Günther Quandt

Günther Quandt (28 July 1881 - 30 December 1954) was a German industrialist who founded an industrial empire that today includes BMW and Altana (chemicals). Eight of the hundred currently richest Germans are among his descendants.

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. He grew up with three siblings: Gerhard, Werner and a younger sister named Edith. Werner, who was three years his junior, was married to Eleanor Quandt, who after the war pretended her brother-in-law, Günther, from prosecution by the Allies. His sister Edith later 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 Nazi period

Quandt joined the Nazi Party in 1933 after Hitler's election. In 1937 Hitler appointed him to the position of Wehrwirtschaftsführer, (Leader of the Armament Economy), a title given to industrialists who played a leading role in the Nazi war economy. At this time Quandt's factories supplied ammunition, rifles, artillery and batteries. According to historian Ralf Blank the Quandts used slave labourers from concentration camps in at least three of their factories, in Hanover, Berlin and Vienna. Hundreds of these labourers died. The working conditions were appalling, especially in the battery factories, where lead poisoning was common. A concentration camp with an execution area was set up on the grounds of AFA's Hanover factory. He was also one of the German industrialists who appropriated factories throughout Europe in the wake of Hitler's conquests.

In 1946 Günther Quandt was arrested because of the Goebbels' connection, and was interned. To the surprise of many, he was judged to be a mitläufer, namely someone who accepted the Nazi ideology but did not take an active part in crimes. He was released in January 1948. One of the prosecutors in the Nuremberg trials, Benjamin Ferencz, now says that if today's evidence against Günther Quandt had been presented to the court at the time, "Quandt would have been charged with the same offences as the directors of IG Farben." They served up to eight years in jail. Instead Quandt was able to re-install himself in the supervisory boards of various German firms, e.g. Deutsche Bank. He also became honorary citizen of the University in Frankfurt in 1951. 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 AFA/VARTA, Daimler-Benz and BMW.

Further reading

• Rüdiger Jungbluth: Die Quandts: Ihr leiser Aufstieg zur mächtigsten Wirtschaftsdynastie Deutschlands. Campus 2002 (ISBN 3593369400)