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***image1***If I hear someone saying, cuckoo clock, several thoughts come into my mind: Germany, Black Forest and must-have souvenir, to name a few.
But why is the cuckoo clock so popular? Why does it stand for something typical from Germany? And simply how does a cuckoo clock work?
Let the story of the cuckoo clock begin deep in the Black Forest. This is the place known for the cuckoo clock, but surprisingly the first cuckoo clocks were not made in the Black Forest of Germany.
In 1629, many decades before clockmaking was established in the Black Forest, a nobleman named Philipp Hainhofer (1578-1647) penned the first known description of a cuckoo clock.
A few decades later an Italian suggested to use the call of the cuckoo to indicate the hours.
Clockmakers, who could read Latin or Italian, began making clocks with a cuckoo sound announcing the hours.
It took another while but finally people in the Black Forest started to build cuckoo clocks.
The first Black Forest cuckoo clocks were invented in the middle of the 18th century by a clock-master from Schönwald (Black Forest). He adorned a clock with a moving bird that announced the hour with the cuckoo-call. The clock-master copied the cuckoo-call from the bellows of a church organ.
Although the idea of of the cuckoo clock did not originate in the Black Forest, the cuckoo clock as we know it today, is linked to the well-known region located in southwest Germany. The Black Forest cuckoo clock industry is huge and clockmakers still come up with new designs and technical improvements every year.
The cuckoo clock is typically a pendulum driven clock, that strikes the hours using small bellows and pipes that imitate the call of the cuckoo. A good quality clock needs hardly any maintenance.
If you are not interested in driving to the Black Forest, the House of Clocks in Einsiedlerhof has a huge selection of clocks in a variety of sizes. And, shoppers can use a VAT form to save the 19 percent German sales tax.
Americans have played a role in the cuckoo clock’s popularity. From 1945 on (this is when the first GI´s came to Germany), Americans started to take back cuckoo clocks to their family and friends. Since then, the clocks have become a “must-have” souvenir from Germany.
I bought a nice “chalet”-style cuckoo clock with traditional beer drinkers and a very angry German mistress beating her hubby for drinking too much beer.
