A. LANGE & SÖHNE
The story of A. LANGE & SOHNE
On February 25, 1815, Ferdinand Adolph Lange, the son of Johann Samuel Lange, was born in Dresden. When his parents divorced, he was adopted by a foster family, who fortunately provided him with the opportunity to receive a decent education. He enrolled in the Dresden Technische Bildungsanstalt (technical education institute) in 1829. Three days of theoretical studies were included in the school program, with the remaining three days devoted to physical craftwork with a student's master. Johann Christian Friedrich Gutkaes (the inventor of Dresden's famed Five-Minute Clock), Ferdinand Adolph Lange's mentor, was the second mechanic at the Mathematics and Physics Salon at the time, supplying an astronomical clock with a mercury compensating pendulum for his service observatory.
Ferdinand A. Lange worked for Gutkaes for more than two years after completing his apprenticeship with honors in 1835. Lange began his journeyman years in 1837, traveling to France, England, and Switzerland. He worked as the workshop manager of Austrian watchmaker Joseph Thaddäus Winnerl in Paris for four years (inventor of the split-seconds chronograph). Dominique François Arago, a physician and director of the Paris Observatory, gave lectures that broadened his astronomical expertise. Following France, he traveled to Switzerland and the United Kingdom to enhance his knowledge and talents with renowned watchmakers. Lange's goal, however, was to establish a watchmaking industry in Saxony. In 1841, he returned to Dresden and joined his master's firm as a partner.
Lange lost little time in designing complex watches to put everything he had learned over his travel years, which he had meticulously recorded in his notebook. His major goal was to industrialize the region and become self-sufficient, as he expressed in a letter to government minister Von Lindenau and councillor Weissenbach. His objective was to establish a watchmaking company in Saxony. He requested that a government body issue him a business license in Glashütte's less prosperous "Erzgebirge" (Ore Mountains) district. In the letter, make the following mentions:
“…Should the high council be able and willing to grand the wherewithal for the establishment of an institiuton and the welfare of 10-15 young people, and to entrust me with its leadership, I am certain that in a near future, livelihood and prosperity will spread among a large number of these unfortunate people…”
He created A. Lange & Cie in Glashütte on December 7, 1845, which ultimately became A. Lange & Söhne. Lange not only set his vision for an entire industry, but also for a watchmaking facility that would bear his name. He began by training a group of 15 apprentices in the fundamentals of watchmaking. He urged them to leave his company and create their own modest supplier enterprises when they had mastered the trades. As a result, he built a watchmaking cluster, providing the community with a new source of income.
While traveling across France, Ferdinand Adolph Lange observed that French watchmakers continued to utilize the duodecimal ligne as the length unit rather than the new metric system. As a result, he kept meticulous records for each specific gear-wheel size. When he returned from his travels, he began to employ the metric system in place of the old ligne system in watchmaking. Soon after, in Dresden, he built his first micrometer using the drawings from his voyage book. It was capable of measuring millimeters to the thousandth of a millimeter. He created a number of tools, including a hand-powered face-lathe, slide-rules, and dixieme gauges, in addition to a measuring system.
Richard A. Lange, Ferdinand A. Lange's oldest son, joined the firm in 1868, and the name was changed to A. Lange & Söhne (A. Lange & Sons). He married and had seven children, as well as taking on political responsibilities in his hometown: he served as mayor of Glashütte for 18 years. He was given honorary citizenship once he retired from this office. Glashütte residents also formed the Lange Foundation, which paid pensions to local watchmakers. Ferdinad A. Lange passed away in 1875.
The name A. Lange & Söhne was already flourishing at the time Emil and Richard Lange joined the firm, and the company needed bigger premises. The firm relocated to the Stammhaus in 1873, which is still in use today as the company's headquarters. The new structure allowed Lange senior to accomplish his vision of a clock with the world's longest pendulum, measuring over 10 meters. Emil and Richard Lange were a good match for one another. Richard Lange followed in his father's footsteps, whereas Emil was interested in business. His father's discoveries and patents, such as the quarter repeater and chronograph, were pushed by him. An up/down power reserve indication (patent No. 9349), better chronometer restraints, a pocket watch with a minutes counter, and the inclusion of beryllium to enhance the rate characteristic of the balance spring are only a few of his important patents.
