Panel 3 Button Accordion and Church

The Button Accordion

1852 is considered to be the year of the beginning of the button accordion production in Klingenthal. Proof of this is the chronicle of Pastor Carl August Wolf, who noted for the year 1853: “The manufacture of accordions, or piano accordions, which had emerged in the course of the previous year, quickly took off in the current year...”
The initiator of this manufacture at that time was Adolph Eduard Herold, who is said to have learned how to make harmonicas in the Magdeburg firm of Friedrich Gessner. As early as 1829, Cyrill Demian in Vienna had applied for a patent for an “Accordion”, which according to the description in the patent specification was an alternating-tone harmonica with chords, but without single notes.

In Klingenthal, however, they were soon making all kinds of button accordions, the development of which progressed in many ways in the second half of the 19th century: German and Viennese models, accordions, concertinas and bandoneons. - Partly in factories that already produced the related harmonica (the tone-producing element, the reed vibrating through air supply, is present in both instruments), partly also in newly founded companies.
The actual manufacturers of the instruments were joined by numerous suppliers of accessories, machines and tools. The toolmaking industry, which is still important in Klingenthal today, has its origins in the special needs of the former harmonica industry. The pioneer was the machine manufacturer Julius Berthold (1845-1934).

By 1900, Klingenthal had become a world centre of harmonica building.
In the mid-1920s, Klingenthal’s German Woodworkers’ Association estimated annual production at one million button accordions. In 1928, more than 7000 workers were employed in Klingenthal in harmonica manufacturing, with more than two-thirds of them being homeworkers. A total of 293 harmonica companies were registered. (However, numerous suppliers of individual components were also counted for this purpose). The world economic crisis in 1929 and the increasing isolation during the period of the Third Reich from the mid-1930s meant stagnation and sales difficulties for production, which was strongly geared to exports. The Second World War brought production almost to a standstill. After 1945, the demand for chromatic accordions in particular increased sharply.

As early as the 1930s, the piano accordion had increasingly supplanted the other types of button harmonica. These instruments were especially popular with the Soviet occupation forces. Under changed social conditions, production was finally centralised in GDR times, which was accompanied by expropriations and the founding of the VEB Klingenthaler Harmonikawerke (KHW) in 1949. Finally, the production of button accordions was united in a single company. Again, the production was predominantly intended for export. In 1964, the Central Statistical Office counted 3451 workers in harmonica production.

The political change also marked the end of the golden age of button accordion building in Klingenthal. In April 1999, about 120 workers were still employed in production, 3 percent of the workforce compared to 1964. Several individual companies were founded from the VEB Klingenthaler Harmonikawerke over the years. Among them was Weltmeister Akkordeonmanufaktur GmbH, which still produces instruments at the original location to this day. Following in the footsteps of the traditional history of button accordion making since 1852, the company itself advertises today to be the “oldest accordion manufacturer in the world”.


The round church “Zum Friedefürsten”

The round church “Zum Friedefürsten” is one of four round churches and the second largest in the Free State of Saxony after the rebuilt Dresden Frauenkirche. In 1653-1736 a simple wooden building stood in the same place. This church also already bore the name “Zum Friedefürsten”.



In 1717, the lordship of the estate had asked the then territorial ruler Duke Moritz Wilhelm of Saxony-Zeitz and the Saxon Elector Friedrich August I of Saxony for permission and financial support to build a new church. But it was not until May 12, 1736 that the foundation stone was laid for the construction of the round church “Zum Friedefürsten”. The Protestants from Bohemia, who moved to Saxony as religious exiles as a result of the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648) and the recatholicization of their homeland, played a major role in the quest for a new church building.

So it also happened that besides the Elector of Saxony, Count Nostiz, the lord of the manor of Graslitz (Kraslice, Czech Republic), donated logs for the church construction. With a sculptor of unknown name from Schönbach (today Luby, Czech Republic) there was also an artist from Bohemia who designed the wooden altar.

On September 15, 1737, the church was consecrated: with an octagonal floor plan and three galleries, the house of worship has since provided space for up to 800 worshippers. The bells are located in the 45-meter-high dome.

In 1872, an organ made by Gotthilf Bärmig from Werda was installed in the church. Until then, an organ by the famous Adorf master Johann Paul Trampeli was used. In the following decades the church was renovated several times, the peal and bells were renewed and changed several times. In 1952, the church received a new bell, because the big and middle bells were melted down during the Second World War. The new steel bells were manufactured in Morgenröthe-Rautenkranz. Extensive renovation and maintenance work on the baroque building was also necessary time and again in the following decades.

In 1989 the round church “Zum Friedefürsten” was the centre of the non-violent demonstrations for the political change in the GDR and the German reunification. In 2012, the church finally received three new bells made of bronze. The church was consecrated on the occasion of the 275th church anniversary on September 1, 2012 on the market square Klingenthal and the bells have been ringing since December 4, 2012.