A fresh start in Bad Friedrichshall

At the start of the ’50s Gerhard Hänel went to West Germany on business. It was here that he met his second wife Liselotte. After the wedding she accompanied her husband to East Germany where their first son Michael was born in 1951.

‘But with all the duplication of work, I always yearned for the free West and my former customers, who were now experiencing a revival.’ Quotation from G. Hänel

Gerhard Hänel saw no commercial future in East Germany and sought a new opening in the West. This was where their second son Joachim was born in 1953. By 1952 he had relocated with his wife Liselotte to Stuttgart where Liselotte‘s parents lived and one year later started ‘from scratch’ in Bad Friedrichshall. Working from what he called a ‘wooden shed’ he built mobile cupboards and hairdressers’ cabinets. Business expanded quickly. Then one day when Gerhard Hänel saw some automated office carousels in an American brochure he thought: ‘I can do that.’ The first production building in Bad Friedrichshall Gerhard Hänel with his wife Liselotte and their two sons Michael and Joachim The first mobile cupboards and hairdressers’ cabinets...

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