Wempe was founded in 1878 in Hamburg by Gerhard Diedrich Wempe, a 21-year-old watchmaker who opened a small repair workshop and retail counter at Steinstraße 13. The firm grew through the late 19th and early 20th centuries as a watch retailer and jeweller serving the Hamburg merchant class, and through five generations of Wempe family ownership has expanded into one of Europe's most prominent luxury watch retailers.
Today Wempe operates 32 luxury jewellery and watch stores across Germany, the UK (London Bond Street), the US (New York Fifth Avenue), Vienna, Madrid, and Paris. The firm is a principal authorised dealer for Rolex, Patek Philippe, Audemars Piguet, A. Lange & Söhne, IWC, Jaeger-LeCoultre, and most other major Swiss luxury brands. Wempe-store allocations of hot Rolex and Patek references are highly competitive within the European AD network.
Beyond retail, Wempe operates an in-house watchmaking arm, Wempe Glashütte, established in the German watchmaking town of Glashütte in 2005. Wempe Glashütte produces the Wempe Chronometerwerke and Iron Walker lines under the Wempe name, manufactured to chronometer standards (DIN 8319 German chronometer certification) at the firm's Glashütte facility, the historic former Urania observatory.
Wempe Chronometerwerke pieces are produced in small batches with movement modifications by the in-house Glashütte workshop, typically on ETA or Sellita base calibres heavily reworked with custom rotors, regulating index modifications, and chronometer adjustments. The firm also operates the Glashütte Observatory, restored and reopened in 2006, as a watchmaking heritage site and chronometer testing facility.
Wempe-branded watches retail at approximately €2,500-€18,000 for the Iron Walker and Chronometerwerke lines, with limited editions reaching higher. The firm's revenue is dominated by its retail operation (estimated EUR 800M+ annual revenue from store sales) rather than its own-brand watchmaking; Wempe-branded production is in the low thousands per year.