For his efforts as a judge at the Paris World Fair and the presentation of the "Jahrhunderttourbillon," Emil Lange was given the cross of the Knight of the French Legion of Honor (tourbillon of the century). In 1990, the model was auctioned off for 1,500,000 Marks. Emil Lange also received the honorary title of "Kommerzienrat" (commercial councilor) from King Frederick Augustus III of Saxony in recognition of his financial achievement. In 1898, German Emperor Wilhelm II commissioned A. Lange & Söhne to create a pocket watch for Sultan Abdul Hamid II of the Ottoman Empire on an official visit to Germany. The watch is in the Topkapi Palace's collection.
The turn of the twentieth century saw a shift in fashion. Men's flat watches were becoming increasingly popular. In 1898, A. Lange & Söhne created a new design and registered it as the "Glashütte caliber" pocket watch. However, towards the turn of the century, "Glashütte Präzisons-Uhrenfabrik Akt. Ges." was established in 1904, followed by "Nomos-Uhr-Gesellschaft" in 1906. Both firms provided Glashütte-cased machine-made watches or movements imported from Switzerland. A. Lange & Söhne, on the other hand, was still making hand-crafted watches and running at a high cost.
The demand for precious gold watches plummeted as a result of World War I. Many businesses were forced to lay off the majority of their personnel. Simultaneously, Germany blocked its borders to Swiss watches and movements, pushing Swiss-based companies out of business. German watchmakers established the “Deutsche Präzisions-Uhrenfabrik Glashütte in Sachsen GmbH” (German precision watch factory Glashütte in Saxony), also known as DPUG, shortly after WWII. The plan was to go to mass manufacturing utilizing cutting-edge technology. Emil Lange made the decision not to pursue this path. He retired in 1919 and passed the firm down to his three sons, Otto, Rudolf, and Gerhard Lange.
To compete with DPUG's low-cost manufacture, Otto Lange created the "OLIW" (Original Lange Internationales Werk) brand and built a 43mm diameter movement. It was registered as a design in Germany with the number 748 972. The OLIW took years to finish, and serial manufacturing did not begin until the late 1920s. Hyperinflation in the Weimar Republic caused a wave of company bankruptcy between 1921 and 1923. Prices began to spiral out of control, with a loaf of bread costing 250 marks in January 1923 rising to 200,000 million marks in November 1923. Sales of OLIW at A. Lange & Söhne fell short of expectations. During the 1920s and 1930s, the majority of Glashütte's employees was laid off. According to Walter Lange, the scenario is as follows:
“I was born in the Weimar era; then came the crash in 1929 and the great unemployment. I can still see it today; it was a childhood trauma for me, when I looked out the living room window and saw all the unemployed men lined up, waiting across the street. I will never forget that view.”
The military expansion in Germany in the 1930s resurrected the need for precision timepieces in Glashütte. A. Lange & Söhne was one of five watchmakers (the others being Stowa, Laco, Wempe, and IWC) who made B-Uhren for Germany's air force from the second part of the 1930s through the conclusion of World War II (Luftwaffe). Beobachtungsuhren, or observation watches, is abbreviated as B-Uhren. A total of 13,500 precision timepieces with calibers 48 (small seconds) and 48.1 (sweep seconds) with a movement diameter of 48mm were produced for the military.
On the final day of the war, 8 May 1945, a Soviet air strike nearly entirely destroyed the Lange headquarters and primary production facility. In 1948, the Glashütte watchmaking enterprises were nationalized. Lange was working on a new movement at the time, the Caliber 28, a wristwatch version of the caliber 48. As A. Lange & Söhne's last movement, it was put into production in 1949. During this time, watches were signed “Lange VEB” (Volkseigener Betrieb - publicly owned enterprise). The Lange name was removed from the dials when the seized watch firms united in 1951 to establish VEB Glashütter Uhrenbetriebe.
With the help of various Swiss watch makers, notably IWC and Jaeger-LeCoultre, Walter Lange and Günter Blümlein, a watch industry executive, revived the firm as Lange Uhren GmbH on December 7, 1990, following German reunification. It was re-established on the identical date that Walter's great-grandfather Ferdinand Adolph Lange created the first firm, which was 145 years ago. A. Lange & Söhne was re-registered as a trademark, and the new firm was situated in Glashütte once more. In 1994, it debuted its first wristwatch collection.
A. Lange & Söhne has been a member of the Richemont group since 2000, and only produces about 5,000 watches each year. Walter Lange died in 2017 at the age of 92.
