A. Lange
| Lange Uhren GmbH
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|---|---|
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| legal form | Company with limited liability |
| founding | 1845/1990 |
| Seat | Glashütte , Germany |
| management | Wilhelm Schmid |
| Number of employees | 600 |
| Branch | Watch manufacture |
| Website | www.alange-soehne.com |
A. Lange & Söhne is now the protected brand of the German watch manufacturer Lange Uhren GmbH from Glashütte in Saxony .
history
From 1845
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On December 7, 1845, the Saxon watchmaker Ferdinand Adolph Lange , a student and son-in-law of the Saxon court watchmaker Johann Christian Friedrich Gutkaes senior , founded the watch manufacturer “A. Lange & Cie. ”. In an early example of state structural policy, Lange received 7,800 thalers to set up a company and to train 15 apprentices in the structurally weak glassworks near Dresden, as financial help from the royal Saxon interior ministry in the form of a loan. For a long time the company struggled with starting difficulties, but by 1875 the company had 70 employees. Ferdinand Adolph Lange thus provided an impetus for the development of the structurally weak town in the Saxon Ore Mountains as the center of German precision watchmaking and in competition with the established Swiss manufacturers. The two eldest sons of Ferdinand Adolf Lange, Richard and Emil Lange , joined the father's company in 1868, which was then renamed “A. Lange & Söhne ”received. Under the direction of Langes Sons, the manufacture achieved world fame.
The 1886 in Hannover Founded M. Stellmann was right at the beginning to the main branch of the company from Glashütte.
A. Lange & Söhne existed for exactly 103 years until 1948, when the company was expropriated by the Soviet occupation forces. Up until this point in time, Emil Lange's sons, Otto, Rudolf and Gerhard were in charge. More than 30 watch patents were created under Ferdinand Adolf Lange and his descendants.
Until 1877 the company name and the brand name “A. Lange & Söhne ”are identical. In 1877 a second, somewhat simplified pocket watch series appeared with the brand name "Deutsche Uhrenfabrikation". From this point on, A. Lange & Söhne owned two well-known watch brands. Later, the third watch brand was the “OLIW” (Original Lange Internationales Werk) brand, which took the step towards industrial pocket watch production. The company missed the trend towards wristwatches; until 1945, clockworks that were bought in were mainly of Swiss origin. It was only after 1945 that the first and - until the company was re-established in 1990 - the only Lange wristwatch movement (caliber 28) was developed.
Development since the 1950s
During the period of Soviet occupation from 1945 and from 1949 in the German Democratic Republic (GDR), seven remaining watch factories and suppliers located in Glashütte were nationalized and in 1951 merged into the state-owned company VEB Glashütter Uhrenbetriebe (GUB).
The two sons of Rudolf Lange and the great-grandson of Ferdinand Adolph Lange (I), Ferdinand Adolph Lange (II) (1922–1989) and Walter Lange (1924–2017), fled to the western part of Germany. Ferdinand Adolph (II) founded the watch factory "A. Lange Pforzheim" in Würm near Pforzheim and ran its business. Watches with bought-in German and Swiss movements were manufactured here, the company existed until 1987. Walter Lange worked in the company as a workshop manager and later switched to the jewelry industry.
After the German reunification in 1993, Glashütter Uhrenbetrieb GmbH emerged from the state-owned company GUB as the immediate successor to VEB.
Start-up
Walter Lange founded "Lange Uhren GmbH" as a new watch manufacturer on December 7, 1990 - exactly 145 years to the day after it was first founded by his great-grandfather - at the age of 66 and then acquired the trademark rights for "A. Lange & Söhne ”, which had initially gone to the state-owned company GUB due to the Soviet expropriation and, after reunification, to the Treuhandanstalt . There is no direct legal company tradition, but "Lange Uhren GmbH" continues the history of the traditional watch brand. The resurgence of the brand is thanks to the then President of the International Watch Company (IWC) Günter Blümlein . With the financial and personal help of LMH Holding ( Les Manufactures Horlogères ), which at the time - as the owner of Vacheron Constantin and a majority of Jaeger-LeCoultre - belonged to VDO and was managed under the umbrella of Mannesmann AG from 1994 , the Establishing a start-up in the market. In 2001 the company, along with a few Swiss watch brands, became part of the Richemont Group based in the canton of Geneva .
