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Why are there these cuckoo clocks in the Black Forest?

The history of the Black Forest cuckoo clock

The history of the Black Forest cuckoo clock has to do with the region, the farmers there and the harsh conditions for people and nature.

There are several reasons why the original Black Forest cuckoo clock has become such a world famous product. The half-hourly cuckoo call with the cuckoo that emerges from the door is still the identification feature of the traditional wall clock from the Black Forest.

However, the price of the materials used also played a decisive role: In the 17th century, farmers in the Black Forest began to increase their income from the modest harvests by producing and selling household goods. The material of choice was wood, and so the first cuckoo clocks had clockworks made of Black Forest wood, the building material that was available in abundance.

These mechanical wooden clockworks were of course much cheaper than the metal clockworks that had already become standard at that time. This was reflected in the price.

A century design from Furtwangen

In the fall of 1850, Robert Gerwig, the director of the Baden watchmaking school in Furtwangen, called for a competition: a modern watch design was to be developed. (Note: This Baden watchmaking school, by the way, is the Cradle of Furtwangen University.)

One of the winning designs came from Friedrich Eisenlohr. As an architect, Eisenlohr was responsible for most of the buildings of the Baden State Railway. Eisenlohr added a dial to the facade of a railway house. The archetype of the cuckoo clock in the form of a small house, which is still popular as a souvenir, was born. The cuckoo clock is based on this so-called station clock.

Um The railway house clock developed in 1860 further, and broke away from its original rather strict graphic form. In 1862, Johann Baptist Beha from Eisenbach was the first to offer richly decorated cuckoo clocks with carved bone hands and weights in the shape of pine cones. Since then, the Bahnhäusle clock with its lavish three-dimensional plant and animal carvings has been popular as a souvenir from the Black Forest. Today, the cuckoo clock has long been considered a “landmark” of the Black Forest and enjoys worldwide popularity. There are even watches that are featured in Hollywood films and series.

The first Black Forest cuckoo clocks - predecessors of today's train station clocks

Who exactly started building cuckoo clocks in the Black Forest is not fully researched today. The opinions of the experts differ here, some claim that the origin is in Schönwald, others find evidence for Neukirch (near Furtwangen) or Schonach. In Anyway, today Schonach is "the Mecca" of the Black Forest cuckoo clock, The largest and most traditional company is the Cuckoo clocks manufacturer Anton Schneider.

The oldest Cuckoo clock from the Black Forest by Johannes Wildi (1755-1820), is now in the German Watch Museum in Furtwangen.
In the 19th century, the cuckoo movement was found in lacquered plate clocks as well as in frame clocks, before the station clock removed all other forms of the cuckoo clock from the market within a few years.