A. Lange & Söhne and Its Very Own Way of Watchmaking, by Wilhelm Schmid

7:38 – 13:06

The Gunsmith's Son Who Built an Empire in a Valley With No Future

In 1845, Ferdinand Adolph Lange was fragile, poor, and facing an impossible choice. His father was a gunsmith in post-war Europe—the last profession anyone needed. But Lange was determined. He convinced a Royal watchmaker named Gutkaes to adopt him and fund his education, then did something radical: he rejected the safe path of inheriting Gutkaes's established business to start his own in Glashütte, a dying mining town in Saxony's mountains. The silver ore was gone. Agriculture was hopeless in the valley terrain. There was nothing. Lange secured a government loan (which he repaid) and opened a watchmaker school with 15 students. His mission statement, from day one: build the world's best watches. Not competitive watches—the best. He succeeded. By the late 1800s, A. Lange & Söhne was making complications for Tsars, German emperors, and collectors worldwide. A pocket watch from the 1900 Paris World Exposition—stolen during Communist rule, auctioned in Zurich for 1.8 million Swiss francs in 1986—now sits in a Boston museum, maintained one final time before being permanently locked to preserve its originality. Then came 1948. The Communists expropriated everything. Walter Lange, Ferdinand's great-grandson, fled rather than work in uranium mines where survival averaged two years. The family name disappeared into a state conglomerate called GUB, producing cheap watches for Soviet markets. For 45 years, A. Lange & Söhne ceased to exist.