Baus was born in
Heidelberg, Germany on 25 February 1934 and grew up in
Schriesheim in the
Baden region of Germany. His parents, Georg and Katharina Baus, ran a carpentry workshop there, where he completed an apprenticeship as a carpenter and glazier. He later trained as a ventilation mechanic and graduated from a higher commercial school. Baus trained as a carpenter. Inspired by the first American
home improvement stores, he founded the
Bauhaus Gesellschaft für Bau- und Hausbedarf together with his father in 1959 and opened the first
Bauhaus self-service specialist store on 9 April 1960. The store located in the U3 square in
Mannheim is considered the first DIY store in Germany. Five years later he opened a second branch in
Heidelberg. Additional stores initially followed in the
Rhine–Neckar region and later throughout Germany, including
West Berlin. In 1969 Baus moved the company headquarters and his residence to
Switzerland. The Bauhaus holding company established its headquarters in
Zug, while Baus moved to
Thun in the
Canton of Bern. He later lived with his family for several years in
Monaco. Inspired by the U.S. retailer
The Home Depot, he added the suffix “The Home Store” to his company’s branches in the late 1990s, a designation that remained in use until a court decision in 2007 following an injunction. Around the turn of the millennium, Baus moved his residence from Switzerland to the tax haven of
Monaco. In 2015 Baus founded the
Heinz Baus Privatstiftung. The purpose of the
foundation, based in
Linz, is to “secure and preserve the Bauhaus Group as a family-owned company”. The chairman of the board of directors and successor to Heinz Georg Baus is the lawyer Peter Lutz. According to
manager magazin, Baus left behind “not only a complex corporate structure with branches extending to the
Caribbean”, but also “complicated” family relations. Another company founded by Baus is the bathroom fittings manufacturer Duscholux, where he distinguished himself as the
patent holder of several shower door components. Baus opened the first Bauhaus store in
Mannheim in 1960. There are now 250 stores and 17,000 employees in 17 countries across Europe. ==Personal life==