Flick family

The Flick family is a wealthy German industrial and political dynasty, heir to an industrial empire that formerly embraced holding in companies involved in coal, steel and a minority holding in Daimler AG. The Flick family is one of the richest industrial families worldwide.

Friedrich Flick (July 10, 1883 in Ernsdorf - July 20, 1972 in Konstanz) was the founder of the dynasty, establishing a major industrial conglomerate during the Weimar Republic who was one of the world's wealthiest people by the time of his death in 1972. He left his empire to his son Friedrich Karl Flick (1927–2006).

Nazi Party membership, war crimes and pardoning

In 1933 Flick became a leading financial supporter of the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP) and over the next ten years donated over seven million marks to the party. A close friend of Heinrich Himmler, Flick also gave the Schutz Staffeinel (SS) 10,000 marks a year.

During the Second World War Flick became extremely wealthy by using 48,000 slave labourers from Germany's concentration camps in his various industrial enterprises. It is estimated that 80 per cent of these workers died as a result of the way they were treated during the war. Flick was found guilty of war crimes at Nuremberg in 1947 and was sentenced to seven years in prison.

By 1950 the United States was involved in fighting the Cold War. In June of that year, North Korean troops invaded South Korea. It was believed that German steel was needed for armaments for the Korean War and in October, John J. McCloy, the high commissioner in American occupied Germany, lifted the 11 million ton limitation on German steel production. McCloy also began pardoning German industrialists who had been convicted at Nuremberg. This included Fritz Ter Meer, the senior executive of I. G. Farben, the company that produced Zyklon B poison for the gas chambers. He was also Hitler's Commissioner of for Armament and War Production for the chemical industry during the war.

McCloy was also concerned about the increasing power of the left-wing, anti-rearmament, Social Democratic Party (SDP). The popularity of the conservative government led by Konrad Adenauer was in decline and a public opinion poll in 1950 showed it only had 24% of the vote, while support for the SDP had risen to 40%. On 5th December, 1950, Adenauer wrote McCloy a letter urging clemency for Krupp. Hermann Abs, one of Hitler's personal bankers, who surprisingly was never tried as a war criminal at Nuremberg, also began campaigning for the release of German industrialists in prison.

In January, 1951, John J. McCloy announced that Alfried Krupp and eight members of his board of directors who had been convicted with him, were to be released. His property, valued at around 45 million, and his numerous companies were also restored to him. Flick was also released.

The 1983 Flick Affair revealed that German politicians had been bribed to allow the Flick family to reduce its tax liabilities, and after becoming an Austrian citizen to further reduce his tax obligations, in 1985 Friedrich Karl Flick sold most of his industrial holdings to Deutsche Bank for $2.5 billion (£1.4 billion), retiring until his 2006 death.

On Thursday November 20, 2008, it was reported that his body was stolen from a cemetery in Veldel, Austria.

A German High School in Friedrich Flick's hometown was called the "Friedrich-Flick-Gymnasium" until September 2008. The contribution from Flick had made it possible to build this school in 1969. The Donatella Flick Conducting Competition is named for Donatella Flick.

Notable members of the Flick family

Children of Friedrich Flick:

Other Flick family members: