GLASHUTTE

Glashütte (pronounced gläs-hyu-teh) is a town in the German state of Saxony, some 30 kilometers north of Dresden, the state capital, and about the same distance east of the Czech border. The village is set in a valley gorged by the Müglitz river, which flows from the Erzgebirge (German meaning "iron ore mountain range").

Glashütte was formed around 1450, and its foundation was largely influenced by mining in the Erzgebirge mountain range that surrounded it. The discovery of silver gave the town its name, Glashütte (German for "glass hut" or "bright hut"). In 1506 the settlement was elevated to the status of a city.

The region's silver mining industry lasted only a few decades, after which the small but prosperous town fell on hard times. For over a century, the area was devastated by the 90 Years War, the Northern War, and the Seven Years War. Due to discoveries in the New World, the price of silver fell, and by 1780, Glashütte had a population of barely 500 people.

In 1791, a devastating fire engulfed Glashütte, destroying over half of the town's structures. The war of 1806, which lasted until 1813, brought much more hardship, prompting many to flee to Dresden and higher land.

In a not-yet-united Germany, Saxony proved to be an industrially powerful region in the nineteenth century. Saxony, as a sovereign state, was in the forefront of several industries at the time, and its first railroad, connecting Dresden and Berlin, opened in 1839.

However, because to its isolation, the eastern Erzgebirge region was left out of the upswing. Glashütte's municipal council made its first appeal for assistance to the Saxon government in 1831. The government waited years to respond (some things never change! ), and when it did, it advertised for tradesmen to help generate jobs in "emergency" regions.

If this were a Hollywood script, I believe Ferdinand Adolph Lange would have stepped in at this moment as the deus ex machina, swooping down to save the collapsing metropolis. But this was a true tale, not a Hollywood movie, even if it makes for a fantastic narrative today.

F.A. Lange, often known as "Adolph," ended up playing the role of knight in shining armor, responding to the government's request with a far-reaching, far-seeing idea aimed at not only assisting the dying region but also establishing a new, structured watchmaking industry one step at a time.

In Saxony, watchmaking was on the rise, with clocks and maritime chronometers in high demand. It was 1843, and Lange, the Dresden court watchmaker, responded by giving Privy Councilor von Weissenbach a detailed plan for a pocket watch factory in this impoverished region.

Lange waited over a year for a response — to no avail. He re-sent his concept on May 14, 1844, and things began to move swiftly after that. He got a response five days later, and the contract between Lange and the state of Saxony was signed on May 31, 1845.

Lange's responsibilities were numerous at first, but his incentives were minimal. Because his aims were to establish a whole grass-roots industry for the better welfare of the structurally disadvantaged community, he consented to numerous responsibilities beyond those of a typical entrepreneur.

Lange pledged to train 15 new watchmaker apprentices in the next three years. Because these apprentices were all from Glashütte, Lange searched for those who appeared to have the best manual dexterity — and many of them were basket weavers. None of them had any watchmaking experience.

Lange was given 6,700 talers (the currency at the time) for his start-up, with 1,170 talers put aside for schooling and tools. After finishing their apprenticeships, the trainees were required to work for Lange for another five years. They were obligated to repay the government 24 Neugroschen every week (30 Neugroschen = one taler) for their schooling and tools, which they were allowed to keep for those five years.

To give you a sense of how much money this could have been, a trainee earning three to six talers a week worked an average of 12 hours per day, including Saturday. Between 1848 and 1854, Lange was also required to repay a debt of 5,530 talers.

Lange hired a modest workshop on Glashütte's Hauptstraße ("Main Street") and envisaged a yearly production of 600 watches despite scant government financing and apprentices unfamiliar with the task.

Without large-scale equipment, this is an unusually enormous number of timepieces. Lange's plan was to break up the work such that each of his staff was in charge of accomplishing certain tasks. At the time, division of labor was a novel concept in German watchmaking.

