Georg Schaeffler

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Georg Schaeffler (born January 4, 1917 in Bourdonnay at Marimont Castle; † August 2, 1996 ) was a German entrepreneur . In 1949 he developed the needle cage for needle roller bearings , the breakthrough in industrial applications that led to the rise of his company, which was founded in Herzogenaurach in 1946 , to become today's global Schaeffler Group .

Life

Georg Schaeffler was born on the state domain of Marimont Castle near Bourdonnay / Lorraine (Eastern France). The family had been farming these since the 1870s. After Alsace-Lorraine, which had been German since 1871, had become French again after the First World War , the family moved to Ottweiler in the Saar region . His father came from Neustadt am Kulm , near Bayreuth , and his mother from the Rheinpfalz . Georg's brother Wilhelm Schaeffler (1908–1981) was also born in Marimont.

Georg Schaeffler attended the Realgymnasium in Neunkirchen an der Saar , graduating from high school in 1936. After military service, he began studying business administration at the University of Cologne , but was initially unable to complete it because of the start of the Second World War . In 1942 he was called up and served first on the Eastern and later on the Western Front, most recently with the rank of first lieutenant . During a stay in a hospital he was able to finish his studies as a business graduate in October 1944 . His brother Wilhelm also became a business graduate and in the 1930s he built up a textile company with four factories in Katscher in the Leobschütz district ( Silesia ). Initially, both brothers managed the textile company in Katscher. They switched the raw material for fabric production from Turkish mohair to rayon made from cellulose acetate . In the middle of the World War, they also set up a subsidiary for the armaments business from 1942, which employed up to 350 people. A few months later, the production of rolling bearings for the armaments industry, which was classified as essential to the war effort, began . Up until then, rolling bearings were mainly produced by other companies in Schweinfurt , Lower Franconia .

In the winter of 1945, the Schaeffler family fled from the Russian occupation forces with some of the production machines (more than forty wagons full of material and machines in total) and 300 employees to the US occupation zone in Schwarzenhammer in northeast Upper Franconia (Fichtel Mountains). After the end of the war, Georg Schaeffler was briefly taken prisoner by the US. The then Heinz Fritsch he founded together with the Cottbus entrepreneurs in a former china factory in Schwarzenhammer company factory of agricultural machines Fritsch & Schaeffler made due to the limitations of the Allied Control Council Law transitional Wooden Utility Items for house and Agriculture (u. A. Clothespins , wooden spoon , wooden rakes) and repaired agricultural machines. Instead of paying for the goods in cash, some of the raw materials and operating materials were obtained through exchange.

In the spring of 1946, due to lack of space, most of the staff relocated to Herzogenaurach, where the shoe industry was previously located. The Industrie-GmbH founded there by the Schaeffler brothers and two other owners (Fröhner and Fritsch) also initially manufactured wooden products such as belt buckles and buttons (up to 15,000 pieces a day) and sold handcarts that were produced in Schwarzenhammer. In June 1946 the brothers decided to build a factory in Herzogenaurach for tool parts for the production of spare parts for the US military and German spare parts manufacturers. Wilhelm Schaeffler was arrested by the US military authorities in 1946 and transferred to the Polish authorities; he spent several years until 1951 in Polish captivity.

At the turn of the year 1946/47 the company already had 149 employees, in the following year almost 200. From autumn 1949 Georg Schaeffler worked in cooperation with Daimler-Benz in Untertürkheim and the Adler motorcycle works in Frankfurt am Main on a cage-guided further development of the needle roller bearing. In February 1951, Schaeffler received its first order from the two companies, which marked the economic breakthrough. Up until the 1950s, cameras were also built next to it.

In the summer of the same year, Georg's brother Wilhelm returned from captivity. As a second division he built a textile manufacturing division (carpet weaving Schwarzenhammer, later Textilwerk Schaeffler oHG ), the first important carpet weaving in Germany after the end of the war. In 1957, Textilwerk Schaeffler KG was one of the largest manufacturers in Germany. In 1989, however, the entire division was sold due to the poor economic conditions in the textile industry in Germany.

The metal division, on the other hand, continued to boom: in 1959, more than 2,000 people were employed there. Numerous works in Germany and overseas were created. In 1997 the entire Schaeffler Group already had almost 20,000 employees, and in 2007 more than 66,000 at 180 locations worldwide. Global sales in 2007 totaled EUR 8.9 billion.

Georg Schaeffler died in 1996. Since then, his widow Maria-Elisabeth Schaeffler , whom he married in 1963, has owned the group together with their son Georg Friedrich Wilhelm Schaeffler .

Awards

Georg Schaeffler has received numerous awards. In 1969 he was awarded the Cross of Merit 1st Class of the Federal Republic of Germany. The University of Karlsruhe awarded him an honorary doctorate for his life's work . The city of Herzogenaurach made Georg and Wilhelm Schaeffler honorary citizens in 1981 .

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Schaeffler's dark shadow. In: Cicero. Retrieved May 26, 2015 .
personal data
SURNAME Schaeffler, Georg
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German entrepreneur
DATE OF BIRTH January 4, 1917
PLACE OF BIRTH Bourdonnay at Marimont Castle
DATE OF DEATH 2nd August 1996