Brand Histories

1815 • Birth of Ferdinand Adolph Lange in Dresden.

1830 • The young Ferdinand went into apprenticeship with the watchmaker Johann Christian Friedrich Gutkaes, becoming in time his son-in-law and associate in 1842. In 1843, he negotiated with the Minister of the Interior of the kingdom of Saxony, who offered him a sufficiently large loan to set up his own workshops, in return for training fifteen young watchmakers, in the region of Monts Métallifères, which was suffering the effects of extreme poverty.

1845 • Ferdinand Adolph Lange founded the centre for German precision horology in the small town of Glashütte, where he became mayor, and remained for eight years. At the time of his death at the age of sixty, on December 3, 1875, A. Lange & Söhne watches were much coveted, and he left a flourishing business to his sons, Richard and Emil.

1906 • Otto Lange, the son of Emil, joined the family firm with his brothers Rudolf and Gerhard.

1922 • On the death of Emil Lange, his son Otto took the reins of the company, during a very difficult period:, the first signs of the worldwide economic crisis were becoming apparent, and the manufacture of wristwatches was just beginning.

1924 • Birth of Walter Lange, great-grandson of Adolph and son of Rudolf Lange. He went into apprenticeship in his teens at Karlstein and Glashütte to obtain the qualification of master watch craftsman, thus following in the footsteps of his forebears. Called up in 1942, he didn’t return to Glashütte until 1945, at the moment when the Lange workshops were being bombed just before the Armistice.

1948 • A. Lange & Söhne Manufacture was confiscated and expropriated by the Socialist government to be swallowed up into an industrial combine in 1951. Walter Lange fled to the West to escape forced labour. The A. Lange & Söhne Manufacture then plunged into deep sleep.

1990 • As a result of German reunification on December 7, Walter Lange, great-grandson of Adolph Lange, registered the company Lange Uhren GmbH, and the brand A. Lange & Söhne, after more than fifty years of inactivity. The mythical brand was finally reborn, to the joy of watch lovers everywhere.

Fourteen years after its resurrection, the German manufacture is still creating real masterpieces, and A. Lange & Söhne watches are still pieces of great quality with an international reputation.