Hans J. Zimmer

Hans J. Zimmer (* 1917 ; † 1963 in Falkenstein ) was a German engineer, inventor, entrepreneur and founder of Hans J. Zimmer Apparatebau Offenbach, later Zimmer AG Frankfurt am Main.

life and work

The German engineer Hans Joachim Zimmer recognized the great future of synthetic fibers before the end of the war and built his first electrically heated melting insert as early as 1949, which was used in spinning systems for polyamide fibers. Initially in Offenbach, he developed the first electric heater “Sternschmelzer” for the new synthetic fiber industry: Spinnerets replaced the previous conventional heating maintenance requirements with biphenyl melt filters. These star melters quickly became the main source of income. Hans J. Zimmer's spinnerets are exhibited today in the Deutsches Museum in Munich .

View of part of the former company premises of Hans J. Zimmer AG

Thanks to its innovative strength, the company grew and developed further through many projects such as exhaust gas decontamination, seawater desalination and non-phosphate detergent products. Zimmer AG thus developed into the world's leading man-made fiber and polymer engineering company.

Hans J. Zimmer soon moved to Frankfurt-Seckbach . In 1956 he established a business with Romania, which marked the beginning of Zimmer's globalization. By 1960 he had 327 patents worldwide. 90 percent of sales came from exports. This required a high level of capital. In 1960 Hans J. Zimmer found an investor in the British mechanical engineering and armaments company Vickers London, who invested 3 million marks in Hans J. Zimmer AG. After Hans Joachim Zimmer suddenly died in the morning running through the woods in Königstein in 1963, Vickers took over all shares in Hans J. Zimmer AG from the estate administrator and the Zimmer family, including the numerous subsidiaries such as Elomatic Elektroindustrie GmbH and Zimmer Apparatebaus GmbH.

In 2007, Zimmer AG was taken over by the large-scale plant manufacturer Lurgi , which was previously a foundation of the metal company . This group, founded by Wilhelm Merton in 1881 , took over the majority in the plant manufacturer GEA (company for dedusting systems), which was founded in Bochum in 1920. After various restructurings, the company changed its name to the GEA Group, initially based in Bochum, and since 2011 Düsseldorf. The Lurgi / Zimmer Group has been part of the French Air Liquide Group since 2007 . On January 1, 2015, the business with polymer technologies for polyamide and polyester plants, which was originally based on Zimmer AG and which had previously been spun off to Technip Zimmer GmbH , was taken over by the French engineering group Technip , now TechnipFMC . The 26,000 m² company site of the former Hans J. Zimmer AG between Borsigallee , Gwinnerstrasse and Mergenthalerstrasse in Frankfurt am Main, comprising 18 buildings, remained the property of GEA Real Estate, which had the site completely cleared.

Iron Mountain has been building its first data center in Germany on the site since the end of 2019 .

family

Hans Joachim Zimmer is the father of the film composer Hans Zimmer .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Founding of Hans J. Zimmer Apparatebau Offenbach am Main in 1950 ( memento of the original from March 16, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
2. ^ The entrepreneur Hans J. Zimmer (1917–1963). documentarticle.com.
3. ^ The new Hans J. Zimmer AG group. zeit.de.
4. ↑ Technip: Plant manufacturer acquires polymer technologies. Retrieved March 6, 2018 . 
5. ↑ Clearance of the former Hans J. Zimmer AG company premises. fnp.de.
6. ↑ Iron Mountain is planning its first data center in Frankfurt. In: Immobilien Zeitung . April 28, 2020 ( immobilien-zeitung.de ).
7. ^ Son of Hans Zimmer-Hollywood composer. zeit.de.