Amalie Auguste Melitta Bentz (January 31, 1873 – June 29, 1950), born Amalie Auguste Melitta Liebscher, was a German

Germans

The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....

 entrepreneur, who invented the coffee filter

Coffee filter

A coffee filter is a coffee-brewing utensil, usually made of disposable paper. A stainless steel filter is used to prepare Indian filter coffee, the form of coffee common in India....

 in 1908.

Biography

Bentz was born in Dresden

Dresden

Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....

, Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

. Her father was a publisher.

As a housewife, Bentz found that percolators

Coffee percolator

A coffee percolator is a type of pot used to brew coffee. The name stems from the word "percolate" which means to cause to pass through a permeable substance especially for extracting a soluble constituent....

 were prone to over-brewing the coffee, espresso-type machines at the time tended to leave grounds in the drink, and linen bag filters were tiresome to clean. She experimented with various means, but ended up using blotting paper

Blotting paper

Blotting paper is a highly absorbent type of paper or other material. It is used to absorb an excess of liquid substances from the surface of writing paper or objects. It is also commonly used as a beauty tool to absorb excess oil from the skin.-Manufacture:Blotting paper is made from different...

 from the school exercise-book of her son Willi and a brass pot perforated using a nail. When the grounds-free, less bitter coffee met with general enthusiasm, she decided to set up a business.
The Kaiserliche Patentamt (Imperial Patent Office) granted her a patent on June 20, 1908, and on December 15, the company was entered into the commercial register with 73 Pfennig

Pfennig

The Pfennig , plural Pfennige, is an old German coin or note, which existed from the 9th century until the introduction of the euro in 2002....

 as "M. Bentz." After contracting a tinsmith to manufacture the devices, they sold 1,200 coffee filters at the 1909 Leipzig fair.

Her husband Hugo and their sons Horst and Willi were the first employees of the emerging company. In 1910, the company won a gold medal at the International Health Exhibition and a silver medal at the Saxon Innkeepers' Association. When the Great War

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

 erupted, metals were requisitioned for use in zeppelin construction, her husband was conscripted to Romania, paper was rationed, and eventually coffee bean imports were banned, disrupting the normal business. During this time she supported herself by selling cartons.

Continuing expansion caused them to move their business several times in Dresden. By 1927 the demand for the products was so high that the 80 workers had to work in a double-shift system. Because in Dresden no production facilities were found adequate, the fast-growing company moved in 1929 to Minden

Minden

Minden is a town of about 83,000 inhabitants in the north-east of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. The town extends along both sides of the river Weser. It is the capital of the Kreis of Minden-Lübbecke, which is part of the region of Detmold. Minden is the historic political centre of the...

 in the east of Westphalia

Province of Westphalia

The Province of Westphalia was a province of the Kingdom of Prussia and the Free State of Prussia from 1815 to 1946.-History:Napoleon Bonaparte founded the Kingdom of Westphalia, which was a client state of the First French Empire from 1807 to 1813...

. By that time 100,000 filters had been produced.

Horst took over the company, now "Bentz & Sohn," in 1930. She transferred the majority stake in Melitta-Werke Aktiengesellschaft to Horst and Willi in 1932, but kept a hand in the business, ensuring that the employees were cared for, offering Christmas bonuses, increasing vacation days from 6 to 15 days per year, and reducing the working week to 5 days. Bentz fostered the company's “Melitta Aid” system, a social fund for company employees.

After the outbreak of World War II, production stopped and the company was ordered to produce goods to aid the war effort. At the conclusion of war, the workers relocated for a time to old factories, barracks, even pubs, because the surviving portions of the main factory had been requisitioned as a provisional administration for the Allied troops, a condition that held for twelve years. By 1948, production of filters and paper had resumed, and at the time of her death at Holzhausen at Porta Westfalica

Porta Westfalica

Porta Westfalica is a town in the district of Minden-Lübbecke, in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. The name “Porta Westfalica” is Latin and means “gate to Westphalia”. Coming from the north, the gorge is the entry to the region of Westphalia...

 in 1950, the company had reached 4.7 million Deutsche marks.

Legacy

The grandchildren of Melitta Bentz, Thomas and Stephen, still control the Melitta Group KG

Melitta

Melitta is a Germany-based company selling coffee, paper coffee filters, and coffee makers, part of the Melitta Group, which also has Melitta branches in other countries world-wide...

 with headquarters in Minden in eastern North Rhine-Westphalia

North Rhine-Westphalia

North Rhine-Westphalia is the most populous state of Germany, with four of the country's ten largest cities. The state was formed in 1946 as a merger of the northern Rhineland and Westphalia, both formerly part of Prussia. Its capital is Düsseldorf. The state is currently run by a coalition of the...

, with some 3,300 employees in 50 companies.