How Wolfgang Grupp & his brother once shared the Trigema legacy

Trigema is directly associated with the name Grupp. Wolfgang Grupp has been at the helm of the company for more than 50 years.

But there are two other groups that are less well known. Johannes and Isabel Grupp are Wolfgang’s brother and niece respectively.

Both run the Plastro Mayer company, which is around 15 kilometers from Trigema’s headquarters. The company emerged several decades ago as a subsidiary of Trigema and is now independent.

The name Grupp is almost exclusively associated with Trigema. This is the textile manufacturer from Burladingen, where Wolfgang Grupp is still the sole owner and managing director, although he is now 80 years old. It is no coincidence that many people know Wolfgang Grupp. The entrepreneur regularly draws attention to himself through controversial statements in interviews or talk shows. Business Insider also regularly takes up his statements.

The strategy seems to be working. In the book “Brand Ambassador #1,” written by Christopher A. Runge and Allan Grap, Grupp says, “After I appeared on a talk show, we can immediately see a spike in inquiries on our website.” Advertising also played a part for years the Trigema monkey in front of the “Tagesschau” on the personal brand Grupp.

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His two children are also known to the public Bonita and Wolfgang junior as well as his wife Elisabeth, all three of whom play an important role in Wolfgang Grupp’s successor. If the patriarch has his way, only one of his children can inherit Trigema. Both are already active in managerial roles in the company. Wolfgang junior is responsible for sales, Bonita for the online shop and human resources management.

But there are two more names in the series of groups. However, they are less well known. The 67 year old Johannes Grupp and his 36-year-old daughter Isabel Group are Wolfgang’s brother and niece respectively. Like Wolfgang Grupp, they both run a medium-sized company that is around 15 kilometers from Trigema’s home town of Burladingen. This is Plastro Mayer GmbH in Trochtelfingen, Baden-Württemberg.

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Plastro Mayer manufactures plastic parts, cables and tools. According to the annual report, the company made a profit of around 605,000 euros in 2020. It was founded in 1957 by Johannes’ and Wolfgang’s father, Franz Grupp, as a subsidiary of Trigema in order to diversify the business. Today the company employs 250 people.

The role of Trigema in the Nazi era

Trigema, on the other hand, had already been on the market for around 30 years at this point. It was founded in 1919 by the brothers Josef and Eugen Mayer, at that time the Grupp family had nothing to do with the company. She later married into the family business.

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During the Nazi regime, the then Trigema managing director Josef Mayer joined Hitler’s party, the NSDAP, in 1937. A few years earlier, in 1933, he had participated on behalf of the company in the so-called Adolf Hitler donation from German industry, which was intended to support Hitler in national reconstruction. What’s more, he enriched himself and Trigema by taking over a neighboring factory whose Jewish owners had been expropriated by the Nazis. The details of the Nazi period are omitted on the Trigema website. In 1939, Josef Mayer’s son-in-law, who was with his daughter Änne, joined the company and, according to Trigema, took on important management positions. This son-in-law was Franz Grupp, the father of Wolfgang and Johannes Grupp.

Plastro Mayer became independent in 1976

In 1956, the company passed completely into Franz Grupp’s hands when Josef Mayer died. He in turn managed it until 1969, when he handed it over to his son – and grandson of Josef Mayer: Wolfgang Grupp.

Plastro Mayer, the former subsidiary, became independent of Trigema in 1976 and was therefore independent. In 1986 Franz Grupp finally transferred the company to his son Johannes. Johannes Grupp now manages it together with his daughter Isabel in a double team.

Although the two brothers share the same past, they do not appear together. You will look in vain for photos with both of them, and the brothers do not give any interviews together. Still, there are some parallels between the men, starting with the style of clothing.

Wolfgang Grupp wears tailor-made, unusual suits. So-called double-breasted suits, which not only have one row of buttons, but two, often with a tie and handkerchief. It seems to be the same with his brother. In interviews and also in the official pictures on the website, Johannes Grupp always presents himself in a double-breasted suit, with a tie, handkerchief and his hair combed back. Only the beard differs. While Wolfgang Grupp doesn’t wear one, his brother has a light three-day beard.

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The views on external managers also seem to be similar. For Wolfgang Grupp it is clear: only one of his children should take over the company. “I will never hire a manager,” he said in 2019, for example, the “business week“. Currently, both of his children are ready to take over Trigema. According to Grupp, the decision depends on the choice of partner for the children. Both have been active in the company for several years.

Bonita and Wolfgang junior Grupp have both been with the company since 2013. They are now authorized signatories, so they can sign contracts on behalf of the company, for example. When the time comes, Wolfgang Grupp Sr. would like to make a recommendation on who gets the company in the end. The final decision is supposed to be made by his wife.

Isabel Grupp manages Plastro Mayer with her father

The successor is already ready for Johannes Grupp: his daughter Isabel. Because an external manager, that sounds in an interview with the “Reutlingen General Gazette” through, it shouldn’t be with Plastro Mayer either: “It was very difficult. Before that, we had external managing directors,” says Johannes Grupp, looking back on the beginnings of the company. That’s why Plastro Mayer doesn’t have an internal power struggle like there was with his brother Wolfgang. Daughter Isabel is already an authorized signatory and managing director, and one day she will replace her father at Plastro Mayer. She started more than ten years ago and has worked her way up ever since. In 2011 she started as a trainee in the company, then worked as a production planner and in human resources and finally became an authorized officer in 2016.

Managing the company together with her father is not always “Friede Freude Pancakes”, says Isabel in an interview with the magazine “Production“. Sometimes she puts it back, sometimes her father. “In the end, we agree and then express this opinion to the outside world in a consensus.” They are also very different in terms of management style. “I’m more of a person who is in favor of giving more responsibility, my father is rather very close-knit,” she says.

In the interview, Isabel appears alone – without her father. There is a system. As a rule, Isabel speaks for the company, her father is more in the background. It’s different with his brother Wolfgang. In most of the interviews he appears himself – sometimes with his wife or children. But often alone.

Maybe that will change once one of the children in the Trigema groups is officially chosen as the successor. At the moment, despite Wolfang Grupp’s 80 years, it’s not foreseeable.

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