Since the 1950s, the elegant Kienzle World Time Clock has served as the flagship of the collection. The design originally dates back to 1939: It was the official state gift from the Württemberg and Hohenzollern states for Adolf Hitler's 50th birthday. The German Clock Museum has now acquired this special piece. Reason enough to trace the history of this world time clock.

The “Führer Birthdays”

From 1933 to 1945, they were part of the annual festivities of the National Socialist dictatorship: the events celebrating Adolf Hitler's birthday on April 20. The numerous gifts from all over Germany were intended to make one thing clear: how much Hitler was supposedly loved by "his people."

The search for gift ideas for political representatives often led to expensive but questionable solutions. Many were apparently guided by the maxim that only sheer size counts. Oversized tapestries, battle paintings, or portrait busts of generals easily filled one of the vast halls in the ostentatious Reich Chancellery in Berlin. In 1939, a roadworthy "KdF-Wagen" (KdF car), later known as the VW Beetle, was added.

The World Clock

Next to the monumental gifts, the flat world clock, just 30 cm high and 26 cm wide, must have seemed almost dwarfed. But its everyday size should not obscure the fact that the design by Kienzle designer Heinrich Möller was charged with significance.

Stylistically, the case echoes the state-supporting Neoclassicism. The dial, featuring a world map and a circular segment-shaped world time display, rests on a massive base. Similar rectangular columns can also be found in prestigious buildings of the time. Ultimately, the world was supposed to be able to rely on the "solid" foundation of the National Socialist ideology, in both senses of the word. A garland of swastikas on the narrow side provides the "appropriate frame" for this.

Even the clock face is steeped in National Socialist ideology. Berlin, not London, is at the center of the map—quite remarkable for a clock with a world time display. After all, our time zone system is based on the prime meridian of the Greenwich Observatory. One possible reason: Berlin is the center of the world because, by its own admission, the regime aspired to world domination. This insane claim to power is underscored by the two hands. It's no coincidence that their shape and orientation are reminiscent of the arms of a compass, the instrument of the world-changing engineer, as Hitler was often viewed at the time.

How perfectly the design reflects the official ideology is demonstrated by a hymnic review of the clock in the design magazine "Innendekoration": "The structure as a whole becomes a symbol of the spirit that has become dominant in German life through this man: a spirit of clearly thought-out, strictly rational order and, at the same time, of practical, active will." (Vol. 50, 1939, p. 210.)

What happened to the clock later?

Things quickly went quiet around the clock. We were unable to determine whether Hitler used it himself or when and how it came into other hands. It only appeared on the online platform eBay in April 2020.

Unfortunately, the clock no longer had its original "inner workings." The original movement may have been defective. Installing a new one would have involved replacing the dial and hands. Perhaps this wasn't the actual gift at all, but rather an identical sample of the case that Kienzle added to the company's sample collection. An indication that there may have been multiple copies can be seen in a photo by the well-known industrial photographer Adolf Lazi, who worked for Kienzle in the 1930s.

The second life of the world clock

In 1955, Kienzle gave the World Time Clock away a second time – this time as a politically inoffensive one-off. Willy Haller, the technical director of the Kienzle watch factories, received it for his 65th birthday. The massive neoclassicism had been replaced by the organically curved forms of the "kidney-shaped table era." Naturally, the swastikas on the outer edge had also disappeared. The basic principle of the clock, however, had remained unchanged. The segmented world time display beneath the representation of the continents, with Berlin at the center, remained.

In the same year, the watch was added to the product line as a flagship. The case of the production model appears significantly simpler than its predecessors. Over the next forty years, Kienzle launched the world time watch in dozens of constantly evolving versions.

In 1986, Kurt H. Traeg catapulted the traditional watch into the digital era. Heinrich Möller's successor as designer, he gave the watch a digital display. LEDs now indicated the time in the corresponding time zones. However, this modern version apparently didn't sell well, so the company soon returned to the classic design with a rotating segment display for the world time.

Finally, in 1995, the World Time Watch once again graced the cover of the collection. But even the flagship could not prevent the once-important watch factory from going bankrupt a year later.

Source: deztsches-uhrenmuseun.de