Fritz Thyssen: Difference between revisions

Friedrich "Fritz" Thyssen (November 9, 1873, Mülheim an der Ruhr – February 8, 1951, Buenos Aires) was a German businessman born into one of Germany's leading industrial families.

Biography

Youth

Thyssen was born in Mülheim in the Ruhr area. His father, August Thyssen (1842-1926), was head of the Thyssen mining and steelmaking company, which had been founded by his father Friedrich Thyssen and was based in the Ruhr city of Duisburg. Thyssen studied mining and metallurgy in London, Liège, and Berlin, and after a short period of service in the German Army he joined the family business. On January 18, 1900 in Düsseldorf he married Amelie Helle or Zurhelle (Mülheim am Rhein, December 11, 1877 – Puchdorf bei Straubing, August 25, 1965), daughter of a factory owner. Their only child, Anna (Anita), (later Anita Gräfin Zichy-Thyssen), was born in 1909. Thyssen again joined the army in 1914, but was soon discharged with a lung condition.

Weimar Germany

Thyssen was a political conservative and a German nationalist. In 1923, when France and Belgium occupied the Ruhr to punish Germany for not meeting its reparations payments in full, he took part in the nationalist resistance against the occupiers, leading the Ruhr steelmakers in refusing to co-operate in producing coal and steel for them. He was arrested, imprisoned and received a large fine for his activities, which made him a national hero. Through the 1920s the Thyssen companies continued to expand. Thyssen took over the Thyssen companies on his father's death in 1926, and in 1928 he formed United Steelworks (Vereinigte Stahlwerke AG), controlling more than 75 percent of Germany's iron ore reserves and employing 200,000 people. He played a prominent role in German commercial life, as head of the German Iron and Steel Industry Association and the Reich Association of German Industry, and as a board member of the Reichsbank.

In 1923, Thyssen met former General Erich Ludendorff, who advised him to attend a speech given by Adolf Hitler, leader of the Nazi Party. Thyssen was impressed by Hitler and his bitter opposition to the Treaty of Versailles, and began to make large donations to the party, including 100,000 gold marks ($25,000) in 1923 to Ludendorff.^[1]. In this he was unusual among German business leaders, as most were traditional conservatives who regarded the Nazis with suspicion. Postwar investigators found that he had donated 650,000 Reichsmarks to right-wing parties, mostly to the Nazis, although Thyssen himself claimed to have donated 1 million marks to the Nazi Party.^[2]. Thyssen remained a member of the German National People's Party until 1932, and did not join the Nazi Party until 1933.

In November, 1932, Thyssen and Hjalmar Schacht were the main organisers of a letter to President Paul von Hindenburg urging him to appoint Hitler as Chancellor. Thyssen also persuaded the Association of German Industrialists to donate 3 million Reichsmarks to the Nazi Party for the March, 1933 Reichstag election. As a reward, he was elected a Nazi member of the Reichstag and appointed to the Council of State of Prussia, the largest German state (both purely honorary positions).

In 1932 he bought by Lake Lugano the Villa Favorita, built in the beginning of the 18th century and which had belonged to Prince Friedrich Leopold of Prussia, where he put to safe his art collection.

Nazi Germany

Once the Nazi dictatorship took hold, however, Thyssen began to have second thoughts. Although he welcomed the suppression of the Communist Party, the Social Democrats and the trade unions, he disliked the mob violence of the SA. In 1934 he was one of the business leaders who persuaded Hitler to suppress the SA, leading to the "Night of the Long Knives". Thyssen was horrified, however, at the simultaneous murder of various conservative figures such as Kurt von Schleicher.

