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NOMOS CEO Uwe Ahrendt on What Glashütte Means to the Brand

NOMOS’s Glashütte identity connects a long local watchmaking tradition and movement production with the company’s post-reunification origins and Berlin-based design.
Estimate3–4 min Catalogued SpecialistWatchRanker Team
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For NOMOS Glashütte, the town name is more than a place printed on a dial: it points to a watchmaking tradition that dates to 1845, a skilled local workforce that endured through the GDR era, and a company founded after reunification to build on that inheritance. CEO Uwe Ahrendt’s account also makes an important distinction: NOMOS makes watches and movements in Glashütte, while its design work is based in Berlin.

Glashütte’s watchmaking roots began in 1845

NOMOS’s official history dates the town’s watch industry to 1845. After silver and copper mining declined, Dresden watchmaker Ferdinand Adolph Lange established watchmaking in Glashütte with support from Saxon King Friedrich August II. The work developed through specialized trades and a local watchmaking school, helping create an expertise that supported exports of pocket watches and precision instruments by the end of the nineteenth century. NOMOS’s history presents this as the foundation of the town’s later watchmaking identity.

The industry’s course changed through the twentieth century. NOMOS’s historical account says manufacturers contributed to armaments production during both world wars, and that in the GDR the diverse local industry was centralized under state-owned Glashütter Uhrenbetriebe (GUB). The company says knowledge was preserved and passed on despite those changes.

Local watchmaking knowledge survived the GDR period

In a January 2024 interview with Monochrome Watches, Ahrendt described the human continuity behind that history. Trained watchmakers remained in Glashütte, he said, although the GDR-era industry was not focused on luxury mechanical watches. “There was still a good level of know-how in the town of Glashütte, and the fall of the Berlin Wall opened up huge opportunities for the area to thrive again,” he said.

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For Ahrendt, reunification mattered both economically and personally: “Reunification was extremely important for the people living in the area, as it opened the door to a brighter future.” His own family had generations of watchmakers—his great-grandfather, grandfather, and father—and he trained as a toolmaker for the industry.

NOMOS began as a post-reunification opportunity

Founder Roland Schwertner established NOMOS in 1990, the year after the Berlin Wall fell. Ahrendt joined the company in 2000. In his telling, Schwertner saw an opening to create a new brand that could revive local watchmaking traditions and provide jobs in the area. Ahrendt called the company’s position at the time “genuine pioneers,” given the circumstances.

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The first collection arrived in 1992, two years after the company was founded. Ahrendt named four original model families: Tangente, Ludwig, Orion, and Tetra. NOMOS’s April 2025 company facts identify Schwertner as founder and Ahrendt as CEO; they report 240 employees, the majority in Glashütte, and 13 calibers made in-house there. Those are company-published figures, not independent workforce or production estimates. NOMOS’s company facts also list 13 model families and more than 100 versions. A model family’s inclusion does not establish that every version is currently available or in stock.

What “Glashütte” on the dial means

NOMOS says a German designation-of-origin regulation that took effect in 2022 allows a watch to use “Glashütte” on its dial when at least 50 percent of the caliber’s value was created in Glashütte. That threshold applies to the caliber—not to half the finished watch. The company says its calibers are made almost entirely in Glashütte and reports vertical integration of up to 95 percent for its calibers. This is a NOMOS figure about caliber production, not a claim that 95 percent of each complete watch is made in the town. The legal threshold and company figures are described in its April 2025 facts document and official history.

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Glashütte production and Berlin design are complementary

NOMOS does not present every part of its work as local to Glashütte. Ahrendt’s description is direct: “NOMOS produces mechanical timepieces in Glashütte; the complete watchmaking company works there.” The company also places its in-house creative agency and watch design in Berlin. Its account of the two locations treats manufacturing and design as complementary parts of the brand rather than claiming that all company activity happens in one town. NOMOS’s locations page describes its sites and work.

That distinction is useful when assessing what a place name on a watch tells you. For NOMOS, Glashütte signals a defined manufacturing connection, a local workforce, and a historical tradition. It does not, by itself, mean that every component or every stage of the company’s work is located there.

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