Emil Kirdorf

Emil Kirdorf
Emil Kirdorf
Born	April 8, 1847; Mettmann, Rhine Province, Prussia
Died	July 13, 1938 (aged 91); Mülheim, Nazi Germany
Nationality	German
Occupation	Industrialist
Known for	One of the first important employers in the Ruhr industrial sectors

Emil Kirdorf (8 April 1847 – 13 July 1938) was a German

industrialist, one of the first important employers in the Ruhr industrial sectors. He was personally awarded by Adolf Hitler the Order of the German Eagle, Nazi Germany's highest distinctions, on his 90th birthday in 1937, for his support to the Nazi Party

in the late 1920s.

Biography

Emil Kirdorf was born at

mining industry in which he worked as an accountant. Following the Franco-Prussian War, he became director of Zeche Holland [de] in 1871. Two years later, the entrepreneur Friedrich Grillo offered him the position of commercial director in the Gelsenkirchener Bergwerks-AG [de] (GBAG) company. He became general manager of GBAG in 1893. He steered the company through the Long Depression

of the 1870s, and held this position until 1926.

Under his direction, the GBAG became the largest

Zollern and Germania [de] companies were integrated into GBAG under Kirdorf's leadership. Kirdorf then was one of the main founders of the Rhenish-Westphalian Coal Syndicate employers union in 1893, member of its board of directors until 1913. 98 mine enterprises of the Ruhr belonged to this union, which tried, among others aims, to prevent dumping

.

Kirdorf was also one of the founding members of the

Kaiserliche Marine

against the British Navy.

After

Wilhelm II

.

The GBAG thereafter concentrated on its coal activities. Kirdorf lost his key position to Hugo Stinnes, to whose management policies he was vehemently opposed. Stinnes intended to make GBAG into the basis of a German trust, which was opposed by Kirdorf. After Stinnes' death in 1924, Kirdorf regained his position and entered the executive committee. In 1926, the GBAG formed the Vereinigte Stahlwerke, of which it controlled 15%. Other groups included ThyssenKrupp (26%) and Phoenix AG für Bergbau und Hüttenbetrieb [de].

Kirdorf died in Mülheim in 1938.

Role during Nazi Germany

Kirdorf was well known as a

NSDAP. Kirdorf then joined the NSDAP in 1927, but left it the following year, alleging as the reason the influence of Gregor Strasser on the party. On 1 August 1929, he was invited as a guest of to the Nazi Party's Congress in Nuremberg. Kirdorf joined the NSDAP again in 1934. He mainly supported it in order to divert the working class from Marxism. It was also at Kirdorf's instigation that Hitler wrote Der Weg zum Wiederaufstieg (The Road to Recovery) in 1927, intended for exclusive distribution to, and consumption by, the leading industrialists of Germany.^[1]

On 26 October 1927, fourteen industrial employers attended a lecture by Hitler in the Kirdorf's house. Kirdorf then organized, in August 1931, an exchange of views between Hitler and representatives of the steel industry. Joseph Goebbels noted in his diary, on 15 November 1936:^[2]

“How poor we were then. Führer tells how he once wanted to shoot himself because the bill debts grew over his head. Kirdorf helped him with 100,000 marks."

Hitler personally awarded to him, on 10 April 1937, the date of Kirdorf's 90th birthday, the

Third Reich. He benefited on 13 July 1938 from a state funeral in Gelsenkirchen, with Hitler depositing a crown on his coffin.^{[citation needed}

]

References

^ Henry Ashby Turner, jr., Hitler's secret pamphlet for industrialists, 1927.
^ Elke Fröhlich (Hrsg.): Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels. Sämtliche Fragmente. München 1987, Band 2, S. 727.

Sources

Ashby Turner, Henry (1972). Fascism and Capitalism in Germany. Göttingen.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
Gossweiler, Kurt (1988). Essays on Fascism. Berlin.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)

External links

Emil Kirdorf (in German)
article Archived 2006-01-13 at the
Route der Industriekultur
(in German)
Newspaper clippings about Emil Kirdorf in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW

[1] Henry Ashby Turner, jr., Hitler's secret pamphlet for industrialists, 1927.

[2] Elke Fröhlich (Hrsg.): Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels. Sämtliche Fragmente. München 1987, Band 2, S. 727.

[1]

[2]

Authority control databases
International	FAST ISNI VIAF
National	France BnF data Germany United States Netherlands
People	Deutsche Biographie
Other	IdRef

Biography

Role during Nazi Germany

See also

References

Sources

External links