Charles Bedaux

Bedaux with his film crew in Canada, 1934

Charles Eugène Bedaux (born October 26, 1886 in Paris , † February 18, 1944 in Miami ) was one of the most colorful millionaires of the early twentieth century. He successfully developed the Scientific Management based on Frederick Winslow Taylor and was successful as a management consultant in the field. He was friends with both the British royal family and leading Nazis , and he was also a successful big game hunter and explorer .

The early years

Charles Bedaux was born in Paris in 1886 . In 1903 he left school and made his way as a casual laborer until it joins the successful pimp and bon vivant from the then infamous standing part Pigalle , friend John Henri Ledoux. Ledoux taught Bedaux how to dress appropriately, how to be confident and how to get on the streets in battle. When Ledoux was assassinated in 1906, Bedaux emigrated to the United States and took American citizenship. He married and had a son, Charles Emile Bedaux (1909-1993).

Success in Scientific Management

Bedaux became one of the leading management consultants in the field of scientific management. He developed processes for assessing productivity and determining target times , with which he achieved great improvements with his clients and, above all, increased employee productivity significantly. He was heavily influenced in his work by Taylor and was also a fan of the Gilbreths' studies of time and motion . He focused on the connection between fatigue (see also: work structuring ) and recovery by working out the appropriate ratio of the two values ​​for each job. He designated this with a "B" and created incentive systems that should induce employees to adhere to this ratio in their work.

In 1916 Bedaux impressed the Industrial Committee of Grand Rapids - where he lived at the time - with a plan to restructure the local factories. As a result, one of the participants, Frederick Bearly, offered him the start-up capital to set up his own business. On May 1, 1916, Charles Bedaux separated from his previous partner, MA Morrini, with the completion of a contract for Wolverine Brass , and set up his own Charles Bedaux Company. Wolverine Brass became its first customer this May 1st. Within a decade, he managed to gain a foothold with numerous branches in the USA, but also in Europe and finally in Africa, Australia and the Middle East.

Subarctic expedition in Canada

Under the title Bedaux Canadian Sub-Arctic Expedition , Bedaux undertook a large-scale expedition through the wilderness of northern British Columbia in 1934 . It was more of a publicity event than a serious scientific company, but it also served to test the newly developed half-track vehicles from Citroën , with whose co-founder, André Citroën , Bedaux was friends. The expedition was filmed by Academy Award- winning cinematographer Floyd Crosby . There were also several dozen cowboys from Alberta and an extensive film team. To record the route of the expedition, the Canadian government sent two geographers, Frank Swannell and Ernest Lemarque.

The expedition started on July 6, 1934 in Edmonton and was supposed to cover the two and a half thousand kilometers to Telegraph Creek in British Columbia. Most of the way led through a barely mapped, pathless area.

The expedition was unsuccessful. Neither succeeded in achieving the goal, nor was the film ever completed. It was not until 1995 that the film material was processed in a television biography about Bedaux by the Canadian director George Ungar with the title "The Champagne Safari".

Duke and Duchess of Windsor

Château de Candé

In 1927 Bedaux moved with his second American wife, Fern Lombard (1890–1974), to the French castle Candé , which he had acquired and modernized .

On June 3, 1937, the place became the scene of a major social event. The abdicated British King Edward VIII , now Duke of Windsor , married his lover Wallis Simpson there .

Late years

During the occupation of Paris by the Germans in World War II, Bedaux became acquainted with both leading Nazis and representatives of the Vichy regime . Bedaux was commissioned by the Germans to build a pipeline in North Africa when he and his son were arrested there by the FFL in November 1942 during Operation Torch . Bedaux was shipped back to the USA and held there for treason. He was appointed as an advisor to the Third Reich and - as the less reputable publicist Martin Allen believes - he was made responsible for running Jewish businesses in occupied France.

He committed suicide in Miami Prison on February 18, 1944 pending a grand jury investigation of his wartime activities .

literature

• Jim Christy: The Price of Power: A Biography of Charles Eugene Bedaux. Garden City, NY: Doubleday 1984. - ISBN 0-385-18909-5
• Pierre Berton: My Country. The Remarkable Past. Toronto: Anchor, 2002. ISBN 978-0-385-65928-4
• Charles Glass: Americans in Paris. Life and Death Under Nazi Occupation. London: Harper Collins, 2009. - ISBN 978-0-00-722853-9
• Charles Higham: Trading with the enemy. an exposé of the Nazi-American money plot 1933-1949. New York: Dell Book, 1983.- ISBN 0-440-19055-X
• Helmut Kunze: Bedaux process. The new way to increase productivity. People and work in the Bedaux process. Basics, methods, process engineering. Haar: Löhr & Partner, 1977. ISBN 3-9800164-0-4
• Erwin Rochau: The Bedaux system. Practical application and critical comparison with the REFA system. 3rd edition Würzburg: Konrad Triltsch, 1952.
• Wilhelm Unteutsch: The Bedaux system and its criticism. Berlin: VDI-Verl, 1935 ( dnb , Diss. RWTH Aachen)
• Jonathan Petropoulos: Royals and the Reich. Oxford University Press, 2006. ISBN 0-19-516133-5

Web links

• Newspaper article about Charles Bedaux in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Britannica: Charles Bedaux . Retrieved June 22, 2012.
2. ↑ ^{a b} Traxel, David: Dropout Millionaire . In: The New York Times , June 2, 1985. Retrieved June 22, 2012. 
3. ^ Rochau, Erwin: The Bedaux system: practical application and critical comparison with the REFA system. 3rd edition. Würzburg: Konrad Triltsch, 1952. pp. 19–31
4. ↑ Christy, Jim: The Price of Power: A Biography of Charles Eugene Bedaux . Garden City, NY: Doubleday 1984. - ISBN 0-385-18909-5 . P. 35.
5. ^ Bedaux (Ed.): Charles Bedaux . Archived from the original on June 14, 2012. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved June 22, 2012. 
6. ↑ Grosse, Noelle: Rumors surround legendary Bedaux trek . In: Saskatoon Sun , October 11, 1998. Archived from the original on September 28, 2007. Retrieved June 22, 2012. 
7. ^ Dyke, Bob: Bedaux Expedition . Retrieved July 10, 2007.
8. ↑ Mostra (ed.): The Saffari Champagne . Archived from the original on March 10, 2005. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved June 22, 2012. 
9. ↑ ^{a b c} Martin Allen : Hidden Agenda: How the Duke of Windsor Betrayed the Allies . Macmillan, London 2000, ISBN 0-333-90181-9 .