Alfons Knauf

Alfons Nikolaus Knauf (born July 18, 1906 in Algringen ; † November 6, 1982 in Baden-Baden ) was a German entrepreneur. Together with his brother Karl Knauf , he laid the foundation stone for Knauf Gips, which is now a global company, by founding a gypsum mine in 1932 .

Career

He was the son of the miner Matthias Knauf, who initially worked in Algringen in Lorraine and later in Deutsch-Oth . In 1922 the family moved to Wellen on the Moselle. Alfons founded a sand pit there while he was still at school and then studied mining at the Technical University in Berlin together with his younger brother Karl . In 1932 the brothers founded a gypsum mine in Schengen . In 1933, not far from Schengen, in Perl, Saarland, the brothers acquired a bankrupt lime works, which they converted into a gypsum plant and which then traded as Gebr. Knauf Rheinische Gipsindustrie . The plant in Perl was destroyed in the western campaign in 1940. Alfons Knauf and his family temporarily moved to Iphofen , where another Knauf factory was located. After the end of the campaign in the west, the brothers rebuilt the plant in Perl and leased another plaster works. At the end of the war, her company was placed under forced administration. After the Second World War, the brothers rebuilt the company from Iphofen. They built numerous plaster works and acquired other companies. The brothers managed the company until 1969, when their eldest sons joined the company as personally liable partners. Based on their founding achievement, Knauf Gips developed into a global group of companies.

In the 1970s, the Knauf brothers built the Knauf Museum Iphofen in the town's former prince-bishop's rent office with relief casts from all major cultural epochs, which opened in 1983.

Alfons Knauf was honorary chairman of the Federal Association of the German Gypsum and Gypsum Building Board Industry, co-founder and honorary president of the Association of the European Gypsum Industry Eurogypsum , member of the board of trustees of the Fraunhofer Society for Applied Research and the Max Planck Society as well as honorary president of the Professional and Employers Association of the Building Materials Industry Saarland.

From 1935 he was married to Anna Elisabeth Carolina Cunz, called Annly. The Knauf Group is still owned by his descendants and that of his brother Karl.

Honors

• 1976: Great Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany

literature

• Werner Rödiger, Herbert Schumacher, Wilfried Demel: Growing and Becoming. Biography of the entrepreneurial family Knauf , Iphofen 2003.