The History of Thyssen: Family, Industry and Culture in the 20th Century

by G nther Schulz, Margit Sz ll si-Janze

Overview

In 2006, Georg Heinrich Thyssen, together with the ThyssenKrupp Group, established the Thyssen Industrial History Foundation. During its formulation, the foundation made available archival material across the Thyssen-Bornemisza family, ThyssenKrupp AG, and other industrial historical sources to researchers. This volume offers a wide-ranging account of the Thyssens during the twentieth and late-nineteenth centuries. It explains the development of the company and the family whilst addressing issues such as patriarchal succession; gender roles in the family; wealthy lifestyles in international communities of aristocrats and diplomats; operating across national legislation, institutions, and policies; and discussions of labor and capital. In doing so it connects corporate and family history to provide an all-inclusive view of the development of a business.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781800739024
Publisher:	Berghahn Books
Publication date:	03/10/2023
Pages:	158
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.44(d)

About the Author

Günther Schulz is Professor Emeritus for Constitutional, Social and Economic History at the Rhenish Friedrich Wilhelm Universityof Bonn. His research focuses on social and economic history from the early 19th century. As part of the research network for the "Thyssen Entrepreneurial Family in the 20th Century", he oversaw the production of six company history research projects. His most recent publication as editor is Die Entstehung der modernen Sparkasse. Von der ‚Ersparnisanstalt‘ zum marktorientierten Unternehmen (1950s to 1980s) (Deutscher Sparkassenvlg.G, 2022).

Margit Szöllösi-Janze holds the Chair of Contemporary History at the Department of History at the Ludwig Maximilian Universityof Munich. Her research interests include the history of: National Socialism and fascism, science and universities, the media, and violence. She was involved in the creation of the "Thyssen Entrepreneurial Family in the 20th Century" research network and she supervised the three family history research projects. Her most recent publication is "Archäologie des Wettbewerbs. Konkurrenz in und zwischen Universityäten in (West-) Deutschland seit den 1980er Jahren”, in Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 69 (De Gruyter, 2021).

Table of Contents

List of Figures

Foreword to the English-Language Edition
Volker Berghahn

Foreword

Introduction
Point of Departure: The Thyssen Legacy
Elements of an Entangled Family and Corporate History

Part I: Family-History Projects: Selected Findings

Chapter 1. The Thyssens – family and fortune (Simone Derix, 2016, 2^nd ed. 2021)
      Family and conflict
      Lifestyle: Family spaces, local roots, mobility
      “Calculated risk”: The Thyssens, their foundations and advisors

Chapter 2. Two civic lives in the public eye.The brothers Fritz Thyssen and Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza (Felix de Taillez, 2017)
      Stepping out from the father’s shadow:Fritz Thyssen as national hero
      The exclusive circles of Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza
      Out in the open:Fritz Thyssen, the media, and National Socialism

Chapter 3. The Thyssens as art collectors. Investment and symbolic capital (1900 -1970) (Johannes Gramlich, 2015, 2^nd ed. 2021)]
     “Normal capitalist bourgeoisie”:August Thyssen sr. and Fritz Thyssen
     Collecting as vocation: Heinrich and Hans Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza

Part II: Corporate-History Projects: Selected Findings
     Why Thyssen? On the state of research and the research problem
     On the company’s development
     Company and family
     Trust—capital—assets
     Consultant
     Selected findings

Chapter 4. Vereinigte Stahlwerke AG under National Socialism (Alexander Donges, 2014)
Chapter 5. Forced labor at Thyssen.“Stahlverein” and “Baron-Konzern” in the Second World War (Thomas Urban, 2014, 2^nd ed. 2021)
Chapter 6. The expropriation of Fritz Thyssen. Dispossession and restitution (Jan Schleusener, 2018)
Chapter 7. Thyssen in the Adenauer era. Corporate formation and family capitalism (Johannes Bähr, 2015)
Chapter 8. From steel group to corporate group. The Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza companies from 1926 to 1932 (Harald Wixforth, 2019)
Chapter 9. The Thyssen-Bornemisza Group(Boris Gehlen, 2021)

Appendix: Thyssen family tree

Sources and Bibliography
Overview of Book Series