Panel 2 Harmonica, Gliersteig, City Hall

The Harmonica

In 1829, the Klingenthal instrument dealer Johann Wilhelm Rudolf Glier brings back a harmonica from one of his numerous travels and subsequently organizes his own production of these instruments in Klingenthal. With this, the trained woodwind instrument maker founded a new and soon rapidly developing branch of industry in the “Ringing Valley”.
After Christian Wilhelm Meisel (“Schwarzmeisel”) had already made the first attempts to manufacture this instrument in 1823, but only made the wooden comb bodies in Klingenthal, but had the reedplates with the reeds made in Graslitz by a brass founder named Langhammer, Johann Wilhelm Rudolf Glier and his brothers, with the help of local toolmakers, had now developed manufacturing processes for all parts.
The harmonica was still a young instrument at that time: Around 1800, inventors in many places in Europe were experimenting with breakthrough reeds. Made to vibrate by means of air supply, the small metal blades, called tone reeds, are finally the tone-giving element. In Klingenthal, a factory building is erected for the new type of instrument production in the neighbourhood of the residential building (today the site of the City Hall) at the entrance to Kirchstraße. Johann Wilhelm Rudolf Glier finally left the production to his brothers with their companies C.F. Glier sen. and Ferdinand Glier & Sohn, which continued to play a major role in Klingenthal instrument manufacturing and the worldwide trade in its products for decades to come.

From the 1830s onwards, other companies specialising in the manufacture of harmonicas were quickly established (see box). The largest company was the harmonica factory Ernst Leiterd in Brunndöbra, founded in 1859. In the period 1866 -1877, sales of harmonicas increased eight to ten times. Annually, up to 3 million harmonicas were manufactured. In 1871, there was evidence that 347 workers were employed directly in harmonica manufacturers’ factories in the entire Klingenthal district. In addition to this seemingly small number of factory workers, it was primarily the so-called home industry whose many times larger number of workers completed individual steps of instrument production in the home kitchen and delivered them to the clients. All this has also been made possible by the technical progress of industrial manufacturing.

In 1878, Julius Berthold, a machine manufacturer from Klingenthal, invented a reed milling machine that made it possible to produce millions of the small metal reeds used for tuning in consistent quality. Only with machine support could the manufacture of the harmonica reach such dimensions.
In 1883, the Chamber of Crafts wrote that innovations appeared almost every week but those patents were not always applied for. From the very beginning, manufacturers based in the Klingenthal area contributed greatly to the further development of instruments and playing techniques. Patents and school works bear witness to this. The First World War and the world economic crisis were only brief caesuras in the history of harmonica production. After 1945, however, the harmonica industry lost its former importance in favour of the button accordion production. Although the harmonica had a much higher export potential in GDR times, only a quarter of the harmonica workers were actually employed in the production of harmonicas. Moreover, in the years after the Second World War, the technology of manufacturing stagnated. This resulted in high production costs. Such economically difficult conditions forced many manufacturers to give up. All that remained was the state-owned company VEB Vermona. The harmonica festival “Muha live” was held for the first time in 2000. Since then, this event with workshops, live night and the soloist competition "Seydel Open" annually attracts thousands of fans of this small but extremely versatile and quite powerfully voiced instrument to Klingenthal. At present, the sole manufacturer again trades under the old founding name from 1847: C. A. Seydel Söhne is therefore considered in the present as the “oldest harmonica factory in the world”.


The City Hall

On March 1, 1912, the Municipal Council of Klingenthal decided to build the City Hall on the land of the Glier family, which provided the land free of charge. This was preceded by an architectural competition. Richard Merz, an architect from Dresden, was finally awarded the contract for his design. The construction was carried out by the master builder Max Leheis from Auerbach. The municipality took out a loan for the construction from the Regional City Bank of the Royal Saxon Margraviate of Upper Lusatia (Landesstädtische Bank des Königlichen Sächsischen Markgrafentums Oberlausitz).
In 1913, the old Glier house was demolished and the construction of the City Hall could begin. The laying of the foundation stone took place on May 27, 1913. Numerous Klingenthal companies were also awarded contracts. The City Hall was inaugurated on July 15, 1914. The city charter was granted to Klingenthal on October 1, 1919. This was preceded by several attempts to obtain it over the previous 300 years. The development of Klingenthal into a world centre of harmonica and button accordion manufacturing and the associated expansion of the local infrastructure with jurisdiction, its own administration and extensive transport links to the rail and road network had gone hand in hand with the economic upswing and had ultimately also provided the arguments for the granting of the city charter.


Johann Friedrich Buschmann

In 1805 Johann Friedrich Buschmann was born in Friedrichroda (Thuringia). He experimented with this type of tone production in his father’s workshop in Berlin and, due to his inventions “Aura” (1821) and “Handäoline” (1822), must surely be considered one of the forefathers of the harmonica and accordion.


Start-ups of harmonica manufacturers

1836 I. C. Herold in Untersachsenberg and Georgenthal
1837 C. F. Doerfel-Steinfelser & Co. in Klingenthal
1838 J. C. Seydel in Untersachsenberg
1844 Gebrüder Ludwig in Brunndöbra
1847 C. A. Seydel Söhne in Untersachsenberg
1848 G. A. Doerfel in Brunndöbra
1850 F. A. Böhm in Untersachsenberg
1850 C. H. Meinel – Schlossmeinel in Klingenthal