At this point (if you’ve been reading), you know that WWII was absolutely devastating for German watchmaking industry, and it was a herculean effort to get it back on track. The majority of German watchmakers relied on the Marshall Plan and other governmental incentives, but it was a completely different story in Glashütte.
While West Germany was getting its scheiβe back together, East Germany was now under Soviet rule according to the Yalta and Potsdam Conferences. Lange and other Glashütte watchmakers would have likely shared the same post-war successes as Stowa and Laco in Pforzheim, but they unfortunately had to live under a communist economy. It didn’t take long before the Soviets brought together essentially all watchmaking capabilities of Glashütte into a publicly owned (read: state owned) company. What had formerly been known as A. Lange und Söhne, Glashütte S.A., R. Mühle und Sohn, and others – purveyors of precision timepieces in one of the watchmaking capitals of the world – was now a behemoth of government-run assembly lines. Due to the trade climate at the time, East Germany (or the DDR) was mostly self-reliant, which was a primary driver of the watchmaking consolidation.
Glashütte watchmaking – as it had been known – was dead in the water. This is where Lange’s history (and the others’ histories) disappears, and it becomes a 40-year black hole known as VEB Glashütter Uhrenbetriebe (GUB). It’s not to say GUB produced nothing of value, but the early calibers were largely based on existing Lange designs, and their more ‘proprietary’ early designs were pretty crude. If you know anything about Soviet-made automobiles, well, then, you get the idea.
Courtesy of Vintagetick.de
The 1960s and 1970s produced some watches that Glashütte Original uses today in their lineup, highlighted by the slim dress watches in their “Sixties” lineup, and the TV-case pieces in the “Seventies” line. GUB was doing their best to keep up with the rest of the market, creating a handful of movements featuring automatics, chronometer certifications, center sweep seconds, and thin calibers. Their most successful movement was dubbed the Spezimatic, which was produced for nearly 20 years, lasting until the mid-1980s. After further refinements were made, the Spezimatic became the Spezichron, and actually survived reunification. By the time Glashütte Original became the brand we know today, the Spezichron was still in service, just with a number of advancements and modifications.
Speaking of reunification, while GUB was heavily focused on pumping out their own movements, the rest of the world was focused on taking down the Iron Curtain. As soon as the wall came down, state-owned companies were having a fire sale. GUB was bought out by France Ebauches SA, and then sold to Treuhand-Anstalt shortly thereafter. This new privately owned period where much of its future was uncertain lasted from 1990 to 1994, when Heinz Pfeifer purchased Glashütte Uhrenbetrieb GmbH, and pointed it in the direction of haute horology as Glashütte Original.
Although Glashütte watchmaking wasn’t quite what it once was in terms of volume of high-level watchmakers, the know-how was still present. Many employees of GUB stayed on as it became Glashütte Original, and others had made the move to the new A. Lange und Söhne, founded by Ferdinand Adolph Lange’s great-grandson, Walter Lange, in 1990. The Lange we know today is realistically an entirely different company than the pre-war Lange, names aside. However, present-day Lange obviously tries to capture the spirit of the company that built Glashütte watchmaking all those years ago, and their current line of calibers and watches can no doubt stand on their own.
NOMOS Minimatik as seen at Baselworld 2015
Nomos is another Glashütte brand that capitalized on the opportunity to return watchmaking to the former “Uhrenstadt” (Watch City). Roland Schwertner wasted very little time, and opened up the offices of his new watch brand in a tiny Glashütte apartment just months after the Wall came down. It was an excellent – yet still risky – business move, as the German government was providing subsidies for new private businesses, helping kickstart the economy. To keep pricing reasonable, and to work within their very small budget, Nomos started with the ETA (Peseux) 7001 movement, and packaged them in a long-forgotten Bauhaus design. Since then, as we all know, Nomos has graduated to in house movements, and even in house escapements — all while still keeping prices reasonable.
Glashütte watchmaking has come a long way in the last 25 years, as they currently hold three of the best watchmakers in their respective segments of the market with Lange, Glashütte Original, and Nomos. The mechanical watch market is very different today than it was before WWII, but it’s safe to say Glashütte is once again a major hub for watchmaking. It’s a sleepy town that, pound-for-pound, compares well to any Swiss city, and we don’t see that changing anytime soon.
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