Karl Werner Kieffer

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Karl Werner Kieffer (born November 30, 1912 in Stafford , England ; † April 15, 1995 ) was chairman of the board at Pfaff and founded what is now the “Foundation for Ecology and Agriculture”.

Karl Werner Kieffer studied industrial engineering at the Technical University of Berlin and graduated with a degree in engineering. He became an employee of GM Pfaff AG (today: Pfaff Industriesysteme und Maschinen AG ) and worked there for over two decades, including as a board member and chairman of the board. In 1973 he retired to the board of directors of Pfaff AG.

Karl Werner Kieffer was married to Dagi Kieffer until his death . They have 4 children together.

Ecology & Agriculture Foundation

In 1961, Kieffer founded the “ Georg Michael Pfaff Memorial Foundation” from his private fortune in memory of the founder of Pfaff AG. In the first few years, the foundation was mainly concerned with promoting education and health. From the 1970s onwards, Kieffer moved more and more of his activities to the foundation. Inspired by an apparently very impressive lecture by Ernst Friedrich Schumacher , Kieffer initiated the “Organic Farming Foundation” and the “Middle Technology Foundation” in 1975; At the beginning of 1991, all three foundations based in Bad Dürkheim were merged to form today's Ecology & Agriculture Foundation (SÖL). Under Kieffer's direction, the main focus of the SÖL was, in addition to project funding - later also handling its own projects - the issuing of publications in the areas of organic farming , healthy nutrition and environmental protection .

In memory of its founder, the SÖL has been awarding the Karl Werner Kieffer Prize since 1996.

Karl Werner Kieffer's focus in the foundation lay, in addition to the foundation management, on the topics of medium-sized technology and organic farming. He explained the concept and the necessity of a middle technology on lecture tours to very different social circles. In addition, he dealt with the need for changes in the field of business and technology in publications and articles.

Awards

In 1977 the Theodor Heuss Foundation awarded Kieffer its prize for his commitment to ecological responsibility, especially of commercial enterprises.

In 1988 Karl Werner Kieffer and his wife Dagi received the Bodo Manstein Medal from the environmental association BUND for their diverse activities in organic farming.

In 1990 he received the environmental award from Vital magazine .

Others

In 1969, Karl Werner Kieffer founded the “Friends of the University of Kaiserslautern eV” and remained its chairman until 1980.

Web links

Footnotes

  1. ^ History of PFAFF Industrial ( Memento from October 10, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ↑ Page no longer available , search in web archives: Chronicle for 1972. In: Die ZEIT. 49/1972.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.zeit.de
  3. ^ Website of the Friends of the University of Kaiserslautern. ( Memento from May 31, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
personal data
SURNAME Kieffer, Karl Werner
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German founder and promoter of organic farming
DATE OF BIRTH November 30, 1912
PLACE OF BIRTH Stafford
DATE OF DEATH April 15, 1995