Germany, situated in the center of the continent, is made up of 16 states and is popularly known for having one of the largest economies in the world. With an intriguing heritage chronicled by the ancient and vibrant architects, fortresses, and memorials themselves, as well as its scenery and woodlands, tasty meals, and beer, Germany persists as one of the world’s top vacation spots.
When most people think of Germany, what comes first to their minds is Hitler, beer, and the Berlin Wall, but that’s not all about that. Visitors who’ve been to Germany know that the country is not only a financially and culturally powerful country, but it also has a great heritage and citizenry. Aside from that, its powerful number of luxury watch brands may make Swiss watchmaking run out of money someday. Listed here are some of the popular and best German watch brands that you as an entrepreneur can avail of right now.
Glashütte Original
If the art of German craftsmanship had a different name, it might very well be Glashutte Original. Although the brand was essentially founded after the country’s reunification, its origins date back to the 1800s. Aside from heritage, luxury items like the Senator and diver’s watches like the SeaQ Panorama Date manifest themselves. This brand simply tops among the greatest in Germany, if not the entire world, thanks to its in-house movements and spectacular array of superior layouts.
Glashütte is the town in Germany where the watch manufacturing plant is located. It’s spoken as ˈɡlaːs.hʏtə. If an umlaut ü is not applicable, this would be printed Glashuette according to German orthographic conference, but it is more commonly seen globally as Glashutte.
A. Lange & Söhne
A. Lange & Söhne, one of Germany’s and the world’s oldest timepieces, was established 173 years ago in the small town of Glashütte by a guy called Ferdinand Adolph Lange. Lange distinguished his small business by generating some of the top quality pocket watches at the moment, with the help of his sons Richard and Emil. After WWI, as soldiers returned from the battlefields with watches chained to their wrists rather than stuffed in their pockets, A Lange & Söhne altered as well. By the start of WWII, the family business was producing pilot’s watches for the Luftwaffe, a German air force.
The brand went out of business not long after they began producing these overly large flight watches. The new Soviet government partitioned Germany and nationalized companies such as A. Lange & Söhne. It wasn’t until the country’s reunification that the company began its attempts to restart creating watches. Over 20 years after Walter Lange resurrected his family’s company, it is now classified as one of the world’s leading luxury watch brands.
Archimede Watches
Despite being less than two decades old, Archimede watches asserts a much broader ancestry than their 15 years in business would lead one to assume. Provided that they are run by Ickler, a 90-year-old watch case manufacturer premised in the same town of Pforzheim, Germany, Archimede roles itself as a youthful brand with a dated spirit.
Not just whether you find that affiliation credible, it is difficult to deny the brand’s quality. They make appealing and reasonably priced watches that are powered by high-quality Swiss automatic, hand-wound, and chronograph movements. Overall, Archimede presents itself as a junior timepiece for those planning to leave the unquestionably costly world of mechanical watches.
Damasko
Accuracy is everything when it comes to watches. The sloppier a maker’s manufacturing and installation of a timepiece, the less helpful the device. This focus on finesse has scared many would-be entrepreneurs away from the world of watches, but it was part of the attraction for Konrad Damasko.
Damasko began his career as a toolmaker for clients in high-demand industries such as the aerospace industry before launching his watch company. The watch company’s namesake winds up using many of the same methods to produce watches and watch innovation. For example, the company holds a patent for a specific type of polycrystalline silicon that is used in critical watch elements. They also distinguish themselves in the watch market by manufacturing an extremely difficult nitrogen-enriched and nickel-free case with an HRC rating of 64. That robust case innovation was a big reason Sinn (another German watch brand on this list) once teamed up with Damasko to source their watch and dive watch situations. Damasko now primarily manufactures pilot watches, including the DC56, which is the authorized timepiece worn by Eurofighter aircrews and pilots.
Junghans
Whilst East German watch brands were sustaining in squalor during the 1950s and 1960s, brands in the west, such as Junghans, were starting to make the best of postwar life. Though they’d existed since at least 1860s – formed by Ernhard Jungians and his brother-in-law – and began making wristwatches in the mid-1920s, it wasn’t until the brand decided to work with Bauhaus designer Max Bill in 1956 that they truly came into their own with a different, thrilling style. Bill gave Junghans wall clocks and wristwatches a utilitarian, appealing makeover. They are still some of the brand’s most prominent examples.
Mont Blanc
While Mont Blanc is perhaps best known for its high-end pens, the company also manufactures a number of luxury watches. They are, for all intents and purposes, a German company with over a century of heritage in the continent, but they do not manufacture their watches there. Instead, the brand relies on Swiss competence to generate their watches. They only started manufacturing watches in Le Locle, Switzerland, in 1997, and have only been generating in-house movements for the past decade. However, there are some benefits to being small and maneuverable. Mont Blanc has recently begun producing high-end smartwatches.
In a nutshell
As previously stated, Germany has been creating the highest level timepieces for a long time and is almost always a segment of the luxury watch market. Despite not being as well-known as their Swiss compatriots, German watches deserve serious consideration. Instead of being impacted by geology and climatology, German watchmakers were motivated by various geography and ideology. Industries that had been suffocated by an authoritarian government system rumbled back to life after the iron curtain fell, like a fire given more oxygen. Today, Germany is home to some of the world’s best luxury watches.