On October 24, 1994, Blümlein and Lange presented the first four watch models together: the LANGE 1 , the TOURBILLON "Pour le Mérite" , the SAXONIA and the ARKADE . The Lange 1 , the Saxonia and the Arkade were equipped with the patented outsize date that is now typical of the brand - an outsize date display based on the optical model of the stage clock of the Dresden Semperoper that was once built by Gutkaes . Other well-known models are the Datograph , the Cabaret , the Langematik Perpetual , the Double Split Chronograph , the Richard Lange , the Tourbograph Pour le Mérite , the Zeitwerk and the Saxonia with the automatic movement "Sax-0-Mat".
In the two-year ranking of the 30 most important German luxury brands compiled by the magazine Wirtschaftswoche , the watch brand "A. Lange & Söhne" achieved first place in 2007, even ahead of Maybach-Automobilmanufaktur . In July 2008 the 500th employee was hired.
On August 26, 2015, a new, larger manufacturing building was inaugurated by Chancellor Angela Merkel in Glashütte. The 5,400 square meter area offers space for 200 employees.
On January 17, 2017, the re-founder Walter Lange died at the age of 92.
See also
literature
- Kurt Herkner: The Glashütte wristwatches from A. Lange & Söhne until 1945. In: Writings of the friend of age clocks. Volume 20, Ulm 1981, pp. 125-129.
- Hans Heinrich Schmid : Lexicon of the German Watch Industry 1850 - 1980. , 3rd expanded edition, 2 volumes, Berlin 2017. ISBN 978-3-941539-92-1 .
- Martin Huber: The watches from A. Lange & Söhne Glashütte / Saxony. 5th edition. Callwey, Munich 1988; Unchanged 6th edition also 1997, ISBN 3-7667-1266-7 .
- Reinhard Meis : A. Lange & Sons. A watchmaker dynasty from Dresden. 3. Edition. Callwey, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-7667-1286-1 .
- Walter Lange: When the time came home. Memories. 2nd Edition. Econ, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-430-15976-0 .
- Henning Mützlitz: A. Lange & Söhne Highlights. Heel, Königswinter 2010, ISBN 978-3-86852-231-0 .
- Harry Niemann: The beauty of time: A. Lange & Söhne watches. Delius Klasing, Bielefeld 2012, ISBN 978-3-7688-3456-8 .
- Andreas Dunte: The clock king from Glashütte. One name, one family, one tradition: Lange's great-grandson Walter is celebrating his 90th birthday today. In: Leipziger Volkszeitung . July 29, 2014, p. 5.
Web links
- Company website
- The history of the Lange 1 (English)
- Report on Tourbillon "Pour le Mérite" (English)
Individual evidence
- ^ Paul Siedentopf (main editor ): M. Stellmann , in ders .: The book of the old companies of the city of Hanover in 1927 , with the help of Karl Friedrich Leonhardt (compilation of the images), Jubiläums-Verlag Walter Gerlach, Leipzig 1927, p. 305
- ↑ Hidden Finesse ( Memento from May 24, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF, 686 kB) In: Wirtschaftswoche. March 12, 2007.
- ↑ A. Lange & Söhne watch manufacturer hires five hundredth employee , A. Lange & Söhne press release from July 15, 2008.
- ↑ A. Lange & Söhne: Manufactory opening. In: Goldschmiede-Zeitung.
- ↑ Luxury watch legend Walter Lange has died. In: Handelsblatt. 17th January 2017.
Coordinates: 50 ° 51 '5.58 " N , 13 ° 46' 54.35" E