I have a »Leitaxed« Distagon 2.8/28, a magnificent lens. Mounted on my full-frame Canon I use it quite a lot for town- & landscape photos.
Stopped down to 4.0 ~ 5.6 centre sharpness is just unbelievable, gently easing off towards the edges. Bokeh is beautiful.
If you're looking for the magic words »Made in Germany« you're not in luck: both the AE- & the MM-version were only built in Japan.
To the best of my knowledge both versions are optically identical; at least I've never come across any hard evidence (that is: documentation from Zeiss) to suggest otherwise.
Both the AE- & MM-version can be »Leitaxed«, but mounting a MM-adapter is easier (an arguably more solid, with 4 screws to the outer-rim of the lens).
MM-versions of the Distagon 28 have serial-numbers >6.800.00 and the »22« marking on the aperture-ring is green (white on the AE-version).
I've never owned or used either of the 2 Elmarits.
What I do know is that the Elmarit-2nd-version (with built-in, rectangular lens-hood) has »floating elements«, so close-up performance should be superior. But then again, the combination of the concepts »wide-angle« and »close-up« is, at least to me, not that obvious.
An Elmarit-II costs 4 to 5 (!) times as much as a Distagon.