Mühle and Glashütte – a long story, in the truest sense of the word. For our family has been resident in this region for 700 years. One of our ancestors was even raised to the rank of baron. Thus we have had a family crest since 1629, and above all a family motto which states: “Neither through hope, nor through fear”. This means that we are down-to-earth realists who tackle problems resolutely.

This is also precisely why we did not give up even when our company, which was founded in 1869, was threatened by world wars, socialism and expropriation. So today we can say with pride that the name “Mühle” has stood for precision and precision measuring for five generations already.

Our story started with the manufacture of measuring instruments, and nowadays we develop time measuring instruments. How did this come about? A long story, which is described briefly on the following pages. The inclusion of this story was important to us. After all, it is the foundation of what Mühle stands for today: elementary time measurement.

Our company’s history begins with a brave decision made by Robert Mühle. He was born in 1841 in Lauenstein, only a few kilometres away from Glashütte. After his training at the watch manufacturer Moritz Großmann he took the risk and became self-employed: in 1869 he founded a company in Glashütte which manufactured precision measuring instruments for the local watch industry and the watchmakers’ school.

In doing so he dedicated himself to what has always been the story of our family and our products up to the present day: precision measuring. At the same time, his measuring instruments were leading edge technology: for the aspiring Glashütte factories no longer used the Paris line, a traditional measuring unit, when manufacturing their watches, but the metric system, which had recently been introduced into the watchmaking industry. From 1869 on, “Rob. Mühle & Sohn” built the measuring devices and instruments required for this new system.

With his precision measuring instruments, Robert Mühle therefore made an important contribution to Glashütte’s good reputation as the centre of the German watchmaking industry. It was only because we worked with such precision all those years ago that others were also able to do so.

Our ancestors soon won awards for the precision and quality of their measuring instruments. At an exhibition in Dresden, for example, they were presented with the “Gold Medal” of the year 1896 by the city.

Thanks to their good reputation, they were able to extend the manufacture of measuring instruments to a new field. In the decades after 1920, “Rob. Mühle & Sohn“ supplied famous car makes such as Horch, Maybach and DKW with car clocks, speedometers and rev counters. Gears and drives as well as clock mechanisms and counters for technical and scientific purposes were also manufactured at Mühle in Glashütte.

Robert Mühle’s sons Paul, Alfred and Max Mühle were thus able to continue managing the company along these successful lines. It was the chaos after World War II that put an end to this success story because, as with many other companies in Glashütte, the family business was expropriated and dismantled in 1945.

The expropriation of the company, which had been operating successfully for more than 75 years, was of course a severe blow to the family. The company in its then form was completely broken up and parts of it were affiliated under the name “Messtechnik Glashütte” with the Zeiss-Werke in Jena.

It is thanks to the third generation that the name “Mühle“ continued to be associated with precision measuring. As early as December 1945, Hans Mühle founded a new company which would later become the sole manufacturer of dial trains for pressure and temperature measuring instruments in East Germany.

Hans Mühle was born in 1903 to Paul and Elisabeth Mühle, and, after his studies, initially worked as an operating engineer. His close relatives ensured that he was born with a talent for precision measuring as his mother, whose maiden name was Stübner, came from a family who had made a name for themselves with chronometers used for the timing of beacons. When Hans Mühle died in 1970, his son Hans-Jürgen Mühle took over his father’s business, which despite the political circumstances in East Germany was still privately owned.

Hans-Jürgen Mühle studied precision mechanics and optics before working for a supplier to his father’s company. Thus he was very familiar with his father’s work and was able to continue his lifework until our family suffered dispossession for a second time and was then affiliated into the VEB Glashütter Uhrenbetriebe (Glashütte Watchmaking Plants).

At the time of German reunification, Hans-Jürgen Mühle was sales manager of the VEB Glashütter Uhrenbetriebe. To integrate the company into the new economic system, he and four other colleagues were appointed managing directors. After carrying out this task, he left the Glashütter Uhrenbetriebe, as he saw his real calling in the family business of his ancestors.

In 1994, he set up the company “Mühle-Glashütte GmbH nautische Instrumente und Feinmechanik“ where he wanted to devote all this attention again to precision measuring. He applied to the manufacture of marine chronometers and wrist­watches the knowledge that our family had acquired in this field. As sales manager at VEB Glashütter Uhrenbetriebe he had come into contact with this kind of measuring instruments. Since then our family has been manufacturing high-precision marine chronometers, marine time systems and other nautical instruments, and, two years later, we produced our first mechanical wristwatch.

A passion for precision measuring has been driving our family for more than 140 years. The knowledge that we have accumulated in that time and the values to which our company is committed have always been passed on from father to son.

Thus Thilo Mühle also followed in his father’s footsteps, joining the family business in the year 2000. In keeping with our down-to-earth nature at Mühle-Glashütte, he first of all took over product development for our wristwatches. It was not until four years later that he became joint managing director together with his father, before finally becoming sole managing director in 2007.

His career path is prime example of what we at Mühle-Glashütte understand by continuity, tradition and the passing on of knowledge. This understanding means we can ensure that none of the know-how put into the manufacture of our wristwatches, marine chronometers and nautical instruments is lost. It also leads to the constant progression of our product development, as the next generation contributes new ideas.