witzerland stands at the forefront of the global mechanical watch sector, having exported 16.9 million units in 2023 for a total CHF 25.5 billion. This hasn’t always been the case. A longstanding rivalry pitted the French against the English, with watchmakers on both sides of the Channel driving horological innovation, not least in the early eighteenth century to develop the marine chronometers that would give their nation dominance at sea.

Germany is another country to have established an identity and a market position in watchmaking, as shown in this series of articles.

The construction of tower clocks in Germany in the sixteenth century provided the first examples of local expertise. Some even credit Peter Henlein, a locksmith and clockmaker in Nuremberg, as the maker of the first portable watch, in 1504. Academic debates aside, there is an established tradition of clock and watchmaking in Germany which, like Switzerland, benefited from the arrival of Huguenots fleeing France following the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685.

The first portable watch, attributed to Nuremberg clockmaker Peter Henlein

From the eighteenth century, two towns emerged as strongholds for watch production in Germany. They were Pforzheim, in the southwest, and Glashütte, near Dresden in the eastern state of Saxony. The first factory making watches and jewellery was established in Pforzheim in 1760 by Jean-François Autran, a French master jeweller. Today, brands such as Junghans and Hanhart carry on this tradition. At the same time, Glashütte – which had prospered from its nearby silver mines - became the second epicentre of Germany’s watch industry. The town is still home to several of the country’s leading makers, including A. Lange & Söhne, Glashütte Original and Nomos.

Europa Star, 1991

Friedrich Gutkaes (1785-1845) was one of the country’s most renowned watchmakers (his pocket watches are part of the collections at the German Clock Museum in Furtwangen in the Black Forest). In 1841 he took on his most famous apprentice, Ferdinand Adolph Lange, at his workshop in Glashütte. This would be the beginning of the town’s rise as the heart of Germany’s watch industry. As the greatest minds raced to build a precise and reliable marine chronometer, Lange took over his master’s workshop and established his factory in Glashütte.

As in France and England, watchmaking developed in Germany partly in response to military needs. After the Navy, the armed forces commissioned Germany’s manufacturers to produce Beobachtungsuhren or pocket observation chronometers which were issued to officers. Also around this time, smaller movements were being fitted into wristwatches.

Pilots with Laco pilot’s watches ©Laco Uhrenmanufaktur GmbH

In the early twentieth century, marked by two World Wars, it was commonplace for German brands to use Swiss movements. One brand, Laco, decided to produce its own calibres and in 1933 set up a movement factory under the Durowe name. By 1940 Durowe was making 300,000 calibres a year and supplying multiple German brands. The war effort would boost watchmaking throughout Germany, which post-Second World War was divided into two blocs.

Glashütte found itself in communist East Germany. The region’s watch manufacturers were expropriated and grouped into the state-owned Glashütter Uhrenbetrieb (GUB) conglomerate, which produced standardised watches on an industrial scale. Quality manufacturing was put on hold until the fall of the Berlin Wall, in 1989, and the revival of Germany’s watch industry along with many of its legacy brands.

Visitors at a trade fair look at clocks by VEB Mechanik Glashütter Uhrenbetriebe ©Deutsche Fotothek

Today, depending on the brand, German watches offer craftsmanship, precision, value and utilitarian design. An alternative to Swiss-made, the industry is nonetheless still tied to Switzerland. Since 2000 two of its leading representatives, A. Lange & Söhne and Glashütte Original, are owned by Swiss multinationals Richemont and Swatch Group. Similarly, as we shall see over the course of this series, while some manufacturers produce their movements in-house, many independent German brands continue to equip their watches with Swiss calibres.

Europa Star, 2001