Lange's idea also includes something that is still important in modern Glashütte: having the highest rate accuracy feasible when the watch leaves the manufacture. Before leaving the workshops, all Lange timepieces were to be controlled and timed, which was a novel notion in watchmaking at the time: watches were normally timed and regulated by the watchmaker who sold them at retail.

The measures Lange utilized were also novel. The French ligne, which is equivalent to 2.5558 mm, had been the standard size measurement in watchmaking until then. Even though the metric system was not officially used in Germany for measurement until 1875, Lange introduced it and used it completely at his workshop.

In many aspects, F. A. Lange was ahead of his time, and he even designed a few new instruments that are still used today to support the new measurement method.

Despite the fact that Lange's factory went on to become famous all over the globe, his mentality was selfless: his goal was to develop an industry for the greater good.

Given this, it's understandable why he didn't have all of his trainees complete their five-year commitments. After finishing their apprenticeships, he pushed them to specialize and become self-employed. In this way, Glashütte's one-man business would evolve into a cottage industry, creating not just independent watchmakers but also specialised suppliers.

Friedrich August Adolf Schneider was one of the guys Lange was able to persuade to join his expedition in Glashütte (1824-1878). Schneider was a previous apprentice of Lange's father-in-law, Johann Christian Friedrich Gutkaes, in Dresden at the same time as F. A. Lange, and was also connected to him through marriage, as he had betrothed Antonia née Gutkaes, Lange's younger sister.

Lange's first "factory foreman," Schneider, was the first watchmaker Lange encouraged to open a second location. Schneider began making his own watches in 1855, however they were never as well-known as Lange's. After Adolf Schneider's death in 1878, his son Woldemar Schneider took over the Glashütter Uhrenfabrik Adolf Schneider.

After Schneider became independent, Julius Assmann (1827-1886) moved to Glashütte to fill Schneider's job. Assmann established his own factory, the J. Assmann Deutsche Anker Uhren Fabrik, in 1852 to produce precise pocket watches. Assmann was a skilled craftsman, and his timepieces were regarded as highly as Lange's at the time. This corporation was in operation until 1926. After his first wife died, Assmann married F. A. Lange's oldest daughter, Marie Antonie Lange.

In the 1890s, Uhrenfabrik Union Dürrstein & Co. and Ernst Kasiske were created, however Dürrstein's did not survive until 1926.

Kasiske, a Lange factory regulator, was an early supporter of machine manufacturing. In 1904, he partnered with a prominent wholesaler from Berlin for financial reasons, and the two of them created Glashütter Präzisionsuhrenfabrik Akt. Ges. The annual production of this manufacture was around 1,000 watches.

Moritz Grossmann, the fourth of Glashütte's "founding fathers," was perhaps the most influential Glashütte watchmaker after Lange. In 1878, Grossmann established the German School of Watchmaking, ensuring Glashütte's destiny as a world-renowned watchmaking hub.

Grossmann was also encouraged by Lange to go it alone, and he began producing measuring instruments based on his own and F. A. Lange's ideas, as well as precise pocket watches and other accessories. Grossmann was the industry's initial intellectual founder, and his first publication, The Detached Lever Escapement, was published by the Horological Institute in London in 1864. Grossmann became well-known in worldwide horological circles as a result of this and subsequent volumes.

The booming watch industry in Glashütte, as well as the national and international attention it sparked, spawned a slew of new businesses, both in watchmaking and precision engineering. In 1869, Robert Mühle established his enterprise for the manufacture of measuring instruments, which became a major supplier in Glashütte since it was the only city in the world that measured in millimeters and tenths of millimeters at the time.

Despite the fact that the watch industry was crucial to Mühle's business, it wasn't his primary source of revenue. Tachometers and rev counters were among the other measurement gadgets he created. Mühle began producing dashboard instrumentation for vehicles around the turn of the century.

In 1908, a fascinating chapter in Glashütte's history began, one that would later repeat itself in some ways.

Nomos-Uhr-Gesellschaft Guido Müller u. Co. Glashütte was created to capitalize on the good name that Glashütte had achieved thanks to the hard work of its founding fathers. Guido Müller, a businessman from Saxony, arrived in the region with his brother-in-law and a watch technician from Biel, Switzerland, with an aggressive marketing strategy: they presented their Swiss-made watches to various reputable people in the region, asking only for a few remarks and a photograph.

