A LONG TRADITION – SINCE 1882
Hanhart is founded
The sun hung red in the evening sky over the northeastern Swiss town of Diessenhofen on the Rhine when watchmaker Johann Adolf Hanhart sat down, took up pen and paper, and wrote an advertisement. In it, he respectfully notified "the honorable inhabitants of Diessenhofen and the surrounding area" that he had purchased a business and moved into its premises to open a watch shop. The building was located at Hauptstraße 33. The advertisement appeared in the "Anzeiger am Rhein" on July 1, 1882. Johann A. Hanhart, who was born in Diessenhofen on May 11, 1856, also served for several years as chairman of the town council.
Relocation of headquarters to Schwenningen in the Black Forest
In 1902, the company was relocated to Schwenningen am Neckar, the "largest clockmaking city in the world".
Wilhelm Julius joins the company
When Hanhart's youngest son, Wilhelm Julius, joined the company, an era of dynamic innovation and pioneering achievements began.
Here, in the 1920s, the entrepreneurial family experienced a first, highly innovative era when the youngest Hanhart son, Wilhelm Julius, who was born in Schwenningen on October 31, 1902, joined the company.
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Introducing the first affordable stopwatch
In 1924, sports enthusiast Wilhelm Hanhart launched the world's first affordable mechanical stopwatch. A year earlier, he had participated in an athletics meet where the organizers had struggled to find four stopwatches of varying quality. At that time, these timepieces came exclusively from Switzerland and were available—if at all—only at exorbitant prices, as they were practically only produced as one-offs. Wilhelm (Willy) Hanhart was so incensed by this that he decided to manufacture stopwatches himself. Together with a watchmaker, he designed and constructed the first affordable mechanical stopwatch—thus pressing the start button for what remains to this day the leading timepiece company in the stopwatch sector.
Two years after the introduction of the first affordable stopwatch, the range is expanded to include pocket watches and wristwatches, executed to the highest level of watchmaking craftsmanship.
As part of the expansion, a second factory was founded in Gütenbach in the Black Forest in 1934, which still produces the Hanhart stopwatch collection today.
Development of the double-hand stopwatch and the single-pusher chronograph “Caliber 40”
In 1935, the complicated double-hand stopwatch was launched. New and increasingly elaborate models went into production. Even then, first-class precision in its most perfect form was one of the company's guiding principles.
The year 1938 marks the beginning of a new era in the company's history. The first Hanhart chronograph model goes into series production: the single-pusher "Caliber 40," which would soon become the company's flagship product. In its 2003 relaunch as the "Primus" model, it has become a highly sought-after collector's item.
As early as 1939, Hanhart had been able to increase its sales figures to such an extent that 200 employees were employed.
Resumption of production
During the war, watch production had to be suspended in favor of torpedo time fuses. Even after the war ended, Hanhart could not immediately resume production due to a hiatus lasting from 1945 to 1948. Production of pilot's chronographs resumed in 1948.
First participation in the Swiss watch fair in Basel
In 1952, the headquarters were rebuilt in Schwenningen. In the same year, Hanhart participated for the first time in the Swiss watch fair – today's Baselworld.
Hanhart is the market leader in stopwatches.
In 1962, Hanhart repeated his coup from 1924: He surprised the market with his new stopwatch, the "Amigo." The company became the market leader and largest producer of mechanical stopwatches in Europe.
And Hanhart shifted into high gear…and opened another production facility in Neukirch in 1963. In Germany, there was practically no school or sports club that didn't use Hanhart stopwatches for timekeeping.
Development of a quartz movement
Then, in 1972, the age of quartz watches began. Hanhart built its own plastic injection molding plant and developed a quartz movement that sold millions of units. Customers included well-known companies that used the movement to equip their own alarm clocks and watches, or for whom Hanhart manufactured these products entirely according to their designs. The first inexpensive quartz movements from the Far East entered the market. Price pressure intensified, and sales volumes declined.
Gütenbacher parried the offensive from the Far East and in 1981 developed a new, affordable movement, the Caliber 3305. This went into production in 1982, with 40 million units sold! In 1983, Willy Hanhart's son-in-law, Klaus Eble, who had joined the company in 1966, took over management. Under his leadership, the LCD stopwatches "Profil," "Magma," and "Stopstar" were developed.
The Hanhart pilot chronograph as a faithful replica
With the rediscovery of traditional watchmaking in the 1990s, Hanhart drew on its own pioneering achievement: At the antique fair in Furtwangen in the Black Forest in August 1997, a replica of the legendary Hanhart pilot's chronograph from 1939 was presented, developed under the aegis of production manager Manfred Schwer. Every detail of the case and dial of the original was meticulously copied, from the old Hanhart logo to the asymmetrical pusher offset. Furthermore, administration and production were consolidated at the Gütenbach site.
True legends – Hanhart is celebrating its 130th company anniversary
Hanhart celebrated its 130th anniversary in 2012. The Swiss-German watch brand, which still holds its position as a leading producer of timekeeping instruments, looks back on an uninterrupted manufacturing tradition and a successful and innovative company history. Today, it focuses more than ever on its core competence: the production of functional instrument watches for use in the air, on land, and at sea.
