Werner Sell

Werner Sell (actually Georg Robert Werner Sell ) (born September 1, 1900 in Berlin ; † March 19, 1998 in Dillenburg ) was a German inventor and entrepreneur . Sell ​​developed the modern aircraft kitchen, built steel kitchens and prefabricated houses and later worked for Burger Eisenwerke (later to Buderus and Electrolux ).

Life

Werner Sell studied shipbuilding at the Technical University of Berlin-Charlottenburg and economics at the University of Berlin after completing his Abitur in Berlin and participating in the First World War. After obtaining his diploma in 1923, he initially worked in commercial enterprises. He broke off his intended dissertation on "The Industrialization of South Africa" ​​in 1929 in favor of a job at the Junkers aircraft factory in Dessau. In his role as a foreign affairs officer, in 1930 he was able to persuade a Romanian prince to install a kitchenette in his airplane - the idea of ​​the airplane kitchen was born. Werner Sell was appointed head of the industrial planning department in the Reich Aviation Ministry, an activity which he ended in 1944 at his own request.

In his honor, an aircraft kitchen supplier was renamed Sell ​​GmbH , but it is not the company of the same name that he once founded, but a partial spin-off of the former Burger Eisenwerke. The company now operates under the name of Zodiac.

The Sell kitchens until 1954

Sell ​​first built a steel kitchen for his own house in 1938. After the end of the Second World War, Werner Sell founded his own company that produced prefabricated houses. The prefabricated houses also built the functional steel kitchens, which were in the tradition of the Frankfurt kitchen . Up to 1948 alone, 5,000 units had been sold, mainly to the American occupation forces. From 1954 the delivery of aircraft kitchens took place, from 1955 train kitchens were produced, from 1960 hot air stoves.

Companies

• Sell-Fertighaus GmbH
• Sell ​​built-in kitchens GmbH
• Sell-Haus- und Küchentechnik GmbH

In 1963 Sell brought his company into Burger Eisenwerke, where he became managing director and member of the board.

Sell ​​as an employee of Burger Eisenwerke

Sell ​​concentrated his work on the development of energy-saving stoves, including the hot air oven and the combi steamer . He also expanded the commercial kitchen division, which, like the household division, operated under the name Juno. Both areas were later sold to Electrolux . Sell ​​left Burger Eisenwerke in 1969 at the age of 69 and died in Dillenburg in 1998.

Commitment and honors

• From 1956 Werner Sell was chairman of the working group “Die modern Küche” (AMK) and from 1958 a member of the consumer goods committee of the Federation of German Industries. He has been a member of the board of the DIN committee for usability since 1962. Sell ​​received the Federal Cross of Merit in 1965 and was President of the Dillenburg Chamber of Commerce and Industry from 1966 to 1970 . He held numerous other honorary offices and supervisory board positions. The University of Giessen appointed Werner Sell an honorary professor in 1970 and awarded him an honorary doctorate in 1976.

• Through his work in the field of communal catering, he also became known in the academic world and from 1964 passed on his knowledge in the form of a teaching position at the Department of Household and Nutritional Sciences at the Justus Liebig University in Giessen .

• A company for aircraft kitchens that was spun off from the British company Britax in 2003 has called itself Sell ​​GmbH and thus takes up the name of the former kitchen pioneer.

literature

• Christoph Schäfer: Werner Sell . In: Magistrate of the City of Wetzlar (Ed.): Tüftler & Talente. 150 years of technical innovations in Central Hesse . Wetzlar 2004, p. 191

Web links

• sell-interiors.com , Internet presence of today's Sell GmbH