Hanhart
| Hanhart 1882 GmbH
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|---|---|
_logo.svg){kind=logo} |
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| legal form | GmbH |
| founding | 1882 |
| Seat | Gütenbach , Germany |
| management | Felix Wallner, Simon Hall |
| Branch | Watch manufacturer |
| Website | www.hanhart.com |
The Hanhart 1882 GmbH is a German- Swiss watch manufacturer , whose roots date back to the year 1882nd Today's company headquarters are in Gütenbach in the Black Forest . The manufacturer is best known for its mechanical watches, including stopwatches and wrist chronographs .
Companies
Hanhart specializes in the production of stopwatches and high-quality chronographs. In 1882, the Swiss Johann Adolf Hanhart founded his watch manufacture in Diessenhofen , Canton Thurgau, and after 20 years relocated it across the border to the watch stronghold of Schwenningen in the Black Forest due to a lack of watchmakers . His youngest son Wilhelm Julius Hanhart (born October 31, 1902 - † October 22, 1986) joined the company in 1920 at the age of 18. In 1924 Wilhelm Julius Hanhart brought the world's first affordable stopwatch onto the market, which was supposed to stand up to the expensive Swiss manufacturers. The success of this watch formed the basis for the company's rise. From 1926 the production range was expanded to include wrist and pocket watches.
Johann Adolf Hanhart died in 1932. The realignment of the company in the same year, at the center of which was the abandonment of the retail business, was a success for the company. If Hanhart had 30 employees at the time, there were already 200 in 1939. In 1934, the still existing company in Gütenbach in the Black Forest was established as an extension . In 1938 Hanhart developed its first push-button chronograph caliber 40 . Its true-to-original replica is now very popular among watch enthusiasts under the name Pioneer Mk I. The single-pusher chronograph, introduced in 1939, was given to the Navy and above all to the Air Force . Due to its reliability and accuracy, it was just as popular with pilots during the Second World War as the watches from the manufacturer Tutima . In addition to these pilot's chronographs, production of the two-pusher model caliber 41 began around 1940 . Pilot's watches became the main product of the manufacturer at the time, which also produced pocket chronographs for the ship's artillery, among other things. At that time, the company manufactured eight different stopwatches, among other things. With the so-called super - fast oscillator, it was possible to measure 1/100 seconds with a mechanical stopwatch. But watch production had to be restricted until the end of the war in favor of the production of time fuses for torpedoes .
- Military product line until 1945
Facsimile of caliber 40 (today: Pioneer Mk I) with unusual push-button operation (red button on the top right)
A restored original of the Tachy Tele produced after 1945
After the dismantling, the production of pilot's watches began again in 1948. Willy Hanhart, who went to Switzerland during the denazification in Germany, returned to the newly founded Baden-Württemberg . At the same time, a chronograph was developed especially for doctors and officers. Hanhart initially worked for the French Air Force, and from 1955 with slight changes also for the re-established German Air Force. The German Navy was also supplied with precision knives. At the time, Hanhart was the only watch supplier to the young Bundeswehr . At the same time, the stopwatch division developed into the market leader in Europe in the 1950s, and sales of precision watches could be expanded to include other Western European air forces. The manufacture of the pilot's watch and the chronograph for staff officers and doctors of the Bundeswehr continued until 1962. The end of the military production line followed a little later, the end of Hanhart's wristwatch business. The further expansion of the stopwatch range continued with the partial discontinuation of the Bundeswehr orders in the 1960s. Hanhart was the market leader for mechanical stopwatches as early as 1962.
- Mechanical stopwatches
From the 1970s, electronic timepieces replaced mechanical watch movements. Another field of work was therefore quartz clocks and alarm clocks. When Japan flooded the market with cheap goods in the 1980s, quality products from Western production faded into the background. Despite these difficult conditions, Hanhart won the iF Design Award in 1985 , a prize for good industrial design. But business remained in decline. In 1992 the family business had to be sold.
Klaus Eble, Willy Hanhart's son-in-law, managed to steer the brand out of the crisis with a consistent company policy and to concentrate on its core business, the manufacture of high-quality watches. A new edition of the wrist pilot's watch from 1939, which is still popular among experts and collectors, began in 1997. Hanhart also offers replicas of its single-pusher chronograph. The wristwatches made according to the old models have a rotating bezel . The pushers have different distances from the crown and to prevent accidental resetting, the pushers are red. Also in 1997 the administration and production in Gütenbach were merged.
Today Hanhart is one of the last watch manufacturers to produce high-quality stopwatches. Every year around 150,000 electronic and 25,000 mechanical stopwatches leave the studios in Gütenbach. The watches are used in automobile rallies, sporting competitions as well as in laboratory technology (research / photo laboratory ) and for recording working hours ( REFA ). If required, Hanhart can also deliver its products calibrated with a certificate. It is sold worldwide through authorized jewelers and through industrial and sports retailers as well as through the company's own Internet portals.
In 2008, Hanhart AG started its work in Switzerland, with its headquarters at the original place of foundation in Diessenhofen (Canton Thurgau). At the Baselworld 2009 watch and jewelry fair , a collection was presented that is based on traditional watchmaking and incorporates high-quality Swiss-German manufacturing techniques. The name of this chronograph collection is Primus , named after the successful model that appeared on the market in 1938. The new watch collection kept the old identification mark, the red pusher. The collection of these high-quality chronographs covers the topics air , earth and water ( pilot , racer , diver ) and is available in steel, with a black ADLC coating and in 18k rose gold, depending on the model.
- Example from the Primus collection
Primus Racer
The Pioneer collection brings together the classics from Hanhart, which are based on the historic Hanhart pilot chronographs from the 1930s. It contains the following models: Pioneer Mk I , Pioneer Mk II and Pioneer TachyTele . At Baselworld 2011, Hanhart presented the Pioneer MonoControl and Pioneer TwinControl models in this collection and, as the top model, the Pioneer TwinDicator .
In 2012 Hanhart celebrated its 130th company anniversary and presented a special model limited to 2 × 130 pieces, the Pioneer Stealth 1882 , at Baselworld . In September 2012, Hanhart brought the Pioneer Racemaster collection onto the market, which incorporates classic racing car attributes as design elements.
In 2014 Hanhart AG was sold to an investor and thus indirectly also the majority of A. Hanhart GmbH & Co. KG in Gütenbach. In the course of this change of ownership, the chronograph business was completely transferred to the KG in Germany. After filing for bankruptcy in 2014, the watch business is continued in the newly founded Hanhart 1882 GmbH.
However, stopwatches and chronographs were both still manufactured or produced at the Gütenbach site until the end of 2015 and thus only legally viewed as separate companies. At the beginning of 2016, the stopwatches KG were acquired by Hanhart 1882 GmbH. Since then, both the chronograph and the stopwatch section have been running uniformly under Hanhart 1882 GmbH.
literature
- Hans-Heinrich Schmid : "Lexicon of the German watch industry 1850 - 1980: company addresses, production program, company logos, brand names, company histories." (3rd expanded edition 2017); Editor: German Society for Chronometry eV; ISBN 978-3-941539-92-1
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d Florian Langenscheidt: German Standards: Brands of the Century . Gabler Verlag, Wiesbaden 2006. ISBN 3-8349-0436-8 . P. 120.
- ↑ Hanhart launches the exclusive Primus chronograph collection ( Memento of February 23, 2014 in the Internet Archive ), message of February 5, 2009 on the NA press portal