Thyssen accepted the exclusion of Jews from German business and professional life by the Nazis, and dismissed his own Jewish employees, but he did not share Hitler's violent anti-Semitism. As a Catholic, he also objected to the increasing repression of the Roman Catholic Church, which gathered pace after 1935: in 1937 he sent a letter to Hitler, protesting the persecution of Christians in Germany.^[3] The breaking point for Thyssen was the violent pogrom against the Jews in November, 1938 known as Kristallnacht, which caused him to resign from the Council of State. By 1939 he was also bitterly criticising the regime's economic policies, which were subordinating everything to rearmament in preparation for war. ^[4]

World War II

On September 1, 1939 World War II broke out. Thyssen sent Hermann Göring a telegram saying he was opposed to the war, shortly before leaving for Switzerland with his family. He was expelled from the Nazi Party and the Reichstag, and his company was briefly nationalised. It was returned to other members of the Thyssen family some years after the war. In 1940 Thyssen took refuge and moved to France, intending to emigrate to Argentina, but was caught by the German occupation of France while he was visiting his ill mother in Belgium. He was arrested by Vichy France and taken back to Germany, where he was confined, first in a sanatorium near Berlin, then from 1943 in Sachsenhausen concentration camp. His wife Amelie instead of escaping to Argentina joined her husband and spent the whole war in the concentration camp with her husband. "She had spent the good times with her husband and would also join him in the difficult times.^{[citation needed]}" In February, 1945 he was sent to Dachau concentration camp. He was comparatively well-treated and transferred to Tyrol in late April 1945 together with other prominent inmates, where the SS left the prisoners behind. He was liberated by the Fifth U.S. Army on May 5, 1945^[5].

Later life

While Thyssen was imprisoned in Germany, a biography was published in the United States in 1941 under the title I Paid Hitler. The book was written by a journalist named Emery Reves, based on memoirs dictated by Thyssen. This book supports the view that the German industrialists as a class supported and funded Hitler and put him into power. After the war Thyssen disputed the authenticity of this book, and this was upheld by the postwar denazification tribunal.

Thyssen was nevertheless tried for being a supporter of the Nazi Party. He did not deny that he had been a Nazi supporter until 1938, and he accepted responsibility for his companies' mistreatment of Jewish employees in the 1930s, although he denied involvement in the employment of slave labour during the war. Thyssen agreed to pay 500,000 Deutschmarks as compensation to those who suffered as a result of his actions, and was acquitted of other charges. In January, 1950 he and his wife emigrated to Buenos Aires, where he died the following year. Thyssen was buried in the family mausoleum in Mülheim. ^[6]

In 1959 Thyssen's widow Amélie Thyssen and daughter Anita Gräfin Zichy-Thyssen established the Fritz Thyssen Foundation to advance science and the humanities, with a capital of 100 million Deutschmarks. Amélie Thyssen died in 1965. Anita Gräfin Zichy-Thyssen ran the Foundation until her death in 1990. The Family has no say in the running of the Foundation.

