)
- VP (vest pocket) or Standard Exakta (3 years before the 35mm Exakta)
- Kine Exakta (introduced in 1936)
- Exakta Varex (the first SLR with interchangeable view-finders)
Johan Steenbergen left Germany during WWII and never returned. The premises were destroyed during the bombing of Dresden in april 1945.
In 1959 the seat of the company was officially moved to Frankfurt (i.e. from East to West Germany). This was in fact the foundation of a new company, later called Ihagee West. It designed and produced in 1966 a new Exakta model, the Exakta real, without much success. After Steenbergen's death in 1967, Ihagee West ordered and sold the Exakta TwinTL, built by Cosina. The company was dissolved in 1976.
Ihagee in Dresden has been very successful in the development and sales of the Exakta SLR. Its decline came in the end of the 1960's, when it was integrated in Pentacon, that produced the also very sucessful Praktica. The last Exakta model, the RTL 1000, was a co-development with a Praktica. Its life cycle ended in about 1973. It is possible that the company Ihagee still exists on paper.
Much more about the history of Ihagee can be found on ihagee.org (see external links below).