Günther Fielmann, founder of the optician chain of the same name, has died at the age of 84
The entrepreneur Günther Fielmann is dead, he died last Wednesday at the age of 84 at his home in Lütjensee in Schleswig-Holstein (Germany). This was announced to the media by the company. Fielmann, the son of a teacher, actually wanted to become a photographer. But then he gave in to his father's insistence and became an apprentice to an optician. In 1972, he opened his first optician's store in Cuxhaven.
The 1970s are regarded as the golden age of the industry. With famously above-average margins. For customers, however, it wasn't really fun. Beautiful glasses were available - especially in Germany - for private customers, while health insurance patients had the ugly "Kassenbrille" (health insurance glasses) pressed onto their noses. Fielmann was satisfied with smaller profit margins and discovered its opportunity to offer attractive glasses at low prices to the less well-off, pensioners, students and welfare recipients.
For more than 45 years, Fielmann has built its company into the leading optical chain in Germany. There is now a Fielmann store in almost every pedestrian zone. At the end of March 2023, the chain had 977 branches, more than 22,000 employees and 27 million customers. The most recent annual turnover (2022) was almost 1.8 billion euros.
In 2019, Günther Fielmann retired from the company's Management Board at the age of 80 and his son Marc took over as Chairman. His father, until then the oldest CEO of a listed public limited company in Germany, had already largely withdrawn from the operational business. Fielmann will be remembered by his family and employees "with his customer-oriented philosophy, his creative power and his visionary spirit as a pioneer in the optical industry", the company announced after the founder's death.
