Post-war Kodak Retina II (Type 011)

This Kodak Retina II was part of the revival of West German camera manufacturing from the devastation of the Second World War. Eastman Kodak Company had lost control of its German subsidiary, Kodak AG, because of the war and acted quickly to recover its investment after the war. The film factory was unavailable because it was in the Russian Zone. The camera factory was in the American Zone and therefore was in a better position to be restarted, although the plant had been converted to make fuzes for anti-aircraft projectiles and had damage from USAAF bombing raids. Production of new Retina cameras started in late 1945.

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My camera was made for the U S Army PX system in late 1947. It has a Kodak Ektar f/2 47 mm lens made by Eastman Kodak Co. in Rochester, New York. The lens has a serial number of EO7592, which indicates that the lens was made in 1946 (E = 4 and O = 6), and it has the circled "L" symbol that indicates it has anti-reflection coatings. Kodak had produced the same lens for the Kardon camera that was made by the Precision Instrument Co., New York, for the US Army Signal Corps. The shutter is a Deckel Compur Rapid shutter that is not synchronized for flash. It has a serial number 6166592, which indicates that the shutter was made in 1947. The body has a serial number of 114031. Shutter speeds run from 1 second to 1/500 second in the old shutter speed sequence of 1, 1/2, 1/5, 1/10, 1/25, 1/50, 1/100, 1/250 and 1/500, and the shutter has a B (bulb) setting. The shutter speeds run slow on my camera. I need to send it for service before I use it.

The camera has a knob wind and rewind. The shutter release plunger and the cable release socket are located on the body. You use a lever on the lens to cock the shutter because it is not cocked by winding the film. The exposure counter is manually reset to 1 and counts up. The top deck has an accessory shoe. I can slip a shoe mount light meter into mine. The rewind knob pulls up to make it a little easier to rewind the film. The rewind-advance selection lever is on the back of the camera.

The post-war Retina II resembles the pre-war Retina IIa, which was not sold in the USA.