1913-1921
Josef Schneider founded Optische Anstalt Jos. Schneider & Co. in Bad Kreuznach; early trademarks included Symmar, Componar and Isconar, and the firm adopted Jos. Schneider & Co., Optische Werke, Kreuznach in 1921.
Pentacon / Praktica and Schneider-Kreuznach
13 and 5 researched events on one shared scale. Pentacon / Praktica 1919–present, Schneider-Kreuznach 1913–present.
The axis stretches where either maker has research and collapses where neither does, so a year sits opposite the same year on both. Event counts differ because research depth differs, not because one company did less.
1910s
Kamera-Werkstaetten opens in Niedersedlitz
1919-1938
Kamera-Werkstaetten Guthe & Thorsch grew in Dresden-Niedersedlitz and passed into the Noble family era. The works built the technical and manufacturing base from which the Praktiflex and Praktica SLR lines emerged, while remaining distinct from the Zeiss Ikon branch that later contributed the Pentacon name.
Entwicklung der Dresdner Fotoindustrie · Kombinat VEB Pentacon Dresden, 1945-1998
1930s
1937-1939
The company built its Ringstrasse 132 factory in Bad Kreuznach, the address retained by the present headquarters.
Praktiflex establishes the SLR thread
1939-1945
The Praktiflex placed a compact 35 mm reflex body and interchangeable screw-mount lens at the center of the Niedersedlitz program. Wartime disruption and postwar dispossession broke the private company, but Siegfried Boehm and the factory carried the camera concept into the state-owned period.
1940s
Praktica adopts the M42 mount
1949-1958
The first Praktica appeared in 1949 with the M42 x 1 lens thread. FX generations added flash synchronization and internal diaphragm actuation, while Praktina and Praktisix projects showed that the same works could pursue proprietary professional and medium-format systems alongside the mass-market Praktica.
Vintage Manuals · Entwicklung der Dresdner Fotoindustrie · Heritage
1950s
1950s-1960s
Postwar work spanned cinema, spring-aperture SLR lenses, zoom development and OEM still-camera optics; the company dates a Xenotar 80mm f/2.8 on Lunar Orbiter IV to 1967.
Five factories form one enterprise
1959-1963
The East German state combined Kinowerke Dresden, Kamera-Werke Niedersedlitz, Altissa, Aspecta, and Welta as VEB Kamera- und Kinowerke Dresden. The new enterprise inherited overlapping cameras, projectors, factories, and skills, then began pruning and reorganizing them for coordinated production.
Pentacon: Kamera- und Optiktradition aus Sachsen · Kombinat VEB Pentacon Dresden, 1945-1998
1960s
Pentacon becomes the corporate name
1964-1967
VEB Kamera- und Kinowerke Dresden became VEB Pentacon Dresden in 1964. The new name joined the symbolism of five constituent factories with the established Contax-derived Pentacon camera name; Praktica, Pentina, Penti, and the new Pentacon Six remained product identities within the enterprise.
Pentacon: Kamera- und Optiktradition aus Sachsen · Entwicklung der Dresdner Fotoindustrie · Kombinat VEB Pentacon Dresden, 1945-1998
Praktica adds TTL and PL loading
1965-1969
Praktica mat introduced through-the-lens metering in 1965, and the PL loading system followed in 1967. The nova, Super TL, and PL electronic branches translated these advances into cameras aimed at different levels of automation without abandoning the broad M42 lens system.
Vintage Manuals · Entwicklung der Dresdner Fotoindustrie · Heritage
Pentacon combine absorbs neighboring traditions
1968-1984
Pentacon became the parent works of a combine in 1968, bringing the Goerlitz optical works and eastern Ihagee organization into a wider production network; other plants followed. Pentacon labels increasingly replaced older maker names, although design origin and factory responsibility remained product-specific.
Pentacon: Kamera- und Optiktradition aus Sachsen · Kombinat VEB Pentacon Dresden, 1945-1998
L series industrializes the metal shutter
1969-1989
The Praktica L platform introduced a metal-blade focal-plane shutter and supported a large family of mechanical, metered, electrically coupled, interchangeable-finder, and automatic-exposure bodies. LLC, PLC, VLC, EE, LTL, MTL, and Super TL variants kept M42 central for two decades.
1970s
1972-1985
Schneider formed its U.S. subsidiary, received cinema technical recognition, diversified, and integrated the B+W filter business.
B bayonet starts a new system
1979-1992
Praktica B cameras replaced the screw thread with an electrically coupled bayonet. B 200, B 100, BC, BCA, BCC, BCS, BM, and BMS bodies shared the new interface, while adapters accepted M42 lenses with reduced automation. Prakticar lenses became the native optical vocabulary.
Vintage Manuals · Praktica cameras and lenses · Praktica Lenses
1980s
Carl Zeiss Jena absorbs the combine
1985-1990
Kombinat VEB Pentacon entered the larger Carl Zeiss Jena combine in 1985. Cameras, lenses, and precision products were now planned inside an even broader state organization, just as the BX generation attempted to modernize the Praktica bayonet line before political and monetary union.
Pentacon: Kamera- und Optiktradition aus Sachsen · Kombinat VEB Pentacon Dresden, 1945-1998 · Heritage
1990s
Treuhand orders Pentacon liquidation
1990-1991
Pentacon Dresden GmbH was formed in July 1990, but the Treuhand announced liquidation on 2 October. The decision dismantled the large state enterprise, displaced thousands of workers, and scattered assets and records. Schneider and Noble successors carried different pieces of the Dresden tradition forward.
Kombinat VEB Pentacon Dresden, 1945-1998 · 02.10.1990: Die erste grosse Insolvenz
Schneider successor finishes the BX line
1991-2001
A smaller Schneider-associated successor began work in Dresden in 1991 and later became PENTACON GmbH Foto- und Feinwerktechnik. It continued the Praktica BX 20 S into 2001 while shifting toward precision engineering and scanner products; later branded compacts did not represent the old SLR factory system.
History of Schneider-Kreuznach · VEB Pentacon Dresden - Vom DDR-Grossbetrieb zum Niedergang des Dresdner Kamerabaus
1997–present
The group added or reorganized Pentacon, Century Precision Optics, Asian subsidiaries and ISCO-related operations; current headquarters and legal identity remain in Bad Kreuznach.
2000s
Praktica trademark outlives Dresden cameras
2001–present
After Dresden SLR production ended, Praktica continued on imported compact and digital cameras and later outdoor optics. Pentacon GmbH ceased operating and was removed from the register in 2024, while Praktica Limited maintains the consumer brand: continuity of name without continuity of the historic camera works.
Heritage · VEB Pentacon Dresden - Vom DDR-Grossbetrieb zum Niedergang des Dresdner Kamerabaus
Read either maker on its own: Pentacon / Praktica · Schneider-Kreuznach