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There are always niche interests in any field and among guitar collectors it doesn’t get more specialised than vintage German archtops.
Most guitarists will be aware of Höfner and maybe Framus, but guitar making in Germany dates back to the early 19th century, with countless manufacturers producing archtops that spanned the jazz and rock ’n’ roll eras.
Renowned guitar collector and historian Cameron Brown recently co-authored a beautifully illustrated and thoroughly researched book, German Jazz Guitars – The Archtop Guitar In Post-War Central Europe. We spoke with Cameron to learn more about this significant but now overlooked period of guitar making.
New Bohemians
“The production of stringed musical instruments started in what was then Saxony during the late 17th century,” says Cameron. “During the 1600s, a group of instrument makers was kicked out of Schönbach in the German-speaking part of Bohemia.
When I wrote this book, I believed that archtop guitars were invented in America, but I’m now less certain
“They settled 20km away in Markneukirchen, Saxony and established a guild of violin and lute makers. Over the next three centuries, their businesses prospered, and they turned to guitar making in the mid 19th century.
“The area was trading so much with the US that in 1893 the Americans opened a consulate in Markneukirchen, which, at the time, was rated the richest town in all the states of Germany, and that wealth came from musical instruments.
“When I wrote this book, I believed that archtop guitars were invented in America, but I’m now less certain. At least two German-made archtops have turned up dating to the turn of the 19th century, and there’s another earlier one from Mirecourt in France. These days I would be reluctant to say that Gibson invented the archtop.”
“In Germany, Otto Windisch was first to spot the increasing popularity of archtop guitars in dance and jazz bands. His company made Otwin guitars and he began producing archtops during the 1930s. Other German manufacturers soon followed, providing musicians with the type of guitar they couldn’t afford to import from America.
“My Viennese father-in-law was a mathematics teacher and a good jazz player. When he packed up playing, he gave me his guitar, which I discovered was made by Artur Lang, one of the three million German-speaking Czechs expelled in the 1940s from the Sudetenland. I thought it was a beautifully made instrument with a fascinating backstory. That’s when my interest in German archtops really began.”
“I speak fluent German, so I quickly got to know some of the collectors and manufacturers. I enjoy lively discussions with other enthusiasts because there’s a great desire to attribute these guitars.
“There were dozens of makers but many never used any branding. However, repairers would sometimes sign them, which can confuse things, and wholesalers such as Migma, Hopf, Taco and Herrnsdorf often had their names put on them. Pre-war UK importers gave them made-up names such as ‘Radiotone’ or ‘Martin Coletti’.
“Bracing patterns can help us to differentiate between the various manufacturers. The top braces are generally parallel or slightly splayed and positioned just inside the f-holes. Some braces peter out while others continue to the rims, and sometimes there’s a little cross-brace between them. Then there are guitars that have one long brace on the bass side, while others only have a central brace.”
Materials
“Before World War II there was an ample supply of tight-grained spruce from high-altitude German and Czechoslovakian forests. Germany had been flattened during the war and all that timber was needed for reconstruction. Instrument makers struggled to acquire materials and they used whatever they could get.
“Pre-war archtops were often hand carved. In the late 1940s, Wenzel Rossmeisl, the maker of Roger guitars, began to use machinery to carve the thick spruce used for his top plates, to speed up the process, although the recurve of the tops and backs were finessed by hand. Rossmeisl was also one of the first to use plywood and the three layers were often each a centimetre thick.
“He acquired a lot of lovely old piano mahogany after the war. This was used in his factory in Markneukirchen where they would machine-carve laminated tops with contrasting light and dark layers and finish the edges with a pronounced recurve, which became known as the ‘German carve’.
“Rossmeisl was imprisoned between 1951 and 1953 for selling guitars for foreign currency. The East German state proceeded to take over his factory, along with all the staff and tonewood stock to start the state-owned enterprise Musima.
“Rossmeisl’s son Roger was left with just the workshop and a showroom in West Berlin. By 1953 he was heavily in debt and fled to the US. Here he would go on to use the German carve when he worked at Rickenbacker and Fender. His father re-started Roger Guitars in West Germany in 1955.”
Rock ’n’ roll
“In Britain, we couldn’t obtain US dollars for non-essential imports until around 1961. That’s when Denmark Street started bringing in Fenders, Gibsons and so forth. Until then, Höfner was the biggest brand because Selmer had been selling them since the 1930s, but in my view the reason things went downhill was simply because all the 1960s rock stars were playing American guitars so that’s what young players wanted, too.
“Few of these German archtops feel modern; the necks are often very narrow and radiused so we can find them uncomfortable. You’re not going to pick one up to play Bach or shred, but they can sound wonderful and make good jazz guitars. The Germans tried copying American guitars, but the Japanese did it better and cheaper.
“The East Germans were even worse at it, but they did build some very esoteric showy instruments to brighten up their drab day-to-day existence,” says Cameron, before sharing, “Höfner was the last big name left, but they recently closed down and while it’s very sad, I’m surprised it didn’t happen earlier.”
Fortunately, the brand has since been saved by GEWA Music and Thomann – potentially launching a new era of German guitar building.
- German Jazz Guitars by Cameron Brown and Stefan Lob is published by Unicorn.
- This article first appeared in Guitarist. Subscribe and save.
