Karl Elsener (inventor) his grandson Carl Elsener senior (1922-2013) and his great-grandson Carl Elsener Jr. (born 1958) led the Victorinox company. Karl Elsener (inventor) Karl Elsener (9 October 1860 - 26 December 1918) was a Swiss cutler, inventor and entrepreneur. Karl Elsener completed an apprenticeship as a knife maker in Zug. After some journeyman years he opened a factory in Ibach, Switzerland in 1884 for the manufacture of knives and surgical instruments. He invented the Swiss army knife in 1891 and developed his knife manufacturing company into what has become Victorinox. From 1912 to 1918 Elsener was a member of the cantonal parliament
Karl Zsigmondy Zsigmondy and the Nobel Laureate chemist Richard Adolf Zsigmondy. Karl Zsigmondy Karl Zsigmondy () (27 March 1867 – 14 October 1925) was an Austrian mathematician of Hungarian ethnicity. He was a son of Adolf Zsigmondy from Pozsony, Kingdom of Hungary (now Bratislava, Slovakia) and his mother was Irma von Szakmáry of Martonvásár, Kingdom of Hungary. He studied (1886–1890) and worked (1894–1925) at the University of Vienna. After his PhD, in 1890, he studied at the University of Berlin, University of Göttingen and at the Sorbonne in Paris, but came back to Vienna in 1894. He discovered Zsigmondy's theorem in 1882.