August Thyssen
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August Thyssen was a German industrialist. He was born in 1842 in Eschweiler and died on April 4, 1926 on his castle Schloss Landsberg.
After he had completed his studies at the Polytechnische Schule Karlsruhe and a commercial school at Antwerp he like his brother Joseph joined the bank of his father Friedrich Thyssen.
In 1867 Thyssen and several members of his family founded the iron works „Thyssen-Foussol & Co“ in Duisburg. When this company was dissolved in 1870, he used the new capital to establish with his father the „Walzwerk Thyssen & Co“ in Mülheim an der Ruhr that would become the base of an industrial empire. Initially he managed different companies separately in a decentralized fashion, but eventually he united them through a holding company. The largest company of his was the coal mining company ‘’Gewerkschaft Deutscher Kaiser’’ in Hamborn (now part of Duisburg) that he had acquired in 1891.
He built the first 500-ton blast furnace in Germany, the first 100-ton Martin furnace, and the first large tube (iron pipe) works. Together with Hugo Stinnes Thyssen was a cofounder of RWE.
On December 3, 1872 he married Hedwig Pelzer. They divorced already in 1885. The four children during the marriage were August, Heinrich, Fritz und Hedwig. To avoid the possibility that his divorce would lead to a partitioning of his industrial empire, Thyssen transferred the property to his children, but retained the management rights for himself during his life time.
The Thyssen conglomerate became part of the Vereinigte Stahlwerke AG prior to World War II. The Thyssen companies after WW II joined with KruppHoesch to become ThyssenKrupp AG in 1997.
[edit] References
- Manfred Rasch, Gerald D. Feldman (Hrsg.): August Thyssen und Hugo Stinnes. Ein Briefwechsel 1898-1922, München (C.H.Beck) 2003 - ISBN 3-406-49637-7
- Translation of German wikipedia from February 5,2006
