THE CHRONICLE
A History and Guide to Junghans
Windup Watch Shop - March 27, 2026
Erhard Junghans did not set out to be a watchmaker. Born to Barbara and Nikolaus Junghanson New Year's Day, 1823, in Horn am Neckar, the elder Junghans worked in the knitting and printmaking industries. Following Erhard’s eighteenth birthday, the family relocated to the Black Forest town of Schamberg in 1841. He took an apprenticeship making straw hats at a local factory, where he impressed management enough to take on a full-time job following the end of his apprenticeship. Things continued to go well; so well, Erhard married his boss’s daughter, Louise Tobler, in 1845.
Watches came as an afterthought. When his father-in-law died in 1854, Erhard elected to leave the company and begin a new venture with Jakob Zeller-Tobler, his brother-in-law. Their oil mill was not a success, and they pivoted to a new industry at the suggestion of a local advocate for industrialism — creating watch components.
It was a bold move.
Schramberg is over 600km from the watchmaking hubs of Glashütte or Ruhla, both located in the eastern part of Germany. Still, the gamble paid off. Erhard’s brother, Xaver, was brought on along with his American business experience from years spent abroad. Together, despite having no experience in the watch business, the company grew into a highly successful venture.
Unfortunately, Erhard would not live to see what success his company would enjoy. He died in the autumn of 1870, leaving instructions that his sons were to inherit his ownership within the company. Louise ran the company for the next five years as their sons came of age, before Erhard II took on the business and technical side of the company while Arthur, who had completed a watchmaking apprenticeship and had fought in the Franco-Prussian War, was sent off to America to study modern industrial practices. Their youngest brother, Georg, was too young to join the company but would later join Siemens & Halske.
Though Erhard II left his father’s company in 1897, Arthur carried on the family business into the following century. The Junghans company had produced clocks and watch components for years to great success, but had never attempted to produce its own watch. The company spent eleven years from 1883 to 1894 trying, but never succeeded. So it did the next best thing — buy out a company that could. Junghans merged with the Thomas Haller company in 1900, a shrewd business decision that rendered it the largest watch factory in the world by 1903, producing over three million watches annually.
By 1928, the company began building its first wrist watches utilizing movements from Ruhla. Located in north-eastern Germany, the town of Ruhla saw a large amount of movement manufacturing similar to the nearby town of Glashütte; however, Ruhla movements were not of the same quality and were generally more mass-produced. By 1930, Junghans had already taken steps to bring watch movement production in-house to avoid this. Things appeared to be improving for the brand.
Then everything came crashing down. Following the Nazi’s rise to power, the Junghans factory produced timing fuses for explosive ordinance until the factory was converted into housing for nearly 900 prisoners of war and other forced laborers towards the end of the war. The equipment was confiscated by the French after the war and used to revive the Frenchwatchmaking industry, as it resumed in 1946.
The Junghans company did not give up. It spent the late 1940s and early 1950s crafting high-grade chronometer watches in an effort to rebuild its reputation, again becoming one of the largest producers in the world. This, too, did not last. In November 1956, the Diehl Group completed a hostile takeover, ousting the Junghans family and separating the watchmaking and fuse businesses.
That same year also proved to be the most decisive for the brand’s design. Swiss architect, designer, and artist Max Bill was brought in to design a kitchen clock, beginning a relationship that soon translated into a series of iconic dress watches leading into the 1960s. The late 1950s also saw Junghans produce a watch for the German Bundeswehr, a chronograph that was issued to pilots.
In 1971, Junghans produced the first German quartz watch. This bold move came two years after the technology's invention by Seiko in 1969, kickstarting an era known by enthusiasts as the “Quartz Crisis” — one that irrevocably changed the watch industry and led to the demise of countless small companies throughout Europe and the United States. The following year, Junghans acted as the official timer for the 1972 Munich Olympic Games. These technological advances proved to be the brand’s lifeline through the 1980s and 1990s, with the brand introducing both the first radio-controlled clock and the first radio-controlled wristwatch —technologies that have remained relevant into the twenty-first century.
Still, the brand was noticeably declining. Ownership of the watchmaking business was transferred to Egana Golpfiel in the 1990s, with Diehl retaining the defense portion of the business. In 2008, the company faced bankruptcy and was purchased by Hans-Jochem Stein, a Schramberg politician and businessman. Once the largest watchmaker in the world, Junghans had been reduced to just 85 employees. But it was a place from which to rebuild.
Today, over 150 years after it was founded, Junghans continues to offer well-made German watches based on original designs. The Max Bill collection forms a cornerstone of the modern Junghans offering, with new models inspired by Bill’s iconic original references, celebrating Bauhaus design, having been added to the lineup. The Meister series pays tribute to Junghan’s watchmaking prowess, featuring recreations of vintage designs like the Bundeswehr chronograph and early dress watches while also providing a platform to showcase the brand’s more modern designs. Throughout it all, the brand has focused on quality timepieces with a distinct German style.
To see more of our favorite Junghans watches, head over to the brand page on the Windup Watch Shop. As always, the Windup Watch Team is available via consultation to answer anyquestions you have. In addition, many of the products shown are eligible for free domesticshipping across the US.