Descendants

• Anna "Anita" Thyssen (Bonn, May 13, 1909 – Munich, August 20, 1990), married in Mülheim an der Ruhr, August 6, 1936 and divorced in 1946 Gábor Ödön Ladislaus Josef Maria Graf Zichy de Zich et Vásonykeö (Graz, May 1, 1910 – Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, May 25, 1974), and had issue, who bears the name and title of Graf Zichy-Thyssen de Zich et Vásonykeö:
  • Friedrich-August aka Federico Augusto Graf Zichy-Thyssen de Zich et Vásonykeö (Aachen, June 22, 1937 –), married firstly in Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, September 28, 1960 and divorced Alayde Mutzenbecher (Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, February 19, 1943 –), married secondly on February 26, 1976 and divorced in 1984 María Stella Fratta Silvero (Asunción, February 17, 1950 –), married thirdly in October, 1987 and divorced in 1989 María Inés Sellarés (Goya, Corrientes, July 20, 1952 –), and married fourthly on July 23, 2002 Laura Arce (Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, September 13, 1958 –), and had:
    • Alejandro Augusto Graf Zichy-Thyssen de Zich et Vásonykeö (Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, July 24, 1961 –), married firstly at Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, January 22, 1993 and divorced Janaina da Silva Fires (Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, July 20, 1972 –), and married secondly at Le Cannet, September 4, 2002 Anna Sazontyeva (Saint Petersburg, February 16, 1969 –), without issue, and had by first marriage:
      • Katarina Gräfin Zichy-Thyssen de Zich et Vásonykeö (Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, February 27, 1996 –)
      • Julia Pavlina Gräfin Zichy-Thyssen de Zich et Vásonykeö (Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, July 9, 2004 –)
    • Marcia Amelia Gräfin Zichy-Thyssen de Zich et Vásonykeö (Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, April 11, 1963 –), married in Washington, D.C., November 4, 1987 Felipe Alberto Martín de la Balze (Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, 19??), without issue
    • Claudia Caroline Gräfin Zichy-Thyssen de Zich et Vásonykeö (Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, August 20, 1966 –), unmarried and without issue
    • Federico Julian Ladislao Graf Zichy-Thyssen de Zich et Vásonykeö (Mercedes, Buenos Aires, October 9, 1978 –), married civily on April 8, 2005 and religiously on June 3, 2005 Carolina Valenzuela (June 5, 1977 –), and had:
      • Federico Ladislao Graf Zichy-Thyssen de Zich et Vásonykeö (2006 –)
    • Gabriel Federico Graf Zichy-Thyssen de Zich et Vásonykeö (Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, October 18, 1988 –)
  • Gabriel Graf Zichy-Thyssen de Zich et Vásonykeö (Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, April 5, 1942 –), married firstly in Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, October 28, 1963 and divorced in 1980 Elsa Barcellos (Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, March 21, 1943 –), and married secondly in Asunción, June 20, 1980 Christina Llacer (Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, November 30, 1960 –), and had:
    • Ana Christina Gräfin Zichy-Thyssen de Zich et Vásonykeö (Düsseldorf, October 19, 1964 –), married in Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, March 11, 1985 Alejandro Moreno-Paz (San Luis, San Luis, October 13, 1963 –), and had:
      • Alejandro Moreno-Paz (Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, August 21, 1985 –)
      • Sophia Moreno-Paz (New York, New York County, New York, March 20, 1989 –)
      • Bianca Moreno-Paz (Princeton, Mercer County, New Jersey, January 13, 1996 –)
    • Isabel Luisa Gräfin Zichy-Thyssen de Zich et Vásonykeö (Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, October 5, 1965 –), married in Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, August 13, 1994 Philippe Franck Alexis Chiroussot-Chambeaux (Málaga, December 12, 1965 –), and had:
      • Alexa Marianne Chiroussot-Chambeaux (Miami Beach, Miami-Dade County, Florida, March 6, 1997 –)
      • Hélène Chiroussot-Chambeaux (Miami Beach, Miami-Dade County, Florida, April 19, 1999 –)
      • Nicolas Philippe Chiroussot-Chambeaux (Miami Beach, Miami-Dade County, Florida, September 29, 2003 –)
    • Claudio Eduardo Graf Zichy-Thyssen de Zich et Vásonykeö (Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, June 9, 1971 –), married in Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires in November, 1998 Florencia Badino (December 22, 1973 –), and had:
      • Tomas Graf Zichy-Thyssen de Zich et Vásonykeö (Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, March 29, 2001 –)
      • Maximiliano Graf Zichy-Thyssen de Zich et Vásonykeö (Miami, Miami-Dade County, Florida, November 25, 2005 –)
    • Augusto Graf Zichy-Thyssen de Zich et Vásonykeö (Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, December 11, 1974 –), married in Miami, Miami-Dade County, Florida, January 22, 2005 Maria Eugénia de Andrade (October 3, 1978 –), and had:
      • Matias Graf Zichy-Thyssen de Zich et Vásonykeö (Miami, Miami-Dade, Florida, January 8, 2008 –)
    • Cynthie Janine Gräfin Zichy-Thyssen de Zich et Vásonykeö (San Luis, San Luis, December 31, 1981 –)
    • Yasmine Kristen Gräfin Zichy-Thyssen de Zich et Vásonykeö (Newport Beach, Orange County, California, February 10, 1984 –)
    • Amelie Justine Gräfin Zichy-Thyssen de Zich et Vásonykeö (Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, December 1, 1987 –), married Christopher G. Gort and has a daughter:
      • Shiloh J. Gort

References

See also

• Thyssen
• Thyssen family

External links

• Ancestors of Baroness Francesca Anne Thyssen-Bornemisza de Kaszon
• Ancestors of Archduchess Eleonore of Austria
• Ancestors of Archduke Ferdinand of Austria
• Ancestors of Archduchess Gloria of Austria
• Thyssen-Bornemissza de Kászon et Impérfalva Family