Dieter Mennekes

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Seminar house Dieter Mennekes Environment Foundation
Half-timbered barn Mennekes with motto: Natura artis magistra .

Dieter Mennekes (born September 20, 1940 in Kirchhundem ; † April 30, 2020 ) was a German entrepreneur and environmentalist who was the first private forest owner to declare a larger area of ​​forest to be wilderness in terms of nature conservation.

Live and act

origin

Dieter Mennekes was born in 1940 in Kirchhundem as the eldest son of master electrician Aloys Mennekes (1910–1976). Five years earlier, his father had founded an electrical workshop in his parents' house in Hofolpe . After the end of the war, the company produced a patented electric firelighter and plugs for various purposes. By 1976, the year the company's founder died, the company had already employed 250 people.

Entrepreneur in electrical engineering

Dieter Mennekes, a graduate industrial engineer, took over the management of his father's company in 1975 together with his younger brother Walter. Together, the company with its headquarters in Kirchhundem was expanded to become one of the best-known German electrical engineering companies. Today Mennekes Elektrotechnik GmbH & Co. KG is the world's leading manufacturer of CEE three-phase current plugs , which already achieved sales of 130 million euros in 2014. Dieter Mennekes left the management in 1992 and sold his company shares to his brother Walter, who has been the owner and partner of the company ever since.

Commitment as a conservationist

Dieter Mennekes acquired considerable forest areas and founded forest companies in South Westphalia and Brandenburg with the aim of creating near-natural forests on an area of ​​3500 hectares.

With his environmental foundation established in 1999, Mennekes became known far beyond his home region. By investing considerable parts of his private fortune, he supported nature conservation projects in the Sauerland, Wittgensteiner Land and Brandenburg. He was one of the main supporters of the Alternative Nobel Prize .

Property damage as a protest action

After the deforestation of a birch avenue in Würdinghausen on November 28, 2013, Mennekes sprayed the facade of the Kirchhundem town hall with the inscription Birkentöter on December 7th and at the same time confessed to his deed in a press-effective manner. Irrespective of any criminal clarification, the municipality of Kirchhundem and Mennekes reached a settlement in January 2014 in which Mennekes contested the illegality of his act and in return the municipality admitted that it had acted wrongly with the felling of the healthy trees. At the same time it was agreed to restore the avenue with tree sponsorship and mutual cost sharing.

Renaturation of the source area on the Ilse with the help of Mennekes.

Establishment of a natural forest cell

In 2014 Dieter Mennekes was the first German private forest owner to declare his 350 hectare Heiligenborner Wald forest near the village of Heiligenborn in the Siegen-Wittgenstein district of Bad Laasphe as wilderness in the sense of nature conservation. The contractual agreement between the state of North Rhine-Westphalia and the founder was announced on April 17, 2014 by the then Environment Minister Johannes Remmel . The keynote lecture was given by Professor Dr. Michael Succow on June 30, 2014 at the Waldgut Heiligenborn.

Nonsmoker protection

The entrepreneur formulated the commitment to the harmful environmental pollution caused by smoking as one of the most important goals of the Dieter-Mennekes Environmental Foundation. He pointed to the annual death rate from active smoking as well as passive smoking in Germany, but also denounced the consequential problems of cigarette consumption, e.g. B. Destruction of global forests, clearing through tobacco cultivation , consumption of firewood to dry the tobacco leaves and forest fires caused by smokers. His environmental foundation supports a variety of activities aimed at reducing the influence of the tobacco lobby on science, politics and the public.

Awards

  • NABU Forest Medal (2018)

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Obituary notice Dieter Mennekes (FAZ). Retrieved on May 8, 2020 (German).
  2. ↑ Kirchhundem: Nature conservationist Dieter Mennekes (79) is dead. May 4, 2020, accessed on May 8, 2020 (German).
  3. ↑ LokalPlus: Entrepreneur and environmentalist Dieter Mennekes is dead - obituary. Retrieved May 8, 2020 .
  4. ↑ Newstral.com: wp.de: "Obituary: Kirchhundem: Dieter Mennekes (79) has died". May 4, 2020, accessed May 8, 2020 .
  5. ↑ Dieter Mennekes: Commemoration: Sylter Rundschau. Retrieved May 8, 2020 .
  6. ^ Dieter Mennekes: Company obituaries: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Retrieved May 8, 2020 .
  7. ^ Dieter Mennekes: Company obituaries: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Retrieved May 8, 2020 .
  8. ↑ MENNEKES history - the success story. Retrieved on May 7, 2020 (German).
  9. ↑ Handelsblatt , No. 133 of July 15, 2014, p. 20.
  10. ↑ Florian Langenscheid , Bernd Venohr (Hrsg.): Lexicon of German world market leaders. The premier class of German companies in words and pictures . German Standards Editions, Cologne 2010, ISBN 978-3-86936-221-2 .
  11. ↑ Dieter Mennekes Environmental Foundation | IN THE. Retrieved May 7, 2020 .
  12. ↑ News. Retrieved on May 7, 2020 (German).
  13. ↑ On the death of Dieter Mennekes ›Wilderness in Germany. Retrieved on May 12, 2020 (German).
  14. ^ Members - Species Protection Alliance. Retrieved on May 12, 2020 (German).
  15. ↑ Volker Eberts: The dispute over Birkenallee has been settled. January 13, 2014, accessed on May 7, 2020 (German).
  16. ↑ Christoph Vetter: Entrepreneur Dieter Mennekes - Wilderness instead of millions. April 19, 2014, accessed on May 8, 2020 (German).
  17. ^ Interview with Dieter Mennekes. In: Natural Forest Academy. June 10, 2017, accessed on May 8, 2020 (German).
  18. ↑ Wilderness in North Rhine-Westphalia - areas. Retrieved May 12, 2020 .
  19. ↑ waldland member information. Retrieved May 12, 2020 .
  20. ^ Administrator: North Rhine-Westphalia: First private wilderness area ?? Heiligenborner Wald ??. In: forstpraxis.de. April 18, 2014, accessed on May 12, 2020 (German).
  21. ↑ 350 hectares of private forest in NRW are becoming wilderness April 20, 2014, accessed May 12, 2020 .
  22. ↑ https://www.land.nrw/de/pressemitteilung/minister-remmel-das-wilde-nrw-waechst-nrw-naturerbe-bewahren-und-schuetzen press release of the state government of North Rhine-Westphalia of April 17, 2014.
  23. ↑ 350 hectares of private forest in NRW are becoming wilderness April 20, 2014, accessed May 12, 2020 .
  24. ↑ Dieter Mennekes Environmental Foundation. Retrieved May 8, 2020 .
  25. ↑ News. Retrieved on May 8, 2020 (German).
  26. ↑ Dieter Mennekes receives the NABU Forest Medal 2018. Accessed on May 7, 2020 .
personal data
SURNAME Mennekes, Dieter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German entrepreneur and environmentalist
DATE OF BIRTH September 20, 1940
PLACE OF BIRTH Kirchhundem
DATE OF DEATH April 30, 2020