Günther Quandt
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Günther Quandt (28 July 1881 - 30 December 1954) was a German industrialist who founded an industrial empire that today includes BMW, Altana (pharmaceuticals) and VARTA (batteries). Eight of the hundred currently richest Germans are among his relatives.
He was born in Pritzwalk in Germany, the son of Emil Quandt (1849-1925), who had married in 1883 the daughter of a rich textile manufacturer (Reichswolle AG) and who took charge of the company in 1900. Emil's daughter then married the owner of another textile company. During World War I, with Günther in charge, the Quandts supplied the German army with uniforms, building up a larger fortune that Günther would use after the war to acquire Accumulatorenfabrik AG (AFA), a battery manufacturer in Hagen that would become VARTA, a potash-mining company, metal-working companies (including IWKA) and stakes in BMW and Daimler-Benz.
Günther Quandt first married Antoine ‘Toni’ Ewald. They had two sons Helmut Quandt (1908-1927) and Herbert Quandt. Antoine died of the Spanish flu in 1918.
His second marriage on 4 January 1921 in Bad Godesberg to Magda Ritschel (sometimes Rietschel) produced another son, Harald Quandt. Magda was half Günther's age. The marriage ended in divorce in 1929. Two years later Magda married Joseph Goebbels with Adolf Hitler as a witness.
The accumulator company supplied batteries for submarines and employed forced labour. In 1946 Günther Quandt was arrested because of the Goebbels' connection, and was interned. He was judged to be a mitlaeufer, namely someone who accepted the Nazi ideology but did not take an active part in crimes. He was released in January 1948. He died on vacation in Cairo on 30 December 1954.
His two surviving sons, Herbert and Harald administered their inheritance together, though Harald Quandt concentrated on the industrial plants Karlsruhe Augsburg AG (IWKA) which were involved in mechanical engineering and arms manufacture, while Herbert Quandt managed the investments in VARTA, Daimler-Benz and BMW.
[edit] Further reading
- Rüdiger Jungbluth: Die Quandts: Ihr leiser Aufstieg zur mächtigsten Wirtschaftsdynastie Deutschlands. Campus 2002 (ISBN 3593369400)
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