Junghans Uhren GmbH is a German watch and clock manufacturer. The company is located in the district of Rottweil, in a town called

Schramberg Schramberg is a town in the district of Rottweil, in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is situated in the eastern Black Forest, 25 km northwest of Rottweil. With all of its districts (Talstadt, Sulgen, Waldmössingen, Heiligenbronn, Schönbron ...

Baden-Württemberg Baden-Württemberg (; ), commonly shortened to BW or BaWü, is a German state () in Southwest Germany, east of the Rhine, which forms the southern part of Germany's western border with France. With more than 11.07 million inhabitants across a ...

, southwest Germany.

History

On 15 April 1861 Erhard Junghans created the company ''Junghans und Tobler'' together with his brother-in-law Jakob Zeller-Tobler in Schramberg. By the year 1903, Junghans had the largest watch and clock factory, with over 3000 employees. The company began to produce wristwatches in 1927, and over the following decades created clocks and watches for the civilian market and the German air force. Beginning in the 1950s, the

Bauhaus The Staatliches Bauhaus (), commonly known as the Bauhaus (), was a German art school operational from 1919 to 1933 that combined crafts and the fine arts.Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 4th edn., 20 ...

-trained designer

Max Bill Max Bill (22 December 1908 – 9 December 1994) was a Swiss architect, artist, painter, typeface designer, industrial designer and graphic designer. Early life and education Bill was born in Winterthur. After an apprenticeship as a silversmit ...

created products for the firm, notably the teardrop-shaped "Kitchen Clock with Timer", which can be found in the collection of

The Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of th ...

, and followed by a series of watches, the first of which launched in 1961. The relationship between Junghans and Bill lasted many years, and the company has continued to release new models based on his work. Many of the firm's best-selling watches today are based on those designed by Bill. The company served as the official timekeeper for the

1972 Summer Olympics The 1972 Summer Olympics (), officially known as the Games of the XX Olympiad () and commonly known as Munich 1972 (german: München 1972), was an international multi-sport event held in Munich, West Germany, from 26 August to 11 September 19 ...

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and ...

. In the late 1980s, Junghans introduced the first radio-controlled table clock on the world market. In 1990 the first radio-controlled wristwatch, called the ''MEGA 1'', followed, designed by

Hartmut Esslinger Hartmut Esslinger (born 5 June 1944) is a German-American industrial designer and inventor. He is best known for founding the design consultancy frog, and his work for Apple Computers in the early 1980s. Life and career Esslinger was born i ...

and his firm

Frog Design frog (styled as ''"frog, part of Capgemini Invent"'') is a global creative and design consultancy founded in 1969 by industrial designer Hartmut Esslinger in Mutlangen, Germany, where it was initially named “esslinger design”. Soon after the ...

. In 1995 Junghans presented a

solar-powered watch A solar-powered watch or light-powered watch is a watch that is powered entirely or partly by a solar cell. History A model produced from 1978 by the Riehl Time Corporation was simply described as running on solar power, but having "silicon powe ...

with ceramic housing. Together with the Japanese firm

Seiko , commonly known as Seiko ( , ), is a Japanese maker of watches, clocks, electronic devices, semiconductors, jewelry, and optical products. Founded in 1881 by Kintarō Hattori in Tokyo, Seiko introduced one of the first quartz watches and the ...

, Junghans developed a globally-oriented wristwatch that automatically sets the local time in respective

time zone A time zone is an area which observes a uniform standard time for legal, commercial and social purposes. Time zones tend to follow the boundaries between countries and their subdivisions instead of strictly following longitude, because it ...

Junghans Defence Industry

The ''Junghans Microtec GmbH'' was a division of Junhans Uhren GmbH founded in the mid 1980s, which was formally spun out into a separate legal entity in 1999, and produces

fuze In military munitions, a fuze (sometimes fuse) is the part of the device that initiates function. In some applications, such as torpedoes, a fuze may be identified by function as the exploder. The relative complexity of even the earliest fuze ...

-technology for

artillery Artillery is a class of heavy military ranged weapons that launch munitions far beyond the range and power of infantry firearms. Early artillery development focused on the ability to breach defensive walls and fortifications during si ...

, mortar, medium-calibre,

tank A tank is an armoured fighting vehicle intended as a primary offensive weapon in front-line ground combat. Tank designs are a balance of heavy firepower, strong armour, and good battlefield mobility provided by tracks and a powerful ...

anti-tank Anti-tank warfare originated from the need to develop technology and tactics to destroy tanks during World War I. Since the Triple Entente deployed the first tanks in 1916, the German Empire developed the first anti-tank weapons. The first dev ...

and

cruise missile A cruise missile is a guided missile used against terrestrial or naval targets that remains in the atmosphere and flies the major portion of its flight path at approximately constant speed. Cruise missiles are designed to deliver a large warh ...

s. Junghans Microtec is located in the small town of Dunningen-Seedorf, close to

. The company produces fuses for 76 mm to 203 mm artillery. The small German tank Wiesel AWC uses the Junghans fuse MFZ/M as a standard performance. In December 2010

WikiLeaks WikiLeaks () is an international non-profit organisation that published news leaks and classified media provided by anonymous sources. Julian Assange, an Australian Internet activist, is generally described as its founder and director and ...

posted documents from US anti-terror officials, which said that the production facilities of Junghans Microtec GmbH would be endangered by terrorist attacks..

Junghans Timepieces (Gallery)

File:Clock-JungHans-6932.jpg,

Pendulum A pendulum is a weight suspended from a pivot so that it can swing freely. When a pendulum is displaced sideways from its resting, equilibrium position, it is subject to a restoring force due to gravity that will accelerate it back toward th ...

box clock
ca. mid 1920s File:Max Bill Junghans.jpg, Junghans kitchen clock, 1956 File:Junghans Additionsstoppuhr, 1960er-Jahre (2 qu).JPG, Stopwatch, 1960s File:Junghans Astra.jpg, Pocketwatch "Junghans Astra", 1960s. File:Junghans Bundeswehr Fliegeruhr.jpg, Junghans watch designed for the German Bundeswehr, first issued late 1950s. File:Junghans Max Bill Uhr.jpg, Junghans watch designed by Max Bill. File:Junghans-MEGA1-watch.jpg, The Junghans MEGA 1, designed by Hartmut Esslinger in the early 1990s. File:Junghans MeisterChronoscope.jpg, Junghans "Meister Chronoscope", jubilee model, 2011

References

External links

Junghans Germany

Junghans America
* {{Authority control Companies based in Baden-Württemberg Watch manufacturing companies of Germany Defence companies of Germany Black Forest German brands Luxury brands Watch brands Clock brands Manufacturing companies established in 1861 19th-century establishments in Württemberg German companies established in 1861

History

Junghans Defence Industry

Junghans Timepieces (Gallery)

See also

References

External links