A GERMAN STORY
Creating several all-new collections of outstanding watches
in just a decade was no mean feat, especially considering the
hurdles faced by the watch industry in recent years. But the
Wempes have shown resilience and determination from gen-
eration to generation, and a fair amount of strategic creativity.
After all, the company survived the challenges of Germany’s
complicated history in the 20th century while also surviving the
difficulty of succession that family-owned enterprises
often face.
It all began in 1878, when Gerhard Diedrich Wempe opened
a jewelry and watch repair shop in a little town called Elsfleth
near Oldenburg in Lower Saxony. Wempe had his wares in glass
display cases and made sure customer experience was memo-
rable at his shop. In 1902, he started to collaborate with Swiss
watchmakers and expand his watch business.
Gerhard Wempe died in 1921 and left his business, which now
numbered several shops, in the able hands of his son, Herbert,
who soon became the exclusive representative of popular
Swiss brands like Omega, Longines and Zenith. In the hard
economic environment of the post-World-War-One years, he
invested in marketing, making sure that all Wempe stores had
the same identifiable look. When a gang of thieves robbed his
Hamburg store, instead of panicking, he offered the thieves
a larger sum for the booty than any fence wood, an act that
became part of Hans Falada, a novel by one of Germany’s
best-selling authors, and a film (“Rififi,” by Jules Dassin).
One of Herbert Wempe’s main projects was the purchase of a
chronometer-manufacturing firm in 1938, the Hamburger Chro-
nometerwerke. In the same year, he worked with Otto Lange
on the “Glashütte Observatory” project to promote horologi-
cal research and vocational training. World War Two basically
put an end to many plans: chronometers were needed for the
Luftwaffe, and so the military took over. By the end of the war,
Herbert had lost his eldest son and possible successor while
Hamburg, seat of the company, lay in ruins, and Glashütte was
in the Soviet zone.
Herbert’s son Helmut took over in 1963 and worked hard to
make the business an international success. The watch seg-
ment ended up crashing against the reefs of the quartz crisis
and was abandoned in 1981. It was up to his daughter, Kim-Eva
Wempe, to continue take up the relay and realize her own
dream of launching a watch division. In Glashütte. Her reign
began in 2003.
A FAMILY AFFAIR
The Germans have a little word, untranslatable one to one,
that accounts for a lot of their economic success: sachlich. It
connotes a range of definitions, from expert, earthy and rea-
sonable, to rational, intelligent, logical. It is the word that is used
when things get too emotional, too disruptive. It also can clarify
complicated strategies by cutting out the fat and the extraneous
whistles, and help a company get down to brass tacks.
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54 | INTERNATIONAL WATCH | WINTER 2018