Founder Götz Werner is dead

Dusseldorf The founder of the drugstore chain dm, Götz Werner, is dead. He died on Tuesday morning at the age of 78, the Karlsruhe-based company said. Werner’s strength has steadily decreased in the past few months, his radius of activity has been increasingly restricted, it is said. Werner leaves behind his wife, seven children and several grandchildren.

Germany’s largest drugstore chain has been managed by his son Christoph Werner since September 2019. His father and “extraordinary companion” died peacefully, he said on Tuesday. He and the family are in deep and silent sorrow.

Werner, who last lived in Stuttgart, created a drugstore empire out of nothing: With the introduction of the discounter principle, the dm founder made money to become a billionaire. His success, however, was not necessarily predictable. In his biography “What I never expected” Werner described himself as follows: “Stayed at school, dropped out after eleven school years. German junior champion in rowing, trained druggist, became authorized signatory. rejected son. real dreamer. Founders against their will.”

Fired from his father’s company

Götz Werner was born the son of a druggist on February 5, 1944 in Heidelberg. He completed an apprenticeship in Constance and, after completing his training, first went to the “Drogerie Werner”. However, Werner found it difficult in his father’s business. His father threw him out, didn’t believe in his son’s “crazy” ideas.

In 1969 he left his hometown of Heidelberg and went to the “Drogerie Roth” in Karlsruhe, where he was also unable to implement his ideas. So in 1973 Werner decided to set up his own business. It was a self-service market with three times the area and a greatly reduced range compared to conventional drugstores.

His maxim of “permanent, constructive dissatisfaction with the existing conditions”, as the statement says, and the resulting will to change the company again and again, shaped the drugstore chain. Today there are dm markets in 14 European countries. With a turnover of more than twelve billion euros and 66,000 employees, the company is the market leader in Europe.

At dm, Werner relied early on on alliances and an organic range – and on modern employee management. “Every job is valuable,” he wrote in his biography, “that of a housewife and mother as well as that of a manager.”

Industry insiders confirmed that the Goethe fan did everything right that his longtime competitor Schlecker did wrong. His life’s work even impressed his fiercest rival, the drugstore entrepreneur Dirk Roßmann, who said on Götz Werner’s 75th birthday: “His knowledge, his wealth of ideas and the decades of connection to him have always meant a lot to me.”

Supporters of the unconditional basic income

In 2008, Werner left operational responsibility. Even after that, he regularly visited the branches to chat with the employees.

Götz Werner, who received the title of professor from the University of Karlsruhe in 2005, is considered a supporter of the unconditional basic income. He promoted this maxim in many lectures and contributions to discussions. In it he saw an important social contribution, especially in times of increasing globalization and digitization. “He was always aware that he would not live to see the completion of this idea,” the statement said.

Since autumn 2018, Werner had stepped down for health reasons. His greatest wish was: “That my ideas as an entrepreneur and advocate of the unconditional basic income continue to have an effect and contribute to a world worth living in.”

More: How dm boss Christoph Werner is steering the drugstore through the pandemic