Herbert Quandt

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Herbert Werner Quandt (born June 22, 1910 in Pritzwalk ; † June 2, 1982 in Kiel ) was a German industrialist from the Quandt family .

family

Herbert Quandt was the son of the industrialist Günther Quandt and half-brother of Harald Quandt . His oldest child is Silvia Quandt (* 1937) from his first marriage to Ursel Münstermann, whom Quandt married in 1933. The marriage was divorced in 1940, the daughter initially stayed with her mother. The children Sonja (* 1951), Sabina (* 1953) and Sven Quandt (* 1956) come from the second marriage to Lieselotte Blobelt (divorced 1959). His two youngest children Susanne Klatten and Stefan Quandt come from his third marriage to Johanna Bruhn .

life and work

The only convertible BMW 3200 CS that was given to him as a thank you for his contribution to the rescue of BMW

education

Impaired by an eye disease, he had prepared himself early on to work in agriculture. The Severin estate near Parchim , acquired by his father, was intended as the object of his work . In 1927, however, his older brother Hellmut suddenly died. Herbert Quandt therefore entered his father's business instead of his brother.

After his mother's early death in 1918, he was particularly influenced by his trips abroad with his father. In the meantime he had become one of the most successful entrepreneurs in Germany, primarily in the accumulator industry. Technical training soon became necessary for Herbert Quandt. Among other things, he spent several months as an intern in the USA . After extensive training at home and abroad, he became a member of the board of AFA, later VARTA AG.

time of the nationalsocialism

Forced labor was used in many of the Quandt factories during World War II and the conditions were extremely