They created the first catalog of its sort based on this. Solvent farmers and village preachers received this catalog. Müller rapidly needed to engage ten more watchmakers to regulate and manage the Swiss watches before they left the Glashütte premises since the idea was so effective at first.

The advertising and catalog texts did not make it clear where these watches came from, and it was at this point that Ferdinand Adolph Lange's successors stepped in to protect the reputation of F. A. Lange's life's work; Ferdinand Adolph Lange had died in 1875, and the company was now led by his sons Richard and Emil. For approximately five years, A. Lange & Söhne and Müller battled it out in the courts, but in the end, Lange prevailed, and Müller was forced to be more precise with his written words. Guido Müller's Nomos came to an end after that, and the firm was dissolved in 1911.

This period in Glashütte's history revealed that not every component of a Glashütte watch was made in Glashütte in every case at the time. The court's verdict, however, made the rule clear: for the word Glashütte to be placed on the dial, at least 50% of the value of the watch must come from Glashütte. The original Guido Müller Nomos firm was unable to complete the task and withdrew from the market.

In 1914, World War I erupted, leaving a trail of shuttered companies in its wake. Pocket watches were no longer popular after WWII; instead, newfangled wristwatches were fashionable.

Not only did the industries have to recover from the war, but they also had to be re-equipped to meet the new demand.

Although Glashütte pocket watches were the most exact, Swiss pocket watches were just as precise — and far cheaper, since the neutral Swiss had already begun mass-producing components. In 1914, a Glashütte pocket watch with a gold case cost 400 marks, whilst a comparable Swiss clock cost 250 marks.

During World War I, the whole German watch industry came to a halt, and in 1917, the country's united government sought desperately to persuade some of the watchmakers to reopen. It was having trouble obtaining Swiss clocks on credit, and it was barely able to provide accurate timekeepers to its uniformed personnel.

The future remained unknown, but on November 19, 1918, Deutsche Präzisions-Uhrenfabrik Glashütte e.G.m.H. (DPUG) was founded with the goal of producing precision pocket watches in a more logical, industrialized way than its predecessors. This new venture got off to a fast start, as Saxons are known for their enthusiasm. DPUG had 50 workers by the end of December, despite the fact that the fledgling firm had difficulty getting off the ground with its manufacturing.

Glashütte was afflicted by a new type of disease - sourcing components – and was unable to obtain watch crystals. The crystals had previously come from the Alsace-Lorraine area, where the crystal industry had been decimated by the war's conclusion. Although DPUG was able to import some from Czechoslovakia, it was insufficient.

In 1919, DPUG established the independent firm Uhrengläser deutscher Uhrmacher e.G.m.b.H. in neighboring Teuchern as a result of this. DPUG constructed a new industrial facility in 1921 to house its 212 employees.

DPUG was producing 350 watches each month, a figure that the whole Glashütte watch industry had never been able to match up to that moment. When Glashütter-Feinmechanischen-Werkstätten e.G.m.b.H. was formed in 1923 to manufacture watchmakers' tools, things appeared to be looking up for the little town, but looks were misleading. In 1925, both the tooling plant and DPUG went bankrupt.

Meanwhile, A. Lange & Söhne was adapting to the changing circumstances, albeit slowly, in order to survive the harsh economic climate. The business, now led by F. A. Lange's grandsons Otto, Rudolf, and Gerhard, designed a new, less costly watch, the OLIW, which stood for Original Lange Industry Watch, and went into production in 1928.

The term "Industry" in the name indicated that this was no longer a wholly handcrafted timepiece. The idea was to create timepieces and cases that were less costly and more modern. Classic Glashütte timepieces were just too pricey and out of date for the postwar market.

