Georg Schäfer (industrialist)
Georg Schäfer (born September 7, 1896 in Schweinfurt , † January 27, 1975 in Erlangen ; full name Johann Georg Schäfer ) was a German entrepreneur as well as art collector and patron.
Life
In 1925 Georg Schäfer inherited a third of the company Erste Automatic Gußstahlkugelfabrik, formerly Friedrich Fischer oHG , from his father of the same name , in which he had been active since 1919 and which operated under the name FAG Kugelfischer from 1941 . At the age of 29 he took over the commercial management, the technical management was in the hands of his brother-in-law and co-owner Hermann Barthel. When the German rolling bearing manufacturers merged to form Vereinigte Kugellagerfabriken AG (VKF) in 1929 under the leadership of the Swedish SKF , Georg Schäfer insisted on the independence of his company. He used the free space created by the roller bearing merger for a rise of the FAG favored by the war armor.
After 1933 he was NSDAP city councilor in Schweinfurt and from 1942 leader of the “special ring rolling bearings”, which is important for armaments. Schäfer ensured the survival of his Jewish sales director Hugo Holzapfel.
Hermann Barthel left the company in 1939 after years of conflict. In joint management with his half-brother Otto Schäfer, Georg Schäfer succeeded in expanding production and rebuilding the company after the factories were almost completely destroyed during the Allied bombing of Schweinfurt in 1943/1944. FAG thus became one of the bearers of the economic miracle of the post-war years.
Georg Schäfer brought together an important collection of paintings, including a. the world's largest collection by Carl Spitzweg . It is exhibited in the Georg Schäfer Museum, which opened in 2000 .
Georg Schäfer was awarded an honorary doctorate from the Technical University of Munich in 1952 (as Dr.-Ing.Eh ), in 1954 with the Bavarian Order of Merit and in 1969 with the Great Cross of Merit with Star of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. Since 1952 he was an honorary citizen of Schweinfurt , Gerolzhofen , Eltmann and Euerbach .
When Georg Schäfer died, the FAG Kugelfischer Group had almost 30,000 employees.
literature
- Uwe Müller: Schäfer, Johann Georg. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 22, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-428-11203-2 , p. 501 ( digitized version ).
Web links
- Literature by and about Georg Schäfer in the catalog of the German National Library
Individual evidence
- ↑ DGB-Bildungswerk Kreis Schweinfurt (ed.): "After the war nobody was a Nazi ...". Labor movement in Schweinfurt between 1928 and 1945. Regional historiography based on eyewitnesses and documents. Vorndran, Schweinfurt 1984, p. 100.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Shepherd, Georg |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Schäfer, Johann Georg (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German entrepreneur and patron |
| DATE OF BIRTH | September 7, 1896 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Schweinfurt |
| DATE OF DEATH | January 27, 1975 |
| Place of death | gain |