Forgotten Heroes - Günter Blümlein

When it comes to the times of the so-called quartz revolution of the 1970s, everyone interested in watches probably knows the name of N. Hayek, who is widely considered to have saved the Swiss watch industry from bankruptcy, which was the result of the aggressive entry of quartz watches (electronic if you prefer) of Far Eastern production.

There is a lot of truth in this, but as is usually the case with history, truth is like a certain part of the body, meaning everyone has their own. We can also recall the highlander saying of Father Józef Tischner that "there are three kinds of truth: holy truth, tyz truth, and shit truth."

Now, more seriously, it is obvious that N. Hayek undoubtedly had a huge influence on the defense of traditional Swiss watchmaking and the reconstruction of this branch of industry, but he was neither the only one, nor was his influence the most important. Unfortunately, not everyone knows this.

And here we smoothly move on to the main hero of our historical memories, the unfortunately deceased Mr. Gunter Blumlein, a German who worked at Junghans, which was one of the largest watch manufacturers at that time.

But, let's start from the beginning. Two watch giants, brands known all over the world today, namely IWC and Jaeger le Coultre, as a result of the quartz revolution mentioned at the beginning, fell into huge financial trouble (they were not the only ones, let us add) and practically faced the specter of bankruptcy. The owners, forced by the situation, decided to sell them, but surprisingly there were no buyers for these brands. And since, as the old proverb goes, "there is no fish in the sea and there is no fish", the brands were eventually bought by the German company VDO Adolf Schindling AG, whose president, like Hayek, had a dream to rebuild the importance and prestige of mechanical watches, in which he was probably very inspired by his own experiences, because he also learned the profession of a watchmaker in the famous Glashuette.

It was then that the main character of the story was noticed and employed, who, as time has shown, was, in my opinion, an even greater visionary than Hayek, because the latter based his business idea on a design for a plastic battery-powered watch dug out of the depths of oblivion, while Gunter, completely against the realities and logic of the time, focused on the complications of mechanisms, new designs and generally on what was predicted to be its end or marginalization.

Thanks to him, IWC established cooperation with Porsche Design, and the joint projects of these companies are still appreciated by collectors. Thanks to him, the A. Lange & Söhne brand was revived, which in just 25 years became a strong player, quickly gaining a place in the top, next to heavy watch players such as Patek Philippe, Audemars Piguet and Vacheron Constantin. It is worth mentioning that before 1990, the L&S company did not exist, because it was firstly physically destroyed during World War II, in May 1945 the factory disappears from the map as a result of Allied bombing, and in 1946 the communist authorities of the GDR expropriate the Lange family by government decree, and Walter Lange himself, the great-grandson of the founder of AL&S, is forced to flee to the West. Only after the fall of the Berlin Wall, at Gunther's initiative, a meeting with Walter takes place; both gentlemen are very enthusiastic about the idea of ​​​​reactivating the L&S brand, including the opening date of December 7, referring to the date when Ferdinand Adolph Lange registered his company "Lange&Cie" in Glashütte in 1845, which later became the foundation for the company, joined by FA Lange's sons, Richard and Emil.

The combination of Gunther's ingenuity, vision and passion, the opportunity resulting from owning the IWC and JlC brands (initially all employees of the reactivated L&S brand were educated at IWC) as well as the heritage brought by Walter Lange and drawing from the history of L&S (golden chatons, swan neck for adjustment, or the characteristic bridge) resulted in an incredible success in such a demanding market, as well as the worldwide recognition and recognition of the A. Lange & Söhne brand.

If it weren't for Gunther's aforementioned passion and vision, there probably wouldn't be Kurt Klaus as we know him. It was Gunther who commissioned, let's remember that it was 1981! Kurt to develop a groundbreaking design for those times, a watch with a perpetual calendar and stopwatch, which became the flagship IWC movement, strongly associated with its creator Kurt Klaus (who was the guest of honor at the KMZiZ meeting in Warsaw in 2007 and participated in the campaign to destroy fake watches, sitting at the controls of a road roller).

Kurt of course rose to the challenge, presenting the Da Vinci Perpetual Calendar at the Basel trade fair in 1985. The watch was enthusiastically received not only by the industry but also by customers, and to this day Kurt's perpetual calendar is one of the icons in the IWC portfolio.

The reactivation of Jaeger le Coultre also turned out to be both an image and market success for Gunter, who not only skillfully focused on model lines but also managed to balance the production of these three brands (IWC, L&S and JlC) so that after only twenty years, Richmont paid over three billion Swiss francs for Gunter's life's work. Unfortunately, barely a year after the transaction, in 2001, a serious illness led to the death of our hero, who probably would have made many more business conquests in the watch world if he had lived.

I don't know why, but apart from a handful of enthusiasts this extraordinary man remains completely forgotten, and both when reading various articles about the mentioned brands and other studies, the names of all the people mentioned here are often mentioned, with the exception of Gunter Blumlein.

Thank you to ch24.pl for the inspiration to write this mini-study.

Darek Chlastawa