Peter Christian Zinkann has died: long-term Miele boss at 98 years old

His grandfather had once co-founded the company Miele, Peter Christian Zinkann himself managed it for more than four decades. Now the household appliance manufacturer mourns the loss of an “outstanding entrepreneurial personality”.

Updated: Oct 20, 2026, 10:26 AM 2 min read deublitz newsroom Negative

The former head of Miele, Peter Christian Zinkann, has died. He died on Monday at the age of 98, as the company in Gütersloh announced. With his death, “Miele, industry and the country are losing an outstanding entrepreneurial personality, the family its magnanimous patriarchs, the city an engaged honorary citizen – and the workforce of Miele its highly revered senior manager.”

Keep an overview: Every working day around 6 p.m., SPIEGEL authors answer the most important questions of the day in the newsletter »Die Lage am Abend« – profound, compact, free of charge. Here you order your news briefing as a mail.

Zinkann was born in 1928 in Bremen. In 1945 he moved with his family to Gütersloh. After studying mechanical engineering, he started in 1958 with the company, which his grandfather Reinhard Zinkann had founded together with Carl Miele in 1899. For more than four decades, he managed the company together with his business partner Rudolf Miele. He died in 2004. In the same year, Zinkann retired as Managing Partner.

His son Reinhard Zinkann has been a member of the Miele Management Board since 1999.

Rudolf Miele and Peter Christian Zinkann (2000 in an exhibition kitchen in Gütersloh)

With a view to the life of Peter Christian Zinkann, the company acknowledged his “decisive role” in the success of Miele. In Zinkann's time, for example, the medium-sized company launched an electronically controlled dryer (1966) on the market, dishwashers with cutlery drawers (from 1986) and the Miele-Schontrommel (2001).

Miele reported a turnover of 5.16 billion euros last year, 2.3 percent more than 2024. For profit, the company with its approximately 23,000 employees makes no information. The company manufactures washing machines, dryers, dishwashers, fully automatic coffee machines, vacuum cleaners and other household appliances.

Reinhard Zinkann, great-grandson of a founder and co-chief of the German home appliance manufacturer Miele, has moved jobs to Poland and opened a location in Alabama. In May 2025, he spoke with SPIEGEL about the reasons – you can read the conversation here.