Both the Alpina Union Horlogère Glashütte Sachs. G.m.b.H. and the Uhren-Fabrikation Otto Estler Glashütter Sa were created in the years leading up to World War I. Both of these firms utilized Swiss ébauches and completed them in Glashütte with Glashütte components. Both enterprises were liquidated after the war, with Estler closing owing to the death of its owner in 1924 and Alpina closing in 1922.

A. Lange & Söhne was the only Glashütte firm to withstand Germany's post-World War I economic catastrophe. In Saxony, almost six million people were unemployed at the time.

One of Glashütte's most intriguing periods of history began at this moment. DPUG had previously received considerable sums of credit from Dresden's Giro-Zentrale Sachsen, a non-profit bank, which were lost when the firm went bankrupt in 1925. To make up for the losses, the bank decided to start a new business. The bank's board was enthusiastic about establishing an ébauche plant in Glashütte, owing to Pforzheim's recent triumphs.

Giro-Zentrale Sachsen formed Uhren-Rohwerke-Fabrik Glashütte AG (Urofa) and Uhrenfabrik Glashütte AG (Urofa) on December 7, 1926, 81 years to the day after Ferdinand Adolph Lange formally began the Glashütte watch manufacture (Ufag).

Urofa, which is 100% owned by the bank, was founded to produce ébauches for sale in Glashütte and other parts of Germany, notably Pforzheim.

Ufag, on the other hand, was founded to produce whole watches utilizing around 8% of Urofa's output: they were known as Tutima-level movements and were produced solely for the firm.

Urofa was Germany's first ébauche manufacturer, and it followed Swiss models. Its ébauches, which included base plates with bridges, cocks, winding, and hand-setting mechanisms, were shipped to specific manufacturers and assembly experts, complete with jewels, adorned surfaces, and galvanic treatment, ready for assembly. Other than that, the "manufacturers" handled everything.

The two firms immediately achieved high reputations in the watch industry, thanks to Dr. Ernst Kurtz's combined management and the fact that they were established in DPUG's previous facilities.

Urofa was profitable by 1934. Urofa and Ufag, however, were obliged to work in the military business beginning in 1938 in preparation for World War II. By 1940, the enterprises' own productions had ceased in favor of full-time government service.

Urofa was tasked with constructing the company's most renowned wrist chronograph, the Caliber 59, in 1941. This is also the movement that gave birth to Tutima's most renowned watch, the original Tutima pilot's chronograph from the 1940s. Urofa and Ufag produced roughly 1,200 of these timepieces each month for the German military forces.

Meanwhile, due to rising maritime and aviation activity, A. Lange & Söhne was experiencing a resurgence by the end of the 1930s. For their navigational demands, these specialists required precise watches, and Lange produced numerous superb maritime chronometers during this period.

The Glashütte watch business was not just grounded; it was blasted to the ground one hundred years after it was founded. Russian soldiers bombarded Glashütte on May 8, 1945, only hours before the war officially ended, demolishing most of the remaining industries. Everything that wasn't bombed was given to the occupying forces, including intellectual property, and moved to Russia.

You can't keep a good watchmaker down, and Saxons are the last to give up, no matter how dire the situation appears. Despite the grim outlook after the end of World War II, the years that followed were significantly worse.

Tutima benefited the most by Dr. Kurtz's decision to flee Glashütte before the war ended, taking Tutima with him to the West.

Lange reintroduced the Calibers 28 and 28.1, the only wristwatch movements A. Lange & Söhne produced prior to Germany's split, and was able to supply them in 1949.

Urofa and Ufag made a valiant effort to get back on their feet in 1946, creating a few watches on rudimentary machinery using scrap components.

But it was all for naught: on June 30, 1946, the German Democratic Republic's "people" took control of most of Glashütte's watch and precision engineering enterprises, becoming VEB Mechanik Dresden. VEB stands for volkseigener Betrieb, which translates to "people's business." VEB Urofa did survive on its own for a while, and by 1947, it was able to resume serial production.

VEB Glashütter Uhrenbetriebe (GUB) was created on July 1, 1951, and all of Glashütte's individual watchmakers were expropriated and herded into the one massive corporation.

