Andreas Stihl (10 November 1896 – 14 January 1973) was a Swiss-born German engineer and important inventor in the area of chainsaws, and the founder of Andreas Stihl AG & Company KG. He is often hailed as the "Father of the chainsaw".
Early life
Stihl went to the Volksschule in Zürich, before moving to relatives in Germany. He attended the Realschule in Singen (Baden-Württemberg) and the Gymnasium in Düsseldorf-Oberkassel. From 1915 until his dismissal by injuries in 1917, Stihl fought in the First World War in the German Army. From 1917 until 1920, he studied mechanical engineering in Eisenach. Stihl founded a new company, for steam boiler pre-firing systems, in the same year. It was, however, the first electric chainsaw worldwide. In 1929, Stihl built a petrol powered chainsaw, named the "tree-felling machine", two years after fellow German Emil Lerp had built the first one worldwide. The following year, Stihl created the first ever chainsaw that could be operated by only one person. The company continued to grow and in 1931 it became the first European company to export chainsaws to the United States and the Soviet Union. Stihl has been the biggest chainsaw manufacturing company in the world since 1971. Stihl divorced his first wife in 1960, and married Hannelore Wegener-Doberg (1927–2009) the same year.