Sonthofen/Oberstdorf

Successful entrepreneur and empathetic boss

Entrepreneur Dr. Günther Kast is dead. He died a few days after his 93rd birthday in Oberstdorf. Kast is known to many as the successful founder of a company in Sonthofen. Friends pay tribute to his level-headed, amiable and prudent nature as well as his fine sense of humor. The staff speaks of an empathetic, caring personality.

Kast, who came from a family of entrepreneurs in Thalkirchdorf and spent his youth in the Konstanzer Valley, had a remarkable career and professional success. After graduating from the humanistic grammar school in Kempten (1950), he first completed a livestock farming and milking course at Spitalhof, then a dairy apprenticeship at Edelweiß-Milchwerke Hoefelmayr in Kempten. He then went on to study business administration in Munich, before transferring to the Faculty of Law and Political Science at the University of Graz, where he obtained his doctorate in 1959.

Kast then looked for a suitable investment or company takeover to start his own business. He first opened a real estate agency before taking over the Adolf Lachmund company in 1961 and soon switching to the production of bookbinding materials.

As early as 1966, he relocated the company to the Brüchle-junction in Sonthofen, where Dr. Günther Kast is still located today. Time and again, the entrepreneur was able to adapt to changing challenges, recognize opportunities and add new products such as glass fibre fabrics (for example for plaster reinforcement in construction) to the range.

Thanks to great foresight, the initial small business with a handful of employees developed into a successful medium-sized family business with hundreds of employees.

As a specialist for technical textiles and products made from special fibers, it is active in around 80 countries worldwide.

The group of companies also grew through acquisitions such as the takeover of a supplier in Hungary (1995) or the Papyrolinfabrik Wassermann in Kempten (2007). His son Christoph Kast, who joined the company in 1994, has long been managing the business.

In addition to his professional life’s work and political interests, Günther Kast was also socially active, for example as a founding member of the Rotary Club Oberstdorf-Kleinwalsertal, which he joined in 1966 and which he chaired for two years. He was even a member of the Schlaraffia Imma Algoviae friendship association in Immenstadt for 64 years.

In 2005, Kast and his wife Isa had to cope with a heavy blow of fate when their son died in an accident. The 93-year-old leaves behind three children and three grandchildren from his first marriage.

Text source: With kind permission of the Allgäuer Zeitung