Karlhans Krohn

Karlhans Krohn (born November 6, 1908 in Cologne , † June 4, 2003 in Idstein ) was a German sports teacher and youth carer. He became known as the discoverer or inventor of the Indiaca .

Life

As head of the Cologne sports school “Krohn am Dom”, Karlhans Krohn traveled to Brazil in 1936 , where he observed two young people taking a walk on the beach in Rio de Janeiro with a leather sack called “ peteca ” filled with sawdust and decorated with colorful feathers - and struck. Krohn brought a copy of the Peteca to Germany and further developed it there. The first modified model was produced in 1937 on his mother Alice's sewing machine in Cologne and presented to the students at his sports school. Krohn coined the term “Indiaca” in 1938 as a suitcase word from “Indianer” and “Peteca”.

After the Second World War, Krohn first settled in Eisemroth and a few years later in Dillenburg . Together with his wife Elfriede from Eisemroth, who also played a key role in the further development of the Indiaca , he founded the company Krohn AG and started producing Indiaca in the basement of his house. His main job was Krohn in Dillenburg as a district youth worker and later as head of the youth and sports department. One of his most important tasks was the construction and expansion of the district youth home in Heisterberg .

In 1992, Krohn transferred the Indiaca production to the Remscheid-based company Wenesit GbR, which took over the Dillenburg location and there produced 10,000 Indiacas a month for the Japanese market until 2003.

Krohn spent the last years of his life in a nursing home in Idstein im Taunus .

literature

• Hans Weber: "Indiaca inventor Karlhans Krohn died". In: Dill-Post , June 5, 2003.
• Katrin Schneider: “A feathered ball conquers the world from Central Hesse”. In: Dill-Post , November 10, 2003.