This is a translation of the words the Kienzle clock factory used to advertise a new type of clocks with fascist gong strokes in the fall of 1933. This particular clock plays the first notes of the “Horst-Wessel Song“, the unofficial anthem of the National Socialist Party. Adolf Hitler had just been elected Imperial Chancellor in the spring of the same year.
In 1945, the Allies liberated Germany. The Nazi terror regime had cost many people’s lives. All Nazi symbols were prohibited, among them the lyrics and melody of the “Horst Wessel Song”. Clocks with fascist gong strokes had to be modified to play more harmless tunes.
The German Clock Museum received this intact Kienzle clock only a few months ago. It had been a wedding gift given to a convinced National Socialist who continued sympathizing with neo-fascist parties even after the Second World War.
Regulator with “German gong“, Kienzle, Schwenningen, 1934, Inv. 2022-214