The first watch at the South Pole - Roald Amundsen with his Julius Assmann Marine observation watch from 1910

Julius Assmann founded his own company at the age of 25 and is today considered one of the founding fathers of watchmaking in Glashütte.

Pocket watches, chronometers and observation watches manufactured by Assmann and his employees played a significant role in building the company's reputation: the observation watches in particular were known for their remarkable precision and sophisticated craftsmanship.

Before Roald Amundsen set out on his historic journey to the South Pole 100 years ago, he acquired several observation watches for the project. Among them was a timepiece made by the young Glashütte watchmaker Paul Löwe at Assmann's company in 1907/08.

Löwe's observation clock proved to be extraordinarily accurate, and so he was encouraged to send it to the Hamburg Maritime Observatory, the official institute responsible for the testing and certification of navigation timepieces made in Germany.

It was there that Roald Amundsen finally became aware of Löwe's observation watch and finally bought it in 1910

On December 14, 1911, the Norwegian polar explorer and his team finally became the first people to reach the geographic South Pole.

Observation clocks, also known as "deck clocks," were used by naval officers in conjunction with marine chronometers and other instruments to accurately determine the ship's position on the high seas. Amundsen would have made good use of them when he set sail for Antarctica on the polar ship Fram.

When he and his team left the base camp in Framheim on the Bay of Whales, the time recorded by the observation watches became the only measure: one watch showed the home time and thus took over the function of the marine chronometer on board; while the second watch was set to the local time.

The time difference between the two clocks, taking into account spherical trigonometry, was used to determine the position of the team on their way to the South Pole.

A compass and sextant were also used. Consequently, the observation watches Amundsen carried with him were absolutely crucial to his mission: Without them, he likely would never have reached his destination on time and thus claimed victory for Norway.

Today, the Fram Museum in Oslo houses, among other objects documenting this historic route, one of Amundsen's Glashütte observation watches, which bears the inscription "J.Assmann - Glashütte" on the dial.