3sat documentary: "Winterhalter - the forgotten king"

In the photo: Winterhalter with his young fiancée Maria Lucia Medici in the Hotel Kulm St. Moritz.

His big coup was the development of the “Riri”. The first usable zipper conquered the world in 1924 and made Dr. Martin Othmar Winterhalter a millionaire entrepreneur.

But the founder of the Riri works was sued by his siblings, declared incapacitated by the Ticino authorities and finally locked up in a psychiatric clinic.

Was the brilliant entrepreneur actually mentally ill or did he fall victim to inheritance hunters? Documentary filmmaker Gieri Venzin answers these questions by examining official files and conducting numerous conversations with contemporaries and experts on the “King of the Zipper”.

The fate of Dr. Martin Othmar Winterhalter moved people all over Europe in the early 1950s. However, Winterhalter, who came from Tablat near St. Gallen, received public attention primarily as a bon vivant, ardent devotee of the Virgin Mary and playboy.

He threw wild parties in his magnificent Villa Ririta in Morcote until his strict Catholic siblings had him declared incompetent.

But his directors also believed that they had to intervene against his festive spirit and generosity in order to ensure the continued existence of the factories that Winterhalter had built in Mendrisio, Switzerland, Germany, Luxembourg and Italy.

In January 1949, Winterhalter was overpowered in his villa by directors of the Riri, a doctor and two nurses and taken to the Burghölzli psychiatric clinic in Zurich.

3sat will premiere “Winterhalter – the forgotten king” on Thursday, June 10, 2021, at 23.00 p.m.

However, thanks to a clever move, he managed to escape. A few months later, the same thing happened again, this time Winterhalter escaped from the Friedmatt clinic in Basel in a spectacular way.

With his young girlfriend Maria Lucia Medici from Mendrisio, Winterhalter traveled across half of Europe, stayed in the best hotels, and told his story to journalists. In December 1950, Winterhalter's life of freedom ended forever.

He was arrested by the Ticino police and taken to the Bellevue Clinic in Kreuzlingen, where he died eleven years later. Today, hardly anyone knows the inventor of the most successful zipper in the world.

His relatives ensured that he was forgotten by preventing any publication about him out of fear for their reputation. Who was Dr. Martin Othmar Winterhalter? People who knew Winterhalter personally also provide answers in the film.

Paolo Poma from Morcote vividly remembers the wild parties at Villa Ririta and what the villagers thought of them.

The well-known psychiatrist and former director of the Burghölzli Clinic, Daniel Hell, classifies Winterhalter's medical history based on the numerous medical reports and discusses the limited possibilities of psychiatry at that time...

© Photo: ZDF and SRF, monte films, 3sat