Inside The Manufacture Glashütte Original’s New Dial Factory Illuminates The German Watchmaker’s Past & Future

Recently, I was invited, along with a select few other journalists from around the world, to visit Glashütte and tour both their manufacture and the new dial facility. The main headquarters was designed and constructed to provide guided tours for journalists, clients, and other visitors who are interested. The dial facility, however, is a different matter. While we were given near-unfettered access to the various processes, departments, and artisans, such occasions will be rare in the future, the company says.

To celebrate the opening of the new dial facility and mark the 180th year of watchmaking in the town, Glashütte Original released a new PanoLunarTourbillon with a truly beautiful "Galvanic Rose" colored dial, textured with an extremely fine-grained finish.

The dial, described additionally as "Iron Ore", is a reference to the rusty red hue of the iron deposits found throughout the surrounding Ore Mountain Range. The 40mm watch is cased in platinum, limited to just 50 pieces, and features a moonphase, signature Panorama Date, and flying tourbillon.

The number of individual steps to create these dials is absolutely staggering, starting with, in some cases, a hand-applied silver plating of the blank base. From there, a myriad of different techniques are used depending on the specifics of the model, some performed by laser and machining (though still closely monitored, guided, and executed by dial makers) to hand application and finishing. The dial featured in the new PanoLunarTourbillon, for example, takes up to three to four months to fully produce. When I first was told that number, I confess, I was skeptical. But after seeing just how intricate each detail is and the care with which it is applied, that figure makes much more sense.

Now, this is not Glashütte Original's first foray into manufacturing its own dials – far from it. Before this latest state-of-the-art facility, the brand operated a separate dial operation in the town of Pforzheim, near Stuttgart, in the Black Forest region of western Germany. That operation, acquired by SWATCH in 2006, has been operated under the auspices of Glashütte Original since its renovation in 2013. With the creation of the new facility in Glashütte, the machinery and staff of the Pforzheim factory have been relocated, and the building has been converted into a customer service center for the SWATCH Group in Germany.

The new manufacturer brings with it a significantly increased capability for production, including, but not limited to, prototyping, galvanization, laser and hand engraving, production of moonphase and display disks, printing, and a host of finishing capabilities. All of this sits but a stone's throw from the doors of their headquarters, providing a level of access and immediacy to the creative process.

While the new dial manufacturing capabilities will undoubtedly be a point of pride for Glashütte Original, they also mark an important milestone in the broader history of both the company and the watchmaking industry within the town of Glashütte. In many ways, the story of the city and industry mirrors the experience of Eastern Germany throughout the second half of the 20th century – a tale of destruction, division, rebirth, and ultimately, reunification.

Watchmaking began in earnest in Glashütte in 1845, when Ferdinand Adolph Lange, Moritz Grossmann, Julius Assmann, and Adolf Schneider established themselves as watchmakers and the industry's founding fathers in what had formerly been a town heavily reliant on the mining industry. Over the following 100 years, the trade flourished, with a unique horological style being developed, exported, and duplicated by other watchmaking locales. (In fact, the imitation of the "Glashütte Style" led to German watchmakers marking their watches as "Original Glashütte" timepieces, thus inspiring the name for the modern brand).

Almost exactly 100 years later, on May 8, 1945, in quite literally the final hours of the war, Glashütte was decimated by a Soviet bombing run. What little watchmaking infrastructure that survived was subsequently pilfered by Soviet authorities. In the years that followed, much of the machinery and tooling were rebuilt from memory. Starting in 1951, as East Germany existed under Soviet rule as the German Democratic Republic (GDR), the whole of Glashütte operated as one company, Glashütter Uhrenbetriebe GmbH or GUB.

Throughout this time period and until reunification of East and West Germany in 1990, GUB created high-quality, reliable — though decidedly unfancy — timepieces for the broader Soviet Union. When Germany was reunified, the former state-owned companies and industries of the GDR were privatized. Thus, GUB became Glashütte Original. To this day, evidence of this era can still be seen and felt throughout the manufacturer, with several long-standing employees remaining.

While each local company can lay claim to people, dates, or specific aspects of Glashütte's story, its history is shared by the entire industry that inhabits the town to this day. As Germany grappled with and recovered from the horrors and destruction of WWII, and bent to the demands of the Allied powers in a new geopolitical era (which continues to shape international politics), both East and West Germanssought to rebuild and redefine themselves.

Empowered by an ethos of dedicated, tireless effort and national pride, the watchmaking industry followed suit. Today, Glashütte is the source of some of the finest watchmaking found anywhere in the world, with Glashütte Original squarely positioned at its heart. Now, endowed with an even greater capacity of artistry and craftsmanship on the face of their products, Glashütte Original begins a new chapter in the grand story of German watchmaking.