A NEW BEGINNING INSPIRED BY A PASSION FOR PILOT WATCHES.

Leomhard R. Mueller was the initiator and executor of the ambitious plan to revitalize the traditional Berlin brand AskAnia and make it a fine address for high quality handmade watches. He comes from the goldsmith town of Pforzheim; He spent part of his professional life in the watch industry of Switzerland and today as chairman of the executive board, he embodies the rebirth of AskAnia AG in Berlin like no other.

It all began wth a book about military and pilot watches, from which Mueller learned about AskAnia pre-war products and their excellent reputation. “That was the big bang,” he says.  “My preference for pilot watches gave me the idea of continuing what had been done so brilliantly at AskAnia. It was a crazy idea but electrified me in such a way that from then on, my thoughts and wishes were focused on AskAnia watches.” Finally the time had come in 2004. After the aquisition of the rights to the name AskAnia, the company AskAnia AG was entered in the commercial register. Before that, Loenhard had tested the reaction of potential cutomers with a small stand at the 2004 International Aviation Exhibition, since the name still had an exquisite reputation in the aviation industry

The AskAnia watches have their roots in Berlin. in 1871, Carl Bamberg, the son of a watchmaker from Thuringia and a protege of Carl Zeiss, founded a manufactory called “Bambergwerke” at Linienstrasse 185 in Berlin. Thanks to outstanding innovations in the field of measurment technology, the company developed into a leading representative of the precision mechanics and optical industry in Germany and soon worldwide within a short period of time.

Bamberg made his mark with high-quality nautical, geodetic, geomagnetic and astronomical precision instruments for marine, observatories, research and expeditions. The time balls developed in 1874 for the Cuxhaven port, and in 1876 for the port of Hamburg, for the synchronization of deck watches and ship chronometers, also gained attention. The first AskAnia watches were pocket watches with manual winding movements. From the very beginning, Bamberg placed great emphasis on International recognition, so that in 1876 he exhibited his products at the trade fairs in London and Philadelphia.

At the turn of the century a proof of the quality of Bambergwerke, and later of AskAnia, was the cooperation with numerous renowned customiemers, such as Junkers, Zepplin, Doriner, Messerschmidt, Bucker, Siemens & Halske or Schottwerke Jena. Bamberg also cooperated closely with the Imperial Navy, for which he became the main supplier of measuring instruments.  The successful development continued when Bamberg died in 1892 at the age of 44. His first widow Emme Bamberg and later his son Adolf Bamberg took over the management of the precision engineering company in 1904. In the period of before and after the century, an entire series of high-precision scientific apparatus, such as coordinate measuring devices for measuring large format photographic glass negatives from the fields of physics, astronomy and geodesy were produced. The company was now in competition with well-known companies such as Carl Zeiss Jena or Adam Hilger London, while gaining an international reputation in the scientific community at the same time.

The company founded by Carl Bamberg reached it’s peak in the two decades between the first and second World Wars. During this time, Max Roux was the head of the company. The AskAnia-Werke was founded in 1921 in Dessau as a result of a merge with the Central-Werkstatt fur Gasgerate GmbH. The name and the crown as company logo refer to the aristocracy of the Askanians, who had an outstanding historical significance for large parts of today,s eastern Germany, especiallyin the high and late middle-ages. After the merger, the AskAnia-Werke AG with locations in Berlin and surrounding areas, became the most importantGerman manufacturer of aviation and navigation instruments. At the end of the 1920’s, in addition to branches in Germany. AskAnia also had branches in Paris, Houston and Chicago.

Since the 1920’s , the company has also built film projectors, stereoscopic cameras and film cameras, which were used for the UFA filming of the movies Der Blaue Engel with Marline Dietrich and Quax, Der Bruchpilot with Heinz Ruehmann or Leni Riefenstahl,s Die Weisse Hole vom Piz Palu. In 1935, the worlds first shoulder mounted camerawas introduced by AskAnia. During the 1936 Summer Olympic Games, time measurement and film cameras were used to record the competitions.

The night flight instruments, on-board instruments and pilot clocks supported aviation pioneers, such as Ehrenfried Guenther von Huenefeld during his first crossing of the Atlantic Ocean or Elly Beinhorn in achieving her long-distance flight records.  AskAnia onboard instruments were installed in numerous aircraft, including those of Lufthansa. Throughout the 1920’s to the 1940,s, there were hardly any aircraft without AskAnia on-board instruments, which provided reliable service in any weather, in any situation and at any time day or night.

In 1946 after the Second World War, the AskAnia Werke was split up.  This marked the provisional conclusion of a typical German industrial history of the 19th and 20th century. In the second half of the 19th century, many companies experienced a successful development, which came to a standstill due to fascism and war. In the case of AskAnia, some divisions were able to continue their work, including the AskAnia watch maufactory in the German capital, which was brought to new life by Loenhard R. Mueller.