Georg Fischer (entrepreneur, 1864)

Georg Fischer around 1890

Georg Fischer III (born September 12, 1864 in Schaffhausen ; † January 19, 1925 there ) was a Swiss entrepreneur .

Life

childhood and education

Georg Fischer was born into a successful entrepreneurial dynasty. His great-grandfather Johann Conrad Fischer was the founder of the foundry of the same name in Schaffhausen, and his grandfather Georg Fischer and his father Georg Fischer II expanded the company, which had 180 employees when Georg Fischer III was born.

Georg Fischer's mother, Emma Pfister, also came from a respected merchant family in Schaffhausen. Fischer attended the boys' school and the cantonal school in Schaffhausen, which he graduated with the Matura in 1883. He was already working in his father's factory while he was still at school. He then moved to the University of Geneva and then completed practical training in Wasseralfingen near Aalen , where he learned soft cast iron ( malleable cast iron ). This was also the core business of the family business. In 1887 the father fell ill and died shortly afterwards. The son had to break off his studies in Dresden , where he had studied for three semesters at the mechanical department of the Polytechnic .

Expansion of the family business

Georg Fischer returned home and at the age of 23 took over the company, which he quickly expanded. The number of employees quadrupled to 1,600 by the turn of the century. A branch was opened in Singen (Hohentwiel) , and he introduced new processes for cast steel.

Workforce of the fitting foundry Werk 1, 1895, under Georg Fischer III

Fischer was no longer able to cope with the strong expansion with his own financial resources. Therefore, in 1896, he founded the "Aktiengesellschaft der Eisen- und Stahlwerke von Georg Fischer". He himself kept 50% of the shares, and the remainder of the share capital of 1.5 million francs was not taken out on the capital market, but placed with family and friends. In 1889 Georg Fischer married Ida Hanhart. She was the daughter of Conrad Hanhart-Heim (1817–1886), who owned the upper mill in Grossandelfingen (ZH) and was mayor and cavalry captain. Blank loans were taken out on the capital market . Under Georg Fischer III, the company achieved the breakthrough into a real large company in the 1890s, aided by the general economic upturn.

Exclusion from the company

The crisis of 1901/1902 caused a scandal. In November, the GF board of directors determined that “funds from unsecured loans in the amount of more than 1.5 million Swiss francs have been used for fixed investment purposes; an enormity, which can only be explained by the absolute inability of the commercial & financial director - [this did not mean Fischer]. " Fischer, who struggled with the new structures and responsibilities and often did business as if the company still belonged to him alone, was "booted out" by the banks. In 1902 Georg Fischer (37 years old) was no longer elected to the board of directors and GF AG was restructured by the banks. In the obituary after his death, published in the Tages-Blatt , it was read that the involuntary departure from GF was a severe blow for Fischer, which plunged him into a “severe depression”.

New projects

Georg Fischer III was more of a technician than a businessman, which was evident just a few years after he left GF. In 1906 he acquired a license for the Héroult process for the manufacture of electrical steel . With the help of his cousin Berthold Schudel, a chemist, he first set up a metallurgical test facility and then an electric steelworks on the "Geissberg" in Schaffhausen. The First World War brought the plant an unexpected boom, as the Swiss Army was also an important customer. When Georg Fischer converted the company back into a stock corporation and called it Georg Fischer Elektrostahlwerke AG , there was another conflict with + GF +. From the negotiations between the lawyers, however, takeover negotiations developed and a sale took place. At the same time it was agreed that the name Georg Fischer could no longer appear as part of the company name. In 1923 Fischer retired entirely as an industrialist. In the last years of his life he was still president of the Foundation for the Age (today Pro Senectute ), which he and his wife Ida co-founded in 1919.

The person Georg Fischer III

Like his father, Georg Fischer was a "hospitable, always amiable and stimulating company". He took an active part in club life, was a member of the Scaphusia Association as a student , then belonged to the guild of forging and had been an active member of a bowling club since 1890. He was the father of three sons and one daughter. The family lived on the "Geissberg" in a stately villa in the English style, the "Villa Berg". Fischer was a patron of the old school, handing out wine to the staff when a new piece was finished, and also celebrating Christmas with the staff. His son Georg A. Fischer became head of the commercial department at the Swiss embassy in Washington (USA) and was elected to GF's board of directors in 1940. Georg Fischer III did not experience that again. He died on January 19, 1925 in his hometown of Schaffhausen.

literature

• Schaffhausen Biographies, Part Five, Volume 68/1991. Editor of the Historical Association of the Canton of Schaffhausen.
• Adrian Knöpfli: Swiss pioneers in business and technology, 74th . Success with cast iron and steel. Association for Economic Studies, 2002.
• Hans Ulrich Wipf: Georg Fischer AG 1930–1945. Chronos Verlag, Zurich 2001, ISBN 3-0340-0501-6 .

Web links

• Georg Fischer III on the website of Georg Fischer AG

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Hans Ulrich Wipf: Georg Fischer AG 1930–1945. Chronos Verlag, Zurich 2001, p. 24, ISBN 3-0340-0501-6 .
2. ^ Adrian Knöpfli: Schaffhauser Biographien, Georg Fischer III. Historischer Verein Schaffhausen, 1991, p. 60.