Kienzle Uhrenfabriken
Jakob Kienzle married into a Schwenningen clockmaking family in 1883 and built one of Germany's largest clock companies, with plants across Europe.
A Schwenningen family business
The business that became Kienzle traces itself to 1822, when the master clockmaker Johannes Schlenker founded it in Schwenningen am Neckar, in the southwest German clockmaking region on the edge of the Black Forest, according to the current brand owner.
Jakob Kienzle, born in Schwenningen on 12 April 1859, trained in commerce in Triberg and by age 20 was running the shipping department of a local clock factory. In 1883 he married Agatha Schlenker and that spring began running the family firm alongside his father-in-law, according to the Neue Deutsche Biographie, Germany's national biographical reference. The biography dates the name Schlenker & Kienzle to 1884, while the Banco de España's collection notes link the renaming to the 1883 takeover. Kienzle became sole owner in 1897.
From trading house to clock factory
Before Kienzle arrived, the Schlenker business focused more on trading than on manufacturing. He changed that, starting production of solid 14-day regulator movements with steel trains. He turned a barn and stable into workshops, bought a lock and fittings factory equipped with a 10-horsepower steam engine, and ran his own small brass foundry.
The numbers climbed fast. In 1883 about 20 workers made 2,100 regulator movements, and the next year output reached 30,000; by 1894 roughly 400 staff were turning out more than 200,000 clocks and movements a year. A branch opened in Komotau, Bohemia, in 1887. Kienzle himself traveled widely in Europe and the United States, setting up sales agencies, and the Banco de España notes branches in London, Milan and Paris.
Growth figures vary a little between sources. The Banco de España puts output at about 162,000 clocks a year in 1899, while the Neue Deutsche Biographie gives more than 200,000 clocks and movements for 1894.
What Kienzle made
By 1908 the company employed about 1,700 people, a number that had doubled by 1914, and the Neue Deutsche Biographie notes that annual output passed three million units. In 1913 Kienzle bought the C. Werner clock factory in Villingen, which had made taximeter clocks since 1905, the meters that measured fares in hired cars.
Kienzle also looked after its workforce in ways that were notable for the time. A staff support fund was set up in 1907, and in 1919 the firm became a limited partnership as Jakob's two sons joined the business. He was named a Kommerzienrat, an honorary title for leading businessmen, in 1916.
In 1922 the firm became a family-held stock company, Kienzle Uhrenfabriken AG. During the 1920s about 3,000 workers produced around 15,000 clocks a day at plants in Schwenningen, Villingen, Deisslingen, Mönchweiler, Horb, Komotau and Milan. The Banco de España, which holds a Kienzle oeil-de-boeuf wall clock, describes the company as one of the oldest clockmakers in Germany and the industry leader there in the 1960s and 1970s.
See also: choosing a mantel or desk clock today on OnlineClock.app.
Later history and the brand today
Jakob Kienzle moved to Stuttgart in 1925 and stayed on as chairman of the supervisory board. He received an honorary engineering doctorate from the Stuttgart technical university in 1929 and died in Zürich on 25 February 1935. His son Hellmut succeeded him and founded a clock museum. Another son, Herbert, also has an entry in the Neue Deutsche Biographie.
The independent company did not last. The Banco de España reports that Kienzle went bankrupt in 1996, was bought by a Hong Kong business group, and returned to Germany in 2002 as Kienzle AG. The brand has since changed hands again: the current brand owner says the name was taken over by Kienzle1822 GmbH of Wels, Austria, in 2024, and that watches continue to be sold under it. Its site does not describe any current clock range, so a Kienzle clock you find today is most likely a vintage piece.
Questions people ask
Is Kienzle still in business?
The brand is. The original family company went bankrupt in 1996, and the name has passed through several owners since. From 2024 it has belonged to Kienzle1822 GmbH in Wels, Austria, which sells watches under the Kienzle name.
Why does Kienzle say it dates from 1822?
The company counts its history from Johannes Schlenker's Schwenningen clock business, founded in 1822. Jakob Kienzle married into that family and took over the firm in 1883.
What kinds of Kienzle clocks turn up today?
Mostly regulator movements and household clocks. Kienzle made clocks and movements in very large numbers, with annual output passing three million units in its prime, and from 1913 it also made taximeters.