As of: March 8, 2024, 3:00 p.m
By: Gerda Gebel
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Deceased: kitchen professional Werner Schmalz.
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Kitchen professional Werner Schmalz advised his customers well into his old age.
Now the owner of the KWS kitchen studio in Erding has died.
Erding – Werner Schmalz from the KWS kitchen studio in Erding equipped countless families with tailor-made kitchens. Now the kitchen professional has died at the age of 87 after a short illness.
Werner Schmalz was born in Saxony, where he completed an apprenticeship as a cabinet maker.
When he was almost 20, he came to West Germany and found a new home in Hafenlohr in the Main-Spessart area.
After further training as a wood technician, the ambitious Saxon soon moved into kitchen planning.
Over the course of his life, he founded several kitchen studios, first in Frammersbach, later also in Amberg and Neumarkt in the Upper Palatinate, in order to create a solid employment basis for his children.
But the tireless worker also had to accept serious setbacks, such as the early death of his wife Ida, with whom he had three children; the youngest daughter was only nine years old at the time.
Shortly afterwards, a fire destroyed his first kitchen studio, but Schmalz fought his way back on his feet and opened the Dross kitchen studio on Hospital Street in Erding in 1990.
The proximity to the mountains and the new airport made Erding attractive to enthusiastic hikers.
He found a new love in the accountant Karola Werthmann, who followed him to Erding in 1996.
Their son Christopher made their happiness perfect.
The business was renamed KWS-Küchenstudio after the couple's initials in 2004 and was run jointly.
“He was a doer and constantly active,” says wife Karola Werthmann-Schmalz.
Her husband remained connected to his kitchens well into his old age, advising loyal customers and drawing the plans on paper.
One of the two employees took over the transfer to the computer.
Many regular customers in the Erding, Freising area and as far away as Munich recommended the specialist.
In his younger years he was still involved as a breeder of Hovawart dogs in the dog club he founded, but later he had little time for other hobbies apart from his beloved mountains, according to his wife.
In recent years, his health increasingly deteriorated and so Werner Schmalz had to gradually withdraw from the business.
“He was proud of the achievements he had built for himself,” says the widow.
She wants to continue running the kitchen studio as usual, explains Werthmann-Schmalz.
She is supported by proven employees.
At the deceased's request, the burial took place in Hafenlohr in the Spessart, where he had lived for a long time.