Past perfect

A century of geopolitical upheaval has made Glashütte the horological hotspot it is today, says James Gurney

As they approach significant anniversaries, Glashütte’s watchmaking firms couldn’t be in better health. A. Lange & Söhne is marking 25 years since its rebirth, while next year it will be three decades since the state-owned GUB ( VEB Glashütter Uhrenbetriebe) was privatised as Glashütte Original and since Nomos Glashütte was founded.

All these beginnings took place in the aftermath of the reunification of Germany following the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. At that point, the political upheaval would have looked like a disaster in the making for the small town where GUB was the sole large employer and its traditional export markets within the Soviet bloc were in turmoil. The town, however, had been there before.

After the Second World War, the occupying Russian forces removed all the machinery and tooling, leaving the watchmakers to start again from scratch, only to be nationalised in 1951. But, while being the wrong side of the Iron Curtain meant losing access to critical components, it also provided a captive market – both domestically and within the Eastern bloc.

During the 1960s and 1970s, GUB developed new movements and produced timepieces that collectors are starting to accord their proper value – witness Glashütte Original’s commercially successful reprise of designs from the era such as this year’s SeaQ.

So, while the demise of the DDR certainly caused a massive shock, the restraints it had imposed produced the seeds of the town’s revival, and when GUB was finally privatised, it was more self-sufficient than all but a few Swiss brands.

The town’s watchmaking expertise drew interest and money from the West. One of the quickest off the block was Roland Schwertner, who founded Nomos Glashütte in 1990 and was selling the first Tangente watches within two years. GUB itself was a more difficult proposition, but was finally passed into the hands of Heinz W. Pfeifer in 1994.

Despite scepticism among the remaining

workforce, he transformed the company, reviving production and sales and even putting in place plans to convert the dingy GUB factory into the light-filled manufacture it is today. He sold the business into the Swatch Group in 2000, paving the way for the brand to become an international player.

Walter Lange’s story is the most poignant, though. When his family firm was nationalised, he was warned he would be sent to the uranium mines, but he escaped to West Germany and set up as a watchmaker. When the DDR collapsed, he saw the opportunity in his old hometown and founded A. Lange & Söhne with Günter Blümlein, a visionary with links to IWC and Jaeger-LeCoultre.

These three formed the core around which Glashütte has grown. There are now 11 watch firms in the town, ranging from toolwatch brand Mühle-Glashütte to the handmade masterpieces of Moritz Grossmann, and it draws watchmakers from Europe and further afield, with Nomos employing some 20 nationalities in its 300-strong workforce.

Reunification has not been a universal boon for the former DDR, but Glashütte, with its outward looking stance, is a beacon of hope.

The restraints of the Eastern bloc produced the seeds of Glashütte’s revival

Right: Walter Lange turning a spindle in Glashütte in 1946, two years before A. Lange & Söhne was nationalised; below, the Nomos Tangente, an example of Glashütte watchmaking, postreunification; inset, right, interior of the watch assembly line at the state-owned GUB, circa 1960