A. Lange & Söhne is a very old German watch manufacturer located in Glashütte, which is around 25 km south of Dresden, in the state of Saxony (not to be confused with two other states, Lower Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt). The company was founded in 1845. On May 8, 1945, Russian bombers destroyed Lange's main production workshops. (This raid occurred three months after the bombing of Dresden.) The company got back on its feet, but in 1948 the East German communist government nationalized the company. Its head, Walter Lange, fled to West Germany. In 1951 the trademark Lange ceased to exist as it and six other nationalized firms disappeared into a combine.
The "A" in "A. Lange" is Adolph; the söhne were Richard and Emil. Emil's sons, Otto, Rudolf, and Gerhard took over the company when Emil died in 1922. Walter, born in 1924, is Rudolf's son.
Nearly forty years after the Lange company disappeared, in 1990, with Germany reunited, Walter Lange, now 66, returned to Glashütte to found the company Lange Uhren GmbH and re-registered the trademark A. Lange & Söhne. He accomplished this with IWC's financial and logistical support. As it was explained to me by the salesman at Cellini, where I bought my watch, the head of IWC (the most German of the Swiss watch companies) wanted to re-establish Germany's reputation in watchmaking. So, the instructions to Walter Lange were to do whatever it takes to make the finest watches in the world, as long as they are German.
Lange spent four years designing and preparing to manufacture their first new watch, which they called the Lange 1. Since then they have added other models, such as the Saxonia, the Tourbillon "Pour le Mérite." the 1815, the Langematik, the Cabaret, and the Arkade. There is also a Lange 1a, which has a gold, guilloched dial.