GERMANY WATCH CHRONOGRAPH TUTIMA GLASHUTTE CAL. UROFA 59 LUFTWAFFE PILOTS WWII

German clockmaker

A.Lange & Sohne watch history

On December 7, 1845, Adolph Lange set up his own production workshops in Glashutte, near Dresden, laying the foundation of Saxony’s — and Germany’s – precision- watchmaking industry. For some years, he had been studying ways of producing high-value timepieces of consistent quality in series, and now was the opportunity to realize his ambitions. He started the enterprise with his brother-in-law, the master watchmaker Adolf Schneider, and 15 apprentices.

Lange’s original headquarters

During his travels, Adolph Lange had drawn meticulously precise plans for new machine tools in his journal/workbook, and had embarked upon the exact determination of movement parts, gearing calculations and conversion tables between the French ligne and the metric system.

His vision and ideas began to take shape. Soon, a fundamental break with many of the traditional artisan techniques became apparent at Adolph Lange’s first Glashutte workshops. The introduction of powerful flywheel lathes increased the speed and precision of parts manufacture. His theories on the division of labor encouraged many of his employees over the years to set themselves up in specialist workshops for watch jewels, screws, wheels, mainspring barrels, balance wheels and hands. In this way, Glashutte could become independent from foreign suppliers.

Growing demand for Lange’s precision pocket watches, coupled with increasing economic prosperity after the foundation of the German empire, meant that Lange’s first workshops soon became too small. Adolph Lange established new facilities for his workforce that had meanwhile grown to almost 60 employees. The buildings, which they occupied in 1873, became the family compound.

The premises accommodated the typical 19th century business organization of the owner-manager, with the Lange family home and the watch-manufacturing workshops in the same complex. As a unique feature, Adolph Lange built a master clock for the new building. It had a nine-meter pendulum of cedar wood and zinc, which weighed 128 kilos.

The Lange family complex marked the golden age of Lange matchmaking from the end of the Franco-Prussian war in 1871 to the Great Depression. In 1895, a telephone link to the Berlin Observatory was installed to get accurate time signals for a new chronometry workshop that expanded the matchmaking facilities.

It was also during this time that Lange’s most beautiful pocket watches were produced — among them, a spectacular Grande Complication repeating pocket watch with split-seconds chronograph, perpetual calendar and moon phase, circa 1908.

The Lange family house was the birthplace of Adolph Lange’s grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and it was here that Walter Lange spent his childhood and youth. On May 8, 1945, the main production building — known as the “hangar” — was demolished in a bombing raid. Shortly after it was rebuilt, the A. Lange & Sohne Company was expropriated by the Socialist government and all the buildings seized. Like so many watch companies, the production of high-quality wristwatches and pocket watches came to a grinding halt.

The reunification of Germany gave Walter Lange the courage to claim the legacy of a family tradition that he had given up on. On December 7, 1990, 145 years to the day after his great-grandfather Adolph Lange founded the business, he arrived in Glashutte and started a new company, Lange Uhren GmbH.

The news spread like wildfire — “Herr Lange is back!” Job applications came flooding in; many of the keen young hopefuls presented themselves as descendants of earlier Lange employees whom Walter Lange knew personally. He was thus able to quickly recruit a core workforce from the best craftsmen in Glashutte. It was a far cry from the circumstances surrounding Adolph Lange’s endeavor in 1845, when he had to train raw farm lads and simple laborers in the delicate work of watchmaking.

Unfortunately, no suitable factory premises were available, and efforts to reclaim or repurchase the old Lange family buildings were unsuccessful. So it was in the former premises of the precision clock manufacturers, Strasser & Rohde, that the new production facility could be set up. The building was subsequently converted into one of the finest horological workshops, boasting the latest in modern technology, and it was in 1994 that the company produced watches that once again bore the celebrated name of A. Lange & Sohne.

Today, Lange watches are a truly unique product. Although plates, bridges, steel parts, wheels and pinions are cut with exceptional precision by the most advanced computer-aided machine tools, they are always finished, decorated and engraved by hand. Movements are meticulously assembled and adjusted in five positions. Gold or blued steel hands indicate the time and other functions on solid silver dials, and each masterpiece is housed in a case of gold or platinum.

The new-era Lange watches are far from being mere reproductions of the world-renowned timepieces made by Lange before WWII. Yet they bear the imprint and even some of the recognizable features of their predecessors, along with the application of horological complications, which constitutes a particular attraction for enthusiasts and collectors. A few of the company’s best known models include the LANGE 1, LANGE 1 TOURBILLON, SAX-O-MAT, and LANGEMATIK.

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LUFTWAFFE HISTORY

The German Luftwaffe, or air force, was formed in May of 1935. It was formed after the passing of the “Law for the Reconstruction of the National Defense Forces”. This law brought back into existence a free standing German army, navy and air force, something that had been essentially banned after the end of World War I. With the end of World War I and the signing of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, the Weimar Republic – the successor to Imperial Germany – was allowed only a small defensive military force known as the Reichswehr. The Reichswehr’s size and composition was strictly controlled by the Allies in the hope that by restricting its constitution they could prevent future German military aggression. The Reichswehr consisted of 100,000 men divided between a small standing army, the Reichsheer, and a small defensive navy, the Reichsmarine. There was no provision for an air force of any sort. In 1933 the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP) came to power and the infamous Third Reich was born. Two years later in 1935 the Treaty of Versailles was renounced and the Reichswehr became the Wehrmacht. The newly formed Wehrmacht would still consist of an army and a navy – the renamed Heer and Kriegsmarine, but a new air force was born as well – the Luftwaffe.Although officially announced in 1935, the Luftwaffe had existed in one form or another practically since the day the treaty banning it had been signed. Initially there were Freikorps air units, then later glider and sail plane formations tasked with finding ways around the rigid restrictions of Versailles, a secret training base in the Soviet Union, and various cover organizations for the initial forming of the new German air force. The Luftwaffe consisted of air units that made up the majority of the German air force, as well as Fallschrimjäger units, Luftwaffe Field Divisions, the elite Herman Göring ground formations, thousands of smaller anti-aircraft, engineer, communications and security units, and a fair number of Luftwaffe naval vessels and formations as well. Between 1939 and 1945 over 3.4 million served in the Luftwaffe. Over 165,000 were killed, over 155,000 went missing and over 192,000 were wounded. Of the 7361 men awarded the initial grade of the highest German combat honor of WW2, the Knights Cross, 1785 were from the Luftwaffe making up 24% of the total awarded. Initially the Luftwaffe ruled the skies but thereafter fought an increasingly futile war of attrition which when combined with vital mistakes in aircraft production and utilization, was its death knoll. In the face of this the Luftwaffe produced the most successful air aces of all time. As well, the feats of the Fallschirmjäger in the first airborne operations in history are as heroic as they are tragic. German paratroops suffered appalling losses on Crete and essentially never saw large scale airborne operations again. Some Luftwaffe ground units fought well during WW2, such as certain Luftwaffe field divisions and the elite Hermann Göring formations, while other units simply served. Ultimately the structure of the Luftwaffe was a grand reflection of its commander, Hermann Göring. He strove more so than any other branch to create a personal army with responsibilities as far reaching as possible. It was partly due to this that the Wehrmacht was ultimately defeated. The strain on resources and man power such political maneuvering had was far reaching. The Luftwaffe was officially disbanded in August of 1946 by the Allied Control Commission.

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