Where are Glashütte Original watches made?

Glashütte Original watches are made in Glashütte, Germany. Unlike other established watchmakers, including Cartier, Audemars Piguet and Patek Philippe, Glashütte Original was never the brainchild of one specific person but rather the city for which it was named. Since 1845, the small German town of Glashütte has been home to the country’s leading watchmakers. With a loan from the Saxony government, entrepreneur Ferdinand Adolph Lange trained locals to become watchmakers, having identified a need for employment after the collapse of the area’s silver mining industry. Soon, the town was attracting big names in the watchmaking business, namely Adolph Schneider, Moritz Grossmann and Julius Assmann. In 1878, the German School of Watchmaking Glashütte was established. Over the next several decades, business boomed until, in 1945, Soviet fighters bombed the watchmaking town, destroying most of the workshops. With East Germany under Soviet control, many of the workshops were merged under a state-owned firm called Volkseigener Betrieb Glashütter Uhrenbetriebe (VEB GUB). This lasted until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. In 1994, German entrepreneur Heinz W. Pfeifer took over VEB GUB and renamed it Glashütte Original. Find a selection of Glashütte Original watches on 1stDibs.