Watchlords

Windmill in a Storm: The Turbulent Timekeeping History of Mühle Glashütte

German watchmaker Mühle Glashütte turned 150 years old in 2019, looking back on five generations of family stewardship through turbulent times for both Germany and the watch industry. In this feature from the WatchTime archives, we explore the company’s history of time measurement, from instruments to wristwatches.

The final day of hostilities between the Allies and Germany in World War II would also come to be remembered for the turning point that it wrought, in tragically ironic fashion, to Germany’s proud and historical watch industry. It was on May 8, 1945, shortly after Adolf Hitler had surrendered to Allied forces to bring an end to the European conflict, that Russian planes dropped bombs on the town of Glashütte, in the German state of Saxony near Dresden, leveling many of the watch factories that were, at the time, producing timekeeping devices for military usage. The embattled nation’s watch manufacturers would essentially cease to exist in their current states for several decades to come, with many in that industry profoundly affected by the hard times ahead. Few, however, had as much history on the line as did the Mühle family.

https://www.watchtime.com/featured/wind ... glashutte/