Friedrich Karl Peltzer

Memorial plaque on the house Unter den Eichen 101, in Berlin-Lichterfelde

Friedrich Karl Peltzer (born February 5, 1903 in Berlin ; † November 20, 1981 ) is the founder of the ship model and vehicle model manufacturer Wiking .

Since his father was stationed as a naval officer in Kiel , this port city was Peltzer's home for many years. Already in his youth he made simple ship models out of the wood of cigar boxes. After graduating from high school in 1921, he studied biology and art, but had to drop out for financial reasons. He then earned his living with the publication of animal calendars and the magazine Das Tier in the self-managed publishing house of the same name . This was from 1935 by the Ulmer Verlag Dr. Karl Höhn continued after Peltzer finally turned to model making. The volume of poems is one of his last literary worksFragments of feeling .

With the help of a Danish friend, he began building small metal model ships in the early 1930s. In 1936 "Wiking Modellbau Peltzer & Peltzer" was entered in the commercial register in Berlin . The second Peltzer stands for his wife Hedwig Maria Peltzer, whom he married in 1927. At first the company Wiking produced model ships on a scale of 1: 1250 as so-called "water line models", later also models of airplanes, vehicles and Wehrmacht units on a scale of 1: 200. One of the customers was the Wehrmacht, which used the models for training and tactical planning.

By classifying his company as an important operation in the war, Friedrich Peltzer was able to postpone his call-up for a long time, only in the last year of the war he was drafted into the Navy. He was captured by the British, from which he was soon released. In 1945 he founded the transport company Peltzer-Transporte , which he gave up again in 1948.

During the last days of the Second World War, the Wiking production facility in Berlin was badly damaged. However, the molds could be outsourced beforehand. After the war Peltzer produced the so-called "traffic models" - cars, trucks, buses and accessories for the traffic safety training, first in 1: 100 scale, then later in the approximate H0 -Maßstab (1:90) in order for the standard model railways match do. This was crucial for Wiking as model trains were very popular in the 1950s and customers were on the lookout for accessories. Wiking was a quasi-monopoly in this area until 1978 (when Herpa entered the market for H0 car models).

Friedrich Peltzer died on November 20, 1981 in Berlin as a result of a stroke he had suffered the day before. He is buried in the forest cemetery in the health resort of Malente in Holstein Switzerland , where he and his wife have owned a house since the 1950s.

Web links

Commons : Friedrich Karl Peltzer  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• The WIKING shorthand - the chronology of a success