Fritz Gegauf
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Fritz Gegauf (1893-1980) was a Swiss inventor and founder of the Bernina Sewing Machine Factory. He was the son of Karl Friedrich Gegauf (1860-1926), inventor of the hemstitch sewingmachine.
[edit] Biography
Fritz Gegauf was born 5th April, 1893 at Steckborn, Switzerland. From 1910 till 1914 he made a mechanics apprenticeship in his fathers sewingmachine factory at Steckborn. He was awarded a patent for a hemstitch sewingmachine. In 1920 he got married to Hermine Meienhofer, daughter of the baker Hermann Meienhofer. From then until 1923 he worked for the sewingmachine factory Athos in Paris. After the death of his father in 1926 his ran the family business together with his brother Gustav as Fritz Gegauf's Söhne. The factory moved with its 35 employees to newly built premises in 1929. When sales of the industrial hemstitch sewingmachines dropped in the early 1930s, he formed in 1932—in cooperation with Wilhelm Brütsch—the Bernina Sewing Machine Factory which produced sewing machines for the home. Technical innovations brought about the rapid growth of the company in the post-war years. Until 1975 Gegauf was on the board of directors, becoming honorary president thereafter.
Fritz Gegauf died 24th February, 1980 at Steckborn.
[edit] External links
- BERNINA International site
- Fritz Gegauf in German, French and Italian in the online Historical Dictionary of Switzerland.
