Günter Blümlein was born in Nuremberg on 20 March 1943. He began his career at the German watchmaker Junghans, where he became managing director for marketing and sales, and in 1980 to 1981 moved to IWC, then owned by the German instrument group VDO Adolf Schindling, which also held a majority of Jaeger-LeCoultre.
At IWC he pushed through a restructuring, built up the customer base and stabilised the finances; the company later honoured him as the man who had led it successfully out of the Swiss watch crisis of the 1970s. He became chairman of Jaeger-LeCoultre in 1987 and of IWC in 1990.
After German reunification he joined Walter Lange in 1990 in refounding A. Lange & Söhne in Glashütte, Saxony, in which VDO held 90%; Europa Star called its revival from nothing his greatest pride. In 1991, when Mannesmann bought VDO, the three watchmakers were grouped as Les Manufactures Horlogères (LMH) in Schaffhausen, which he co-founded and led as chairman and chief executive. When Richemont bought LMH in 2000 he stayed in charge, and at his death he was head of Richemont's watch division, which he managed with Franco Cologni. He was known for the social atmosphere in his companies, which Europa Star linked to a "Rhineland" idea of capitalism. He died on 1 October 2001, aged 58.
German Wikipedia dates his move to IWC to 1980; the trade press says he worked with IWC and Jaeger-LeCoultre from 1981.