VEB Urofa, comprising Ufag, VEB Lange, VEB Feintechnik (previously Gössel u. Co.), VEB Messtechnik (formerly Mühle & Son), VEB Estler, VEB Liwos (formerly Otto Lindig), and the Glashütte School of Watchmaking were the firms that made up GUB.

GUB was the sole watch business in Glashütte during the communist era in East Germany. It was a monstrously enormous company, with almost 2,000 employees. From circa 1954, GUB continued to produce mechanical watches, including automatic clocks. GUB worked out quartz technology for the East Bloc when the quartz watch entered the Swiss industry in the late 1960s.

After the war, Walter Lange, F. A. Lange's great-grandson and a watchmaker in the family business, fled to the West. The collapse of the Berlin Wall, among other political upheavals, provided him with the long-awaited chance to re-establish this most classic of all Glashütte enterprises.

With the help of Günter Blümlein's business genius, who had already reorganized IWC and Jaeger-LeCoultre following the quartz crisis, and the financial backing of the Mannesmann-VDO group, which owned the two above-mentioned manufactures, Lange was able to re-establish his family's company in Glashütte, where it belonged, on December 7, 1990, exactly 145 years after its initial founding. In 1994, the first contemporary A. Lange & Söhne collection hit the market.

In 1990, Heinz W. Pfeifer and associates, a businessman from a nearby western state, purchased the East German powerhouse Glashütter Uhrenbetriebe so that it would not be the sole luxury manufacturer in the little town. With its first new watch released in 1991, Pfeifer reformed GUB to the point that it is now a more than respectable and lucrative representation of Glashütte in the global markets.

GUB still had the rights to these names since it was founded as a conglomeration of all of the enterprises still in town prior to confiscation. GUB re-established the Union brand as a "little sister" in the Rolex/Tudor tradition, in addition to developing the Glashütte Original brand. This firm rose to such prominence in the industry as a result of its horological competence that it was bought by the world's largest watch maker, the Swatch Group of Switzerland, in 2000.

Before the collapse of the Berlin Wall, Hans-Jürgen Mühle, Robert Mühle's great-grandson, worked in distribution at GUB and rose through the ranks to become one of five managing directors. Following the successful sale of GUB, Mühle returned to Glashütte to re-found the firm that bears his name: Nautische Instrumente Mühle Glashütte.

And that renegade – Nomos – had a productive revival (in name only) when Roland Schwertner, a Düsseldorf watchmaker, recognized a chance to build something unique. In 1990, he purchased the name Nomos and established a modest watch manufacture in Glashütte, becoming the city's first brand following German reunification.

The Swiss Peseux Caliber 7001 was used in Nomos watches at first, but a historical reminder from A. Lange & Söhne and GUB (Glashütte Original) swiftly remedied the matter. The watches from Nomos Glashütte have progressed to the point where they are now driven by factory movements.

It was crucial to Schwertner to keep Glashütte's original essence alive. As a result, Nomos has expanded to numerous sites across the city, one of which is the city's first retail shop for a Glashütte-made watch. And this tiny Nomos Glashütte store is at Hauptstraße 12 - the same building where F. A. Lange founded the whole Glashütte industry 175 years ago.

Other brands have come and gone, but some have been around. Wempe Glashütte and Moritz Grossmann are two notable "newcomers."

Glashütte has undergone several changes with the reintroduction of western capitalism. With the clear economic rebound came a flood of new development and reconstruction.

However, in August 2002, the flood of the century – for much of Eastern Europe – forced a dam to burst above Glashütte in the Erz range, swelling both the normally placid Prießnitz and Müglitz rivers and destroying the town in a cascade of roaring floods. However, in true Glashütte fashion, the 2,500 locals and their assistants rose to their feet, brushed themselves off, and re-started the machines that were still operational.

Today, the city is nearly entirely dedicated to watches, with advanced machinery, huge brands, and well-known horology. Its watch business is expanding, attracting new suppliers to the area and its surroundings.

And, given the amount of great items the city today produces, it will undoubtedly continue to provide the horological globe with high-quality Saxony-made products for a long time.