Thyssen in der Adenauerzeit

The Thyssen family was one of the most influential entrepreneurial families of the twentieth century in Germany even after World War II. Although the war was a turning point for the family, it did not result in entrepreneurial bankruptcy. The family managed to uphold and expand a steel company in the Ruhr area despite the company’s reputation as the armour blacksmiths of the Third Reich and the unbundling of the steel industry by the Allies after the war. So far the reconstruction of the Thyssen company in the young Federal Republic of Germany is poorly understood. With their analysis of the company and family history, the research group on the subject ‘Thyssen in the 20th century’ at the universities in Bonn and Munich closed this research gap. The monograph by Johannes Bähr resulting from this research network attends to the formation and development of the last family-owned Thyssen company in the Ruhr area. The time frame stretches from the late 1940s with Fritz Thyssen’s release from prison and the unbundling of the Vereinigte Stahlwerke AG up to the 1960s, in which the family members became major shareholders in the company once again. The book is chronologically divided into four analytical chapters. Bähr begins with the Thyssen company’s history from 1926 to 1953, including the transfer of the company into the Vereinigte Stahlwerke, Nazism and the death of Fritz Thyssen in 1951 and his estate planning. Afterwards he focuses on the widow Amélie Thyssen, her asset management and struggle for the reconstruction of the family business. The final two chapters deal with the rise and fall of the family enterprise. Bähr’s analysis is mainly based on internal papers of the company and on the available documents of involved parties.

Bankruptcy · Economic history · Economics · Estate · German · Management · Political science · Prosperity · European history and politics · History · Law