© text and pics: M. Hanke, 2004

The province of Carinthia is one of Austria's most popular destinations in summertime. This is not astonishing, since hundreds of lakes, mountains, and many centuries of history and tradition blend into an equally charming and impressive region. Additionally, the climate is sunnier and warmer here, south of the Alps, than in the country's northern parts.

Not very far from the province's capital Klagenfurt lies the small town of Eberndorf. A large fortified monastery, founded in the 12th century, and rebuilt to its current shape in the 17th, narrates of economic wealth and importance in earlier times.

Unique is the free-standing gothic campanile of the abbey's church, a massive structure, on which a beautiful clock tells the time of the day. When the clock was installed in 1825, it was certainly a very important asset in the region. Nowadays, however, everybody carries his own timepiece with him.

Even the small town of Eberndorf has a traditional shop selling watches and clocks. Aside inexpensive watches and mostly battery powered wall clocks, also jewellery and sports trophies can be purchased at the shop founded by Mrs. Habring; an assortment of goods typical for most similar countryside watch and jewellery shops.

But a closer look into the shopwindow reveils something one is unlikely to expect here: a nice pocketwatch sporting an even nicer tourbillon lies aside a wristwatch which leaves no doubt that it originally was born as a Panerai. At some time in its life, however, it received a tourbillon, which can be seen through a circular window in the dial, onto which a name is printed: "Richard Habring". He is the watchmaker responsible for building these tourbillons, and the person I am about to visit.

Who is this Richard Habring, exercising high horology in a small countryside village? Why is he not an employee of a famous Swiss watch brand?

"Been there, done that", he would state.

Richard was born into an environment full of watches. While not a watchmaker himself, his father was successfully selling parts, such as wheels, pinions, tools and straps to watchmakers in entire Austria. During his tours, he was often accompanied by young Richard, who felt the fascination of the tiny mechanics as soon as he was tall enough to look onto the worktables' surfaces. For him, becoming a watchmaker was a logical step in his life.

Far to the North, in a region we affectionally dubbed the "Austrian Siberia", when we were trained there as young soldiers, amidst forests, swamps, granite rocks and old ruins telling from a distant, more glorious past, lies the tiny village of Karlstein. Of course it has a medieval castle. But more important for us watch enthusiasts, Karlstein is a place with long horological tradition: Already in 1680, clocks were made there, with the production reaching its peak with 140,000 clocks in 1840. In 1874, Austria's oldest, and nowadays only dedicated watchmaking school was founded, now combined with a secondary boarding school.

There, young people, better: children start working with watch movements, while at the same time learning the standard curriculum of modern secondary schools. I can only imagine how tough it must have been for Richard to spend several years in the cold Waldviertel, far from his sunny home. But the training was good, and already there, he developed his massive interest in tourbillons. Together with some fellow apprentices, he swore to build his own tourbillon as soon as possible. However, as one of his former colleagues from school told me just recently, Richard was the only one persistant enough to succeed.

Something really peculiar: A fully functional tourbillon, encased in a cufflink!

After school, Richard pursued his interest in old timepieces, when working for a watchmaker in Tyrol, restoring a large number of fine vintage watches and clocks. The compulsory military service, however, marked a cession of his activities, and after its end, he had to realize that in Austria, there is not much need for trained and highly motivated watchmakers, so the quest for a new job became a rather frustrating issue.

A disappointment marks the start

He wrote dozens of applications, also to the famous watch manufacturers in Switzerland. However, most of them made a good command of the French language mandatory, which unfortunately had not been part of the watchmaking school’s curriculum. Only IWC replied and invited him for an interview. Richard saddled his old car and made the ten hours drive to Schaffhausen with high hopes, but somehow, things did not go well. While he was eager to speak about new ideas, toubillons and other high horology concepts, his interview partner seemingly had more interest in a watchmaker for routine service and repair activities. Massively disappointed, Richard returned home, and even had an accident with his old car.

As it is sometimes the case, life then took an unexpected turn: As it was common practice, the applicant’s travel expenses were refunded by the company. When Richard sent his fuel bills to IWC, the company’s president, Günter Blümlein happened to find the letter, together with the complete file Richard had sent to Schaffhausen when he applied. Therein were all the data about the concepts and especially tourbillons Richard had already made before. Immediately, Blümlein insisted on getting this young man straight back in front of him. Consequently, a brief phone call now changed Richard’s life.

Following his move to Schaffhausen, Richard joined a team of young watchmakers under the liberal leadership of IWC’s legendary chef developer, Kurt Klaus. It was assigned with the development of an innovative split second complication, which could be integrated with the existing chronograph movement, already used in the renown Porsche Design Chronograph. Within a remarkably short time, Richard presented an ingeniously effective design and the base of the "Doppelchronograph”.

This IWC Portugieser Rattrapante was equipped with a displayback to show Richard's split second mechanism

A large poster showing the Flieger Doppelchronograph, equipped with Richard's development, hangs on the workshop's wall.

This task being finished, the next challenge was the mighty "Destriero Scafusiae” one of the most complicated watches ever made by IWC. Besides the new split second mechanism, perpetual calendar and minute repeater, this magnificent watch should receive another special complication: a tourbillon. Richard was entrusted with the development of a tourbillon that could be integrated without necessitating massive changes of the movement. And again, he resolved the problem within an astonishingly short time. The "Destriero" got its tourbillon, and later, the "Da Vinci", too, was equipped with this development, similarly to the "Portugieser Rattrapante" and the "Da Vinci Rattrapante”, which received Richard's split-second mechanism.

As if split-second chronograph and tourbillon were not enough already, Richard was responsible for yet another milestone in IWC's history: the "Deep One" diving watch, which had a depth meter integrated into the watch case. The development of that special timepiece alone would be worth an own article.

Farewell Schaffhausen, welcome love!

But then, his story took another turn. In Eastern Germany, a new high-end watch brand was born, continuing old traditions: A. Lange & Söhne. This company was founded with money, know-how and people from Switzerland, from IWC and Jaeger LeCoultre. Günter Blümlein now needed a good watchmaker with great organisational skills for building up Lange's technical department and world-wide service network. Richard was his man of choice, and in 1997, he went to Glashütte, even farer north than the cold watchmaking school at Karlstein. However, he found the most perfect way to warm himself up, when he met a beautiful young woman with the equally beautiful name Maria-Kristina, his future wife and partner.

The relationship between Richard and Maria-Kristina never was limited to being a family, and Richard is eager to state that his person is but one half of what "Habring” is today. While Richard always was a marvelous watchmaker, Maria-Kristina now added her organisatorial and management abilities. Above that, she is also massively involved in technical and design decisions.

When after Blümlein’s sudden death the situation changed, both in Schaffhausen and Glashütte, Richard decided to leave Lange in 2002, and together with his wife, went to Vienna, where they both took over the service department of Austria’s most renown watch distributor, Hübner. Richard did all the technical work and trained fellow watchmakers, while Maria-Kristina was responsible for the administration.

Click here to go to Part II