Uwe Ahrendt’s
vintage Mercedes
to importing Swiss products, while leveraging the local workforce. His work
served to germinate a generation of watchmakers and parts suppliers that
would ultimately work with other famous brands from the region including
Tutima and Muhle Glashütte.
Wartime production of aviation watches and timing devices to support
the Axis military earned the region a target designation in WWII, and
Allied bombers destroyed many of the factories and railways. After the
war Germany was divided and Glashütte was now located in Soviet East
Germany: the German Democratic Republic (GDR). The Soviets seized the
machinery as part of war reparations and began converting production to
timekeeping pieces for Soviet consumption. In 1951, pre-war era private
enterprises were outlawed and all commercial assets and intellectual
property were combined to form the state-controlled Glashütte Uhrenbetrieb
(GUB). The fall of the wall passed control of the GUB to the newly forming
German Republic, and created opportunities for the legacy companies – and
entrepreneurs like Schwertner.
FORMING NOMOS
For a German watch company, association with the name Glashütte
represents an elite status. To receive the designation “Made in Glashütte/Sa,”
more than fifty percent of the watches’ value has to be created on location.
Protection of this identifying mark is strictly enforced by the manufacturers
in the region, who have sought legal channels in the past against
transgressors who have falsely identified the origin in their products, in the
same manner that champagne producers guard the use of their region’s
output to products made specifically in the Champagne region of France.
By locating production in Glashütte and design in Berlin, Schwertner
successfully capitalized on two of the country’s hallmark regions.
Schwertner acquired the rights to several now defunct German companies,
one of which was Nomos-Uhr-Gesellschaft, Guido Müller & Co. This company
was in operation between 1906-1910 and was put out of business by other
Glashütte companies for misleading advertising that indicated that it was
producing authentic, assembled-in-Glashütte products. Ironically Schwert-
ner’s Nomos would later sue watch manufacturer Mühle, in 2007, for the
same violation, driving Mühle into Chapter 11 insolvency. Mühle Glashütte
returned to regular production in 2008, after agreeing to ensure that their
production process added at least fifty percent of the value of the watch
in Glashütte.
“America represents our most important growth area, followed by the U.K.
and Asia. The strength of the Glashütte name, the power of our brand and
the quality we deliver for the money will help us become top brands in those
areas,” said Ahrendt, from his stunning glass- walled office located in the
town’s converted train station with direct views of competitors A. Lange &
Söhne and Glashütte Original. Ahrendt arrived in a vintage pastel blue
Mercedes and is himself a reflective embodiment of the brand. He carries the
Berliner sense of style on the frame of a Saxon boxer, a hybridization of the
intersection of the two regions.
“Our move to in-house movements represents two things: our liberation
FALL 2019 | INTERNATIONAL WATCH | 89