In-Depth Eight Little-Known Facts About A. Lange & Söhne In The 1990s

Welcome to '90s Week, where we're revisiting the raddest (and most underrated) watches of the decade, plus the trends and innovations that defined the end of the 20th century. Plug in your dial-up modem and grab a Crystal Pepsi. We'll be here all week.

The fact that today, over three decades later, the region is home to multiple thriving watch manufacturers is a remarkable achievement. And it wouldn't have been possible without the leadership and guidance of two men: Walter Lange and Günther Blümlein. 

A little over a year ago, I picked up a copy of Walter Lange's memoir, The Revival Of Time, and I wanted to share a few of the many details I learned about his experience reviving A. Lange & Söhne during the 1990s.

Although the watch industry remained in Glashütte throughout the GDR era, each of the former individual companies were expropriated in 1951 and merged to become VEB Glashütter Uhrenbetriebe (GUB). Starting in the mid-1970s, however, mechanical watch production mostly ceased and quartz watches took over, but there was still a robust manufacturing center with a large number of employees. 

In 1990 GUB had about 2,500 employees and was, measured by the productivity level of western companies, neither competitive nor fit for survival. – Walter Lange, The Revival Of Time

Despite the disappearance of the original company in the early 20th century, the Lange name maintained significant weight in Glashütte through the GDR era. To many Glashütte residents who felt the pressure of the Cold War, the Lange name maintained a sense of positivity associated with better times. 

The small team of Lange and Blümlein began work almost immediately in 1990 on the reborn A. Lange & Söhne company, with the financial support of the ​​Mannesmann industrial conglomerate. Former GUB employees under the technical leadership of Hartmut Knothe were poached and German watchmaking scholar Reinhard Meis was called on to help design the new watches, which were meant to help bring German watchmaking into the modern era. 

We were the largest investors in Glashütte and that the immaterial advantage for the city of the return of our company to the market could not even begin to be forecast. – Walter Lange, The Revival Of Time

After four years of work, on October 24, 1994, A. Lange & Söhne's inaugural watches were unveiled in front of the press and 12 of Europe's top luxury watch retailers from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. The initial collection included just four pieces: the iconic Lange 1, the sincerely missed Arkade with its shaped movement, the headline-grabbing Tourbillon "Pour le Mérite," and, of course, the simple, sublime Saxonia. 

The following day, Lange released its first advertisement with a double-page color spread in the German daily newspaper, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. The text read:

The economy in Germany's East is suddenly beginning to tick differently: A. Lange & Söhne is back – the legend has come home. 

I'm not sure about you, but I have goosebumps.

When German reunification happened, Western businessmen were eager to swoop in and explore what opportunities might be available in Saxony. Blümlein was one of them. 

Thus it was that a gaggle of managers from the West traveled to the remote Müglitz Valley in order to sound out the possibilities and potential of the place. Among them was Günther Blümlein, Managing Director of the LMH Group, which owned IWC and JLC. In 1989, Günther Blümlein had already been to discussions with GUB accompanied by Senator Albert Keck, who was then Chairman of VDO's board, in order to sound out the chances for possible co-operation and a joint venture. But the discussions, as I was later to learn, were tough and in the end without results. At the time, GUB still carried too much GDR baggage and the ideas of its managers about the company's perspective in a market economy were more than vague. Günther Blümlein and Keck were sent packing, with the East Germans still hopeful of being able to assert themselves under changed market-economy conditions. – Walter Lange, The Revival Of Time

I had always assumed that Walter Lange was the driving force behind the rebirth of A. Lange & Söhne, but in his own telling, the initial action was almost entirely driven by the executive team at IWC. Here's his perspective on how it happened. 

The history of Glashütte watchmaking was the topic of a cosy fireside chat in the winter of 1989, a chat that also included Hannes Pantli, the marketing chief of IWC at the time. And this is how it was reported to me later: suddenly the name A. Lange & Söhne, as the epitome of the Glashütte watchmaking tradition, was mentioned, together with the idea of reviving the great name in particular and Glashütte in general with new, exclusive watches. They then remembered that I, the great-grandson of company founder Adolph Lange, lived in the West and that Jürgen King, head of development at IWC, knew me. I was just drinking coffee with my wife when Jürgen King called me at home in Pforzheim a few days after the discussion and put me in touch with Günther Blümlein – the initial step toward the new grounding of the Lange manufacture in Glashütte. – Walter Lange, The Revival Of Time

The GUB owned the rights to use the A. Lange & Söhne name on watches, but thankfully the Lange family name had remained mostly dormant between the 1951 expropriation and the 1990s. As a sign of good faith toward the new capitalist enterprise headed by Lange and Blümlein, the GUB gave up the rights to the ALS patent, opening the door for today's A. Lange & Söhne organization.

GUB already had a company by the name of A. Lange & Söhne Glashütte/Sa registered at the German Patent Office, but they took it back in favour of me, relinquishing the legal protection for the noted brand's name. – Walter Lange, The Revival Of Time

The watchmaking that was occurring in the Glashütte region during the 1980s was primarily focused on very basic mechanical movements or quartz – very different than the types of watches Walter Lange and Günther Blümlein were interested in creating. In order to educate the new trainees, they were sent to Schaffhausen, Switzerland, to learn under IWC. 

In order to manufacture high-quality mechanical watches, one needed very modern, electronically controlled machines and above all the knowledge of how to work them – skills that were foreign to the VEB experts. Thus, our new employees, at first a good dozen, needed to be educated in the new technologies and trained on the machines. IWC in Schaffhausen took over this task. Starting in 1991, a trail between the Müglitz Valley and Switzerland was created. Our Saxons set off for Schaffhausen, about 700 kilometers away, in their fully packed Trabis, or Wartburgs, or even on the train, to be taught the top technology of luxury watchmaking at IWC. – Walter Lange, The Revival Of Time

In a 1999 conversation between Blümlein and Peter Chong (the Singapore collector and journalist who later founded Deployant) on TimeZone, the following question was asked:

How do you respond to some comments/feedback that Lange movements are anachronistic (granted that all mechanical watches are anachronistic in a way):

• The 3/4 plate design that is impractical for servicing and
• The screwed balance which is inferior to say a Gyromax balance
• The fine rate and beat adjustment mechanisms are essentially old designs and still don't offer the precision and freedom from backlash that a really modern design might.

Blümlein responded:

It is our purpose to follow the path of watchmaking tradition in Saxon. Naturally this leads to sometimes "anachronistic" solutions. We try to manufacture time pieces that are an esthetical highlight for our customers' eyes even at the "cost" of less efficient production or SAV processes. A function may be anachronistic, beauty never is - and does not the ¾ plate look nice? We want to do things differently. Take for instance the balance you mentioned. It is used in very large quantities elsewhere. It is technically spoken perhaps less complicated but consequently also more elegant?

And to be frank, I like anachronisms as long as they are as adorable as our movements. But anachronisms not necessarily exclude technological progress or innovation as A. Lange & Söhne has proofed since 1994.