Ghosts from WWII, Glycine

[joe100]

I recently had the opportunity to purchase a Glycine Dienstuhr Heer German issued Wehrmacht watch. The "DH" watches were contracted by the Germans during the war to meet the needs of the military for jobs requiring a watch. Many companies provided watches to the German military including names we all know like Glycine, Zenith, Longines, and about 20 more. All of the DH issued watches have the same general characteristics similar to mine below.

The average german soldier couldn't afford a wrist watch in those days, and if his job required one the military would issue one. These were considered state property and the serial number would be recorded in the soldier's pay book and expected to be returned when requested. The soldier had to pay for it if lost or stolen and you couldn't own one outside of military service.

Post war, some soldiers would remove the DH number from the back to conceal their military origins since civilian versions without these numbers had been made. Also, the fact the serial was tied with the records of their pay book and I'm sure elsewhere made it an easy way to tie particular soldiers to specific places.

My Glycine had its numbers removed post-war. If you look carefully you can see the ghosted image of 2 of the numbers. Whoever was issued this watch didn't want anyone to tie it back to him later, or to track his movements during the war. I haven't included any photos of this yet as it'll require me to use my macro lens and I haven't gotten that far yet.

I wore the watch for the photo to capture the patina and for the purposes of sharing it with you folks but I doubt it will be anything more than a curiosity in my collection. It has a creepy factor which can't be overcome.

The movement is an AS1130 and case diameter is 34mm.

[asadtiger]

I didnt know of this piece but what a catch Sir..absolute LOVE...the design, proportions and more importantly, proportion of each component relative to each other, is absolutely perfect...in a modern time where we make do with small movements in large cases, we compromise this later aspect a lot...one reason why I like Omegas modern 8xxx movements as atleast they are modern sized according to cases, the only company that did that..but nontheless, I digress...you have an absolute winner there

[joe100]

Thanks Asad! Glad you like it!

[joe100]

Dial patina and radium burns

[Old Expat Beast]

That is a very handsome piece, Joe. Interesting backstory too. What happened to Glycine after the war? And did Longines, etc get in any trouble later for being Nazi collaborators?

[joe100]

Oh Glycine is still around. Famous in the 60s with american pilots in Vietnam. Their Airman GMT is still a classic.

Only Girrard Perrigaux tried their best to buy up their DHs post war and that makes them very rare.

[dysondiver]

very nice ,,, very iwc pilots look to it.


or omega dynamic .

[MitchSteel]

Cool find, Joe

[adamlea]

Very, very nice. Too bad you don't have a serial to work with. It would be interesting to try and see where it's been.

[joe100]

I'm sure that information is long since locked up in the german archives. It's be expensive to look, but interesting none the less

[Krs]

Congrats for the find and may it serve you well.
The AS 1130 aka 'Wehrmachts Kaliber' was chosen due to its durability.Still many military issued and military style watches from early '40s are casing these calibers and they tick pretty well.
For future reference, the post war - 1943 - civilian versions' catalog page:

[joe100]

Thanks so much for posting that catalog shot!