Glashütte is first and foremost the town at the centre of German watchmaking – from which the legendary manufacture takes its name.
In 1878 watchmaker Moritz Grössmann, under the impetus of Ferdinand Lange (of Lange & Söhne), founded a watchmaking school in Glashütte that was to become the cradle of future watchmaking generations.
With two world wars taking up most of the first half of the twentieth century, the local economy went into limbo. At the end of these conflicts, the town was taken over by communism, which did not favour the development of the manufacture. The latter did not return to prosperity until after the reunification of Germany in 1989.
The Glashütte Original brand officially came into being in 1994 with the privatisation of “VEB Glashütter Uhrenbetriebe”, an organisation that had grouped together the town's independent watchmakers since 1951. The brand was bought out by the Swatch Group in 2000.
Two years later, Nicolas Hayek Sr, CEO of Glashütte Original, carried on the town of Glashütte's training tradition by setting up a watchmaking school there. The following year, Glashütte Original inaugurated its new manufacture
Glashütte Original's flagship models include the Grande Cosmopolite Tourbillon, the Senator Chronometer and the PanoMaticLunar. The brand is particularly known for its flying tourbillon visible on the dial side of the watch, which dates back to 1996 (and is developed from a design of Alfred Helwig that itself dates back to 1920), the Panorama Date from 1997 and the duplex swan's neck fine adjustment mechanism.
