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From mainstream brands to independent watchmakers you may have never heard of

For around two centuries, Switzerland has dominated luxury watchmaking. The "Swiss made" label is synonymous with excellent timekeeping and carries a significant price premium. While less known, German watch brands often offer equivalent or superior quality to their Swiss counterparts. In fact, their obscurity works to the advantage of the prospective buyer. The following is a list of luxury German brands which may make you reconsider Switzerland's supremacy in high-end watchmaking.

A. Lange & Söhne

Since its revival in the 1990s, A. Lange & Söhne has become one of the most desirable high-horology brands. Although the company is relatively unknown by the broader public, its quality is on par with Swiss watchmakers like Patek Philippe and Audemars Piguet. You need only look through the caseback to see why. Every movement receives an impressive amount of hand finishing and is assembled twice for good measure. The hand-engraved balance cock, a staple of fine Glashütte watchmaking, has become a hallmark of the brand. Other distinctive features include the big-date complication inspired by the five-minute clock in the Semper Opera House, serif typography based on the Engravers typeface, and the use of German silver (an alloy with a unique warm hue) in the movement. It is these details that have given A. Lange & Söhne an unmistakable identity.

While the modern company is still fairly young, the name has a lengthy history. In 1845, Ferdinand Adolf Lange founded A. Lange & Cie in the small German town of Glashütte, shaping the industry that would define the region for centuries to come. Demand fell sharply in World War I, but Germany's militarization in the '30s created new, albeit less than scrupulous, business for the flagging company. Following the destruction of the Lange factory and Soviet occupation of East Germany at the end of the Second World War, A. Lange & Söhne ceased to exist. When Germany was reunified in 1990, F.A. Lange's great grandson, Walter Lange, and industry executive Günter Blümlein re-founded the company. In 1994, A. Lange & Söhne introduced its first four watches. Today, the company is best known for the Lange 1, an asymmetrical dress watch, and the Datograph, a chronograph with an outsize date. In 2019, the brand debuted the Odysseus, its first sports watch.

Although design, quality, and heritage have greatly contributed to the brand's success, technical innovation has never taken a back seat. A. Lange & Söhne was the first watchmaker to include a fusée and chain, an antiquated constant-force mechanism from the days of the pocket watch, in a wristwatch. In 2009, the brand introduced the Zeitwerk, the first mechanical wristwatch to display hours and minutes with jumping numerals. When it was released in 2018, the Triple Split became the only split-seconds chronograph to feature a triple-rattrapante mechanism for seconds, minutes, and hours. While superb finishing and design have helped, extraordinary technical accomplishments like these have really put Lange in the same stratum as the historic Swiss giants of high horology.

Glashütte Original

Glashütte Original offers a slightly more accessible entry into Glashütte fine watchmaking than A. Lange & Söhne. The brand's origins are tied to the Soviet occupation of East Germany following the Second World War. Under communist rule, Glashütte watchmakers were consolidated into one company called VEB Glashütter Uhrenbetriebe. After the Berlin Wall fell, this business was privatized, becoming what we now know as Glashütte Original.

Since then, the brand has developed several proprietary calibers and innovations, including the oversized "Panorama" date display. By positioning the two date discs on the same plane, this complication makes an important improvement over Lange's outsize date display. In the latter, the discs responsible for the tens and ones are not on the same level. Recently, the brand created the first flying tourbillon with a stop-second mechanism, zero reset, and minute detent. That means that when the crown is pulled out, the seconds hand resets to zero and the minute hand jumps forward or backward in one-minute increments, allowing for extremely precise time setting. Impressively, the brand also claims that 95% of each movement is made in-house, a rare feat for any watch manufacturer.

The company has also garnered a reputation for offering the traditional high-end hallmarks of Glashütte watches for a lower price than competitors. Most of the brand's movements feature hand-engraved balance cocks, three-quarter plates, swan-neck fine adjustment, and Glashütte striping. Glashütte Original also offers a lower-priced alternative to the Lange 1. Retailing for just over $10,000 in steel, the Pano delivers a high-quality dress watch with an asymmetrical dial without costing an arm and a leg.

Moritz Grossman

Founded in 2008, Moritz Grossman is the youngest company on this list. The brand is named after Karl Moritz Grossman, the nineteenth-century watchmaker responsible for the German School of Watchmaking in Glashütte. Despite its short history, the company has developed over a dozen proprietary calibers and gained a reputation for exceptional quality, in large part due to the amount of handwork that goes into every watch. The hands are manually bent, filed, and polished. Instead of the typical blue color, Moritz Grossman often anneals the hands to a distinctive brown-violet, a process that involves very strict tolerances. The movements receive similar attention. Each caliber is finished and assembled twice by hand, and the balance cock and inscriptions are all hand engraved. Additional details include gold chatons, annealed screws, white sapphire jewels, wide Glashütte ribbing, and triple-band snailing on the ratchet wheel. The two-thirds plate and main plate which secure the going train are made of German silver. All calibers feature Moritz Grossman's in-house oversized balance wheel equipped with a Breguet overcoil hairspring.

