A. Lange & Söhne

A. Lange & Söhne is a trademark of German watchmaking company Lange Uhren GmbH in Glashütte in Saxony.

History

Foundation

The watch manufacturer was founded by the Saxon master watchmaker Ferdinand Adolph Lange, a student of Johann Christian Friedrich Saxon Hofuhrmachers Gutkaes sen., On December 7, 1845 in Glashütte. In an early example of state structural policy Lange received 7,800 dollars for the founding and formation of 15 apprentices in the structurally weak Glashütte near Dresden, as financial assistance from the Royal Saxon Ministry of the Interior in the form of a loan. Over time, the company was struggling with teething problems, but in 1875 decreed the operation more than 70 employees. Ferdinand Adolph Lange brought as a stimulus for the development of structurally weak, situated in the Saxon Erzgebirge place as center of the German precision watchmaking and in competition with the established Swiss manufacturers. The two eldest sons of Ferdinand Adolf Lange, Richard and Emil Lange, appeared in 1868 in his father's company. Under her direction, the factory became world-famous. A. Lange & Söhne was until 1948, until the company was expropriated by the Soviet occupying power, exactly 103 years. Until that time, led the sons of Emil Lange, Otto, Rudolf and Gerhard, the fortunes. More than 30 watches patents developed under Ferdinand Adolf Lange and his descendants.

Development since the 1950s

In the time of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) seven still remaining and located in Glashütte watchmaking factories and suppliers were nationalized and merged to state-owned enterprise VEB Glashütte watch companies ( GUB ). Walter Lange, son of Rudolf Lange and grandson of Ferdinand Adolph Lange, has already been expropriated in 1948 and fled to the western part of Germany. Here he began from about 1951 in Pforzheim with a watch wholesaler. From the state-owned enterprise GUB was 1993, the glass Uhrenbetrieb GmbH emerged as the immediate successor of VEB.

Start-up

Walter Lange founded on 7 December 1990 at 66 years of age, the Lange Uhren GmbH as a new watch manufacturer and has acquired the trademark for " A. Lange & Söhne" who had gone in the meantime to the THA. While there is no direct legal company tradition, yet the Lange Uhren GmbH is the continuation of the traditional watch brand.

The resurgence of the brand is owed to the then President of the International Watch Company ( IWC) Gunter Blumlein. With financial and personnel using the LMH Holding ( Les Manufactures Horlogères ), which at that time - as a concurrent owner of Vacheron Constantin and a majority of Jaeger- LeCoultre - belonged to the VDO and was conducted in 1994 under the umbrella of Mannesmann AG, he managed the start-up to establish itself in the market. On 24 October 1994 Blumlein and Long jointly presented the first four watch models, the LANGE 1, Tourbillon "Pour le Mérite ", Saxonia and ARCADE. The Lange 1, Saxonia and the Arkade were equipped with the now typical of the brand and patented large date, large date display according to the optical model of the Bühnenuhr the Semper Opera, which once Gutkaes built.

Other well-known models are the Datograph, the theater, the Langematik Perpetual, the Double Split Chronograph, the Richard Lange, the turbo graph Pour le Mérite, the timer and the Saxonia with the automatic movement " Sax -0 -Mat ".

2001, the company went next few Swiss watch brands for group Richemont over headquartered in Geneva since 2004 and leads the company Fabian Krone.

Every two years created by the magazine Business Week ranking of the 30 most important German luxury brands, the watch brand ' A.Lange & Söhne " in 2007 took first place, ahead of the Maybach automobile manufacturer. In July 2008, the 500th employee was hired.