A CENTURY OF WEAVING. SUSTAINABLY CREATING OUR FUTURE.

How I would love to have one more chance to chat with Josef Kufferath now. The opportunity to ask what possessed him to found a company in the midst of such politically and economically uncertain times. Did he simply want to stand on his own two feet, or did he intend to build something lasting – possibly even something that would endure far beyond his own lifetime? What was 26-year-old Josef Kufferath envisioning back in 1925?

Well, certainly not a company with more than 800 employees that has production operations spread across five continents. A company that develops innovative mesh solutions for nearly every industry, is ranked among Germany’s top innovators, and is also led by a woman. Surely, even he could not imagine this. Josef Kufferath’s industrial horizon barely extends beyond the local coalfield. GKD in 2025 is not even imaginable as a utopia from the perspective of 1925.

Only in retrospect do things become clearer. But even then, there is not just one GKD company history, but rather many different ones. For example, the ideas of what can be produced from metal and hybrid meshes. In fact, Josef Kufferath writes the first chapter at the end of the 1920s. He develops a mesh with longitudinal openings (instead of square openings), which proves to be extremely advantageous for coal slurry dewatering. Something he could not know at the time: Many more ideas and developments will follow, some of which will make history.

Indeed, they fly to the moon on Apollo 11. They adorn the opera house in Beijing as a decorative yet functional metal fabric. They protect airplanes and passengers from lightning strikes, filter microplastics from wastewater, or set world records, as is the case in Abu Dhabi. One of the largest metal mesh structures in the Arabian region is installed on Capital Gate, the world’s most steeply inclined skyscraper. Yet some ideas never take flight. And even Josef Kufferath wasn’t spared that disappointment. His metal mesh for denture plates, which he patented in 1930, is a prime example of an idea that ultimately didn’t succeed.

The first 100 years of the company’s history are full of interesting anecdotes. “I could really tell you some stories” is how quite a few contemporary witnesses began their interviews for the GKD chronicle. These include stories of Gerard Daniel, a German business partner who had emigrated to the USA, and was always welcomed in Mariaweiler by Aline Kufferath, the founder’s wife, with salmon and Moselle Riesling. Or stories of a ten-person team in China that unceremoniously entered into quarantine for five long days during the coronavirus pandemic, cooking and sleeping in the factory and displaying incredible dedication in making sure that all orders were fulfilled.

There are stories of employees that have always seen the company as their company and have gone above and beyond the call of duty; stories of office parties on Weiberfastnacht or of little Lara Kufferath, dressed as Winnetou, “threatening” employees outside in the company parking lot with a silver can in hand. One story ends in detention, at least for one night. The place is Moscow, and the time is the late 1980s. Dr. Stephan Kufferath and the export manager are arrested due to an incorrectly dated visa. The next morning, the mistake is then cleared up. “In the end, we came back with larger orders than we were used to,” recalls Stephan Kufferath.

The global economic crisis, the threat of bankruptcy, a new start after the Second World War, the sudden death of the founder, the collapse of the all-important Russian business at the start of the 1990s – there were always moments in GKD’s history when time suddenly stood still. These were moments in which the company proved to be a genuine family business – with people at the helm that sought and found a way out with little to nothing in their hands.

Josef Kufferath started over again after the war. Following his death, his widow Aline Kufferath put her faith in Karl Kassner, adopted her cousin, and thereby gave the company a second life. Ingo and Stephan Kufferath invented a whole new line of business with architecture right in the middle of the crisis. In more than 40 years of management, they have turned the “better craftsman’s business” (Ingo Kufferath) into an internationally leading company in its sector that is constantly setting new standards and keeps growing.

Some things in this hundred-year history of GKD simply cannot be explained. Sometimes things just happen without anyone really doing anything. Like in 1983, when a gentleman from Dresdner Bank appears at the door. Dürener Metalltuch, one of his business customers, is threatened with insolvency, so he is keen to sound out the Kufferaths’ interest in merging with this company. The stone that this sets rolling quickly turns into a full-blown avalanche.

Karl Kufferath-Kassner initiates the mammoth takeover project and hands over the reins to his sons Ingo and Stephan Kufferath. They in turn become managing directors in their mid-20s, managing a company with around three times the revenue, more than twice as many employees, and an international sales structure. “Under the Christmas tree in 1983,” as Ingo Kufferath later recalls, “we asked ourselves the question: what have we let ourselves in for?'”

Lara Kufferath is the first person in the company’s hundred-year history to be well prepared when taking over the helm. For several years before she joined the company, she was a guest at the annual Group meetings – in addition to working in industry and at a management consultancy – and was able to see first-hand what GKD was working on strategically. She then joined the company in 2019 and was responsible for corporate development, digitalization, and sustainability, among other areas.

In the offices next door, Ingo and Stephan Kufferath now referred to Lara Kufferath increasingly often when fundamental decisions needed to be made. She assumed the role of CEO at GKD in July 2024, coinciding with the start of the company’s 100th year in business. “A real separation of powers” is what she found, says Lara Kufferath. “My father was the foreign minister, and my uncle was the interior minister.” And very quickly, she realizes: This evolved history of two brothers is something quite unique. Irreplicable. Unrepeatable. The fourth generation will write its own chapters.