A Bohemian violin town, then Franconia.

Höfner’s story begins in 1887 in Schönbach, a violin-making town in Bohemia, then part of Austria-Hungary and now Luby in the Czech Republic. The luthier Karl Höfner (1864–1955) founded the business there; German Wikipedia dates the founding to December 1887. By the early twentieth century it had become, German Wikipedia says, the largest maker of bowed and plucked instruments in the German-speaking world, with about 337 employees by 1937. His sons Josef and Walter joined in 1919 and 1921.

The Second World War ended that chapter. English Wikipedia says the firm made wooden crates and boot soles for the German army, and after the war the German population was expelled from the Sudetenland. The Höfners restarted in 1948 at a former work camp in Möhrendorf, in Bavaria, and in 1950 opened a new factory in Bubenreuth, near Erlangen — a farming village of 415 people whose council voted in autumn 1949 to take in 2,000 expelled Schönbach instrument makers, German Wikipedia says, citing the Süddeutsche Zeitung. Bubenreuth became a centre of string-instrument making, home to Framus and Klira as well as Höfner. Karl Höfner died there in 1955.

In 1964 Höfner added a plant at Hagenau, part of the town of Baiersdorf about 5 km away, to machine wood parts. Walter Höfner’s daughter Gerhilde joined the firm in the 1950s and her husband Christian Benker in 1963; together they ran it as the brothers retired.

A violin outline, scaled up and amplified.

The instrument that made the name is the 500/1. English Wikipedia, citing Höfner’s own history, says Walter Höfner designed the electric semi-acoustic bass in 1955, and it was first shown at the Frankfurt Music Fair in early 1956; German Wikipedia calls it Höfner’s first electric bass. Its hollow body follows the outline of a violin and borrows violin-making methods: a spruce top, maple back, sides and neck, a two-part ebony bridge and a metal tailpiece, on a short 30-inch scale. It has no soundholes, so it works only when amplified. In 1962 the second pickup was moved towards the bridge, and the headstock logo and tuners changed; earlier basses are nicknamed the “Cavern bass.”

The bass became famous through Paul McCartney. In 1961 he bought a left-handed 500/1 at the Steinway Musikhaus in Hamburg; he later said it cost about £30 when he could not afford a Fender, and that its symmetrical body looked “less daft” played left-handed. He added a 1963 model and still plays it. The 1961 bass was stolen in 1972; a search launched in 2023 by Nick Wass, a former Höfner marketing manager, led to its return to McCartney, Guitar World reported. Its fame gave the 500/1 its nickname, the “Beatle bass.”

Other Beatles played Höfners too: John Lennon’s first electric guitar was a Club 40, George Harrison used a President and a Club 40, and Stuart Sutcliffe played a Höfner 500/5 bass, English Wikipedia says. In 1964 the company added the 500/2 Club Bass.

The catalogue also runs to violins, cellos, double basses and bows. Höfner’s “Green Line” series, which the company says it began about 25 years ago with two classical guitars, uses European woods such as walnut and smoked oak in place of rosewood and ebony, Alpine spruce tops and an oil-and-wax finish.

Design and documentation.

Two names came west after the Second World War from Schönbach in Bohemia, now Luby in the Czech Republic. Höfner was founded there by Karl Höfner in 1887 and now works in Baiersdorf in Franconia, where GEWA music took over its business on 1 April 2026 after an insolvency, with the brands held by a Thomann and GEWA holding company. Hoyer, founded in Schönbach by Franz Hoyer in 1874, was re-established at Tennenlohe near Erlangen in 1945 and stopped making guitars in 1987, German Wikipedia says; its website now announces a relaunch in 2027.

Hanika is a Baiersdorf neighbour. Helmut Hanika started his own firm in 1953, making archtop guitars, and later moved to classical guitars, from 1965 by the company’s account and in the 1970s by German Wikipedia’s; the business now belongs to his son Armin, and the company says its instruments are made mostly by hand.

Three are workshops founded by their makers. Lakewood, started in 1986 by Martin Seeliger, builds steel-string guitars at Buseck near Gießen; it says they are built in Germany. Teuffel is Ulrich Teuffel’s company in Neu-Ulm, founded in 1988, he says, and he builds the guitars himself. Marleaux is Gerald Marleaux’s bass workshop at Clausthal-Zellerfeld in the Harz, working since 1990, whose Consat Custom bass won a German musical instrument prize in 2017.

GEWA music is the odd one out, an instrument and accessory company rather than a single workshop: founded at Adorf in the Vogtland by Georg Walther in 1925, it spent five decades in Mittenwald before returning to Adorf, and says it makes products at German, European and Asian sites.

This guide sets out what can be checked about each brand — who founded it, who owns it, and what it says about where its products are made — and marks clearly what rests only on the company’s own word.

From family firm to GEWA music.

The family era ended in 1994, when Höfner joined the British Boosey & Hawkes group, which invested in new production; in 1997 the head office moved from Bubenreuth to an enlarged Hagenau plant. In 2003 Boosey & Hawkes sold its instrument division, including Höfner and Buffet Crampon, to The Music Group, formed by Rutland Fund Management, for £33.2 million, The Guardian reported. In December 2004 a management buyout led by the general manager Klaus Schöller and the finance director Ulrike Schrimpff made it independent again.

Not everything carrying the name is made in Germany: German Wikipedia says lower-priced Höfner guitars and basses are made in China (the HCT series) and Indonesia (Ignition). In December 2025 the local court in Fürth ordered provisional insolvency administration, BR24 reported; the company then had about 50 staff in Baiersdorf. On 2 April 2026 MDR reported, citing the insolvency administrator, that GEWA music, the instrument maker and distributor of Adorf in Saxony, was taking over Höfner with immediate effect, continuing the Baiersdorf site, 24 jobs and the Höfner and Paesold brands; Höfner had blamed falling exports caused by US tariffs. The Abendzeitung München added that the Höfner and Paesold brands themselves went to Streetlife Music GmbH, a holding company of Thomann and GEWA, with Thomann distributing Höfner in Europe and GEWA elsewhere. GEWA says the retailer Thomann took a stake in it in 2019. In June 2026 Guitar World quoted a statement attributed to Nick Wass saying the 500/1 and violins would stay in production, that Höfner “will no longer handle what is called the white wood,” and that Thomann would handle European distribution. Höfner’s website now names Thomann GmbH as its operator.

For a design guide, Höfner shows how a single silhouette — a violin outline scaled up for an electric bass — can carry a brand for seventy years. Compare Framus, another postwar Franconian guitar maker, and Schaller, the Bavarian hardware maker. For this guide we use sunburst browns, amber and binding cream with a serif, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Höfner’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.