1920

Tower clock company foundation

Georg Rauscher I, born 1886 in Regensburg, started his apprenticeship as a forest ranger. After his master's unexpected death he was forced to look for a new apprenticeship, which he found in the Tower Clock Company of Eduard Strobl, founded in 1900. After several years in Regensburg and Berlin and after the end of World War I in 1920 Georg Rauscher finished his master in precision mechanics and founded the Georg Rauscher Tower Clock Manufactory in “Stadt am Hof”, a city quarter right on the other side of the Danube, facing the dome.

Georg Rauscher I, founder

George Rauscher II

20S to 60S

years

Era of mechanical tower clocks and master clocks

Finally Georg Rauscher was able to realize his own ideas and designed clocks ranging from 30 kg to 700 kg own weight. The production of such monumental machines took up to two months and more, the mounting at its final destination, the church tower, more than a week. Georg Rauscher was a compulsive problem-solver, fanatically devoted to clocks. His inventions include his first electromechanical clocks, which he built in 1926, thereby creating a sensation. Georg Rauscher achieved his greatest success in 1950 by installing two electromechanical tower clock mechanisms in two towers of the Münchner Theatinerkirche in Munich. They included altogether six clock faces and pairs of hands. Nowadays, 65 years later, his last tower clock is still in service. His son, Georg Rauscher II. was born on May 31st 1911 and soon walked in the footsteps of this father. 1938 he successfully passed the exams to become a precision mechanic and proved his skillfulness and passion in his fathers company, which he finally took over after his father passed away in 1950. After struggling to find space for an expansion of the production facilities he was able to find new premises on the former outskirts of Regensburg, in today’s Wuerzburger Street. This is also where in the 1950’s he perfected his art of tower clock making and was successfully able to drive the evolution from mechanical works to motor-driven tower clocks and master clocks.

Georg Rauscher in his factory in Stadtamhof in 1935

Transport of a mechanical tower clock from Stadtamhof to the station of Regensburg with the help of a horse-drawn vehicle

A complete tower clock system on delivery; this important acquisition for the community was proudly documented.

New premises of Turmuhren Rauscher in the Nürnberger Straße, back then it was part of the country

Installation of the dials at Ostentor in Regensburg with Georg Rauscher II in the foreground

Exhibition of a mechanical Rauscher tower clock at the Munich crafts fair with Georg Rauscher II (left)

1978

Radio Synchronized Tower Clocks from Regensburg

The old mechanical tower clock movement of the Theatinerkirche now is controlled by a master clock synchronised by radio waves via the official time-signal transmitter of the Federal Institute of Physics and Meteorologyin Brunswick. In 1978, the founder’s grand son, Georg Rauscher III, finally accomplished the leap into present-day state-of-the-art tower clock construction with a radio synchronised clock on quartz basis which was set in operation in Regensburg's city hall. Meanwhile, this constant development has reached its peak in the fourth generation of microprocessor controlled DigiTimer central control clock.

Checking of the newly developed radio clocks by Georg Rauscher III in 1982

1938 to 1981

Firm's archive

Apart from company focussed historical documents dating back to the 1920’s, the archive of the Rauscher Tower Clock Company comprises a collection of press articles. In former times the construction and assembly of a new tower clock was an important event for a church community and was hence covered and meticulously documented in local newspapers. The following press articles are therefore only a small collection of former news coverage.