Due to the company's size and stringent attention to detail, Moritz Grossman only manufactures a few hundred timepieces every year. Its best-known model line is the Benu. Most models in the collection are simple, time-only dress watches, though some offer date, power reserve, or GMT complications. Instead of the typical rotor, the brand's Hamatic watches use a pendulum-style hammer weight to achieve automatic winding. The company's most complicated model is the Benu Tourbillon, a three-minute flying tourbillon with a stop-seconds mechanism that uses a brush made of human hair. Thanks to its singular approach to watchmaking, Moritz Grossman offers a compelling alternative to the other high-end Glashütte brands on this list.

Lang & Heyne

Unless you are well acquainted with the world of independent watchmaking, Lang & Heyne is likely not a name you have come across. Founded in 2001 by Marco Lang and Mirko Heyne, the small, Dresden-based brand produces a tiny fraction of A. Lange & Söhne's annual output. It is this very limited production that allows the company to stay true to traditional watchmaking techniques. This commitment is most evident in the brand's proprietary movements which feature impressive black polishing, hand engraving, sunburst-brushed ratchet wheels, grained baseplates, chamfered edges, and blued screws.

Despite the company's small size, Lang & Heyne boasts significant watchmaking expertise. In fact, the brand claims that well over 90% of its movement manufacturing is vertically integrated. This is in large part due to founder Marco Lang's efforts to restore the once-prolific watch components industry in Saxony, including the creation of Uhren-Werke-Dresden (UWD) in 2013 to produce parts and movements. The investment in production equipment and expertise has allowed the brand to produce seven models and several special editions. Lang & Heyne's design philosophy mostly follows that of nineteenth-century pocket watches, meaning most watches feature precious metal cases, a traditional handset, and Roman or Arabic numerals. A notable exception is the Hektor, a stainless steel, integrated-bracelet sports watch that houses a UWD-produced caliber. No matter the model, you can rest assured that every component is finished to a remarkable standard.

D. Dornblüth & Sohn

While D. Dornblüth & Sohn is only 25 years old, the brand's true origins are in the 1950s. At that time, a young Dieter Dornblüth was working as a professional watchmaker in his small workshop in Saxony. While he had repaired many timepieces for clients, one particular pocket watch captivated him. After returning the newly repaired timepiece to its owner on a November day in 1959, Dornblüth put pen to paper and drew plans for a wristwatch based on the pocket watch that had just left his workshop. He placed the drawings in a drawer of his workbench, and there they remained for four decades. Meanwhile, Dieter's son, Dirk Dornblüth, had taken up the family trade and become a master watchmaker. In 1999, Dirk presented a wristwatch he had designed himself to his father for his 60th birthday. Overjoyed, the elder Dornblüth revealed his untouched plans from 40 years before, and together they founded a brand to realize his vision.

Despite steadily increasing demand, D. Dornblüth & Sohn has remained committed to traditional methods. Every timepiece is made mostly using older equipment by a small team of skilled watchmakers in Kalbe, Germany. The size of the operation has made it impossible for the brand to produce over a couple hundred watches per year. Still, D. Dornblüth & Sohn has managed to carve out a distinct identity as a brand, attracting a loyal following along the way. The company's designs are instantly recognizable thanks to their simple Arabic numerals and oversized sub-dials. Impressively, the brand offers several customization options including ceramic or sterling silver dials and steel or gold cases despite its small volume.

Additionally impressive is D. Dornblüth & Sohn's continual development of new calibers. While the company's limited volume makes full vertical integration of its movement production an impossibility, between 60 and 75% of every movement is made in-house and the brand has even created two manufacture movements, the Quintus 2010 and caliber 2016. D. Dornblüth & Sohn has also modified its first and most widely used movement, the ETA-based caliber 99, to offer a variety of complications, including an outsize date, moonphase, and power reserve. Every caliber is old-fashioned in both construction and finish, featuring a beat rate of 18,000 vibrations per hour, Breguet overcoil, a three-quarter plate, blued screws, a hand-engraved balance cock with swan-neck fine adjustment, gold chatons, and a double-sunburst finish on the crown wheel. Each is regulated to an exceptionally high standard. The accuracy of the in-house Quintus 2010 caliber is especially remarkable due to a system involving double barrels and what Dornblüth calls a "Maltese cross spring" that delivers a more consistent flow of power to the movement.

Given D. Dornblüth & Sohn's quality, exclusivity, and expertise, you might think that one of the brand's watches would retail for A. Lange & Söhne money. Surprisingly, if you can purchase one directly from the brand, you will likely pay well under $10,000 for the simplest watch and under $20,000 for a more complicated model.