Herta Heuwer

Herta Heuwer
Born(1913-06-30)30 June 1913
Königsberg, Prussia, German Reich (now Kaliningrad, Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia)
Died13 July 1999(1999-07-13) (aged 86)
Berlin, Germany
NationalityGerman
Known forinvention of the Currywurst
A commemorative plaque for Herta Heuwer

Herta Charlotte Heuwer (née Pöppel; 30 June 1913 – 3 July 1999) was a German chef. She owned and ran a food kiosk in West Berlin. Heuwer is frequently credited with the invention of the take-away dish that would become the currywurst, supposedly on 4 September 1949. The original currywurst was a boiled sausage, fried, with a sauce of tomato paste, Worcestershire sauce, curry powder and other ingredients.

Heuwer was born in Königsberg. In January 1951, she registered a trademark[1] for her sauce, Chillup.[2]

Heuwer moved her business to a larger facility at Kaiser-Friedrich-Straße 59, which, during its heyday, was open day and night and employed 19 saleswomen. On 29 June 2003, the day before what would have been her 90th birthday, a commemorative plaque was unveiled by Charlottenburg Mayor Monika Thiemen at the site where Herta Heuwer invented the currywurst.[3] Heuwer died in Berlin, aged 86. The Berlin Currywurst is now a protected commodity, officially and properly recognized by the German Patent and Trademark Office.[4]

In her honor, the Berlin State Mint minted a commemorative medal in 2019 to mark the 70th anniversary of the invention of the Currywurst, on which she is depicted together with two currywursts.[5]

On 30 June 2013, the centenary of Heuwer's birthday, was celebrated with a Google Doodle.[6]

  1. ^ Warenzeichenblatt Nr. 4 vom 28. Februar 1959, Teil II (eingetragene Zeichen) S. 327, https://register.dpma.de/DPMAregister/marke/uebersicht; [1]
  2. ^ Paterson, Tony (15 August 2009). "Spicy sausage that is worthy of a shrine in Berlin". The Independent. London, UK. Retrieved 30 April 2010.
  3. ^ Monika Thiemen, Profile, berlin.de; accessed 11 March 2016.(in German)
  4. ^ "Deutsches Patent und Markenamt".
  5. ^ "Herta Heuwer: The roots of currywurst". Berlin-Memoire.com. Retrieved 2023-06-01.
  6. ^ "Herta Heuwer's 100th Birthday".