OTS 'Venus B' Zeisig II 'Prototype'

Prototype of a clandestine secret service camera from the HVA (East German foreign secret service) for Minox film cassettes. The lens is a focusing Carl Zeiss Tessar 2.8/16mm in a tiny three-prongs bayonet mount. Rotating lamellar shutter with six different exposure times, rapid advance lever, automatic frame counter. To keep the camera flat (dimensions: 36 x 17 x 10mm) the negative is exposed via a 45° mirror (not unlike the Swiss Tessina). The finder is a large 1:1 Albada type with manual parallax correction. For the series production the original design was simplified in several respects (lens, shutter, finder), but nevertheless it proved overly complicated and unreliable in actual use after a short time, so the already produced examples were destroyed. This prototype is the only survivor. Provenance: the designer of the camera Klaus Wöllner, working for the OTS (workshop for design and manufacture of spy devices of the East German secret service) from 1969-1990 (with his certificate of authenticity)