Werner Metzen

Werner Metzen (born September 6, 1945 in Andernach ; † April 24, 1997 in Girona , Spain ) was a German entrepreneur.

Metzen was a very successful entrepreneur and bon vivant , he worked as a trained businessman at Karstadt AG , became self-employed and had registered a company with 38 branches under the name Metzen-Warenhandelsgesellschaft mbH since 1988 . He was the owner of junk shops (38 in Germany, as of April 1997) and retail chains, u. a. in Düsseldorf . His company headquarters was in Walldorf near Heidelberg , but the legal headquarters were on Werner-Metzen-Strasse in Nauendorf near Gera .

Metzen was best known for his exclusive lifestyle and as a "junk king" or "bald millionaire" (fortune 30 million DM). His business motto was "Expensive cheap". According to von Metzen, his customers didn't buy something from him because they needed something, but because it was cheap. The merchandise came from bankruptcy assets, overproduction or discontinued models. Especially after reunification, Metzen had taken over loads of goods from old GDR factories and former NVA stocks, some of them even free of charge.

In the meantime, Metzen employed Carl Alexander, Prince of Hohenzollern .

Metzen died on the evening of the following day after he came to the clinic on April 23, 1997 because of a ruptured artery. After his death, all of his possessions were auctioned off.

His son Lars, one of Metzen's five children (one daughter and four sons), later took over the business and changed the operating concept by relying on “noble rubbish”. As a result of this decision, the company went bankrupt after almost two years of no profit and after multiple bankruptcies.

Lars Metzen wrote various books about his father.

literature

• Lars Metzen: Werner Metzen: My father, the junk king. The whole truth about the bald millionaire . Merenberg, Stock-Lot, 1998, ISBN 3-00-002292-9

Web links

• Report on his death in the Rhein-Zeitung (April 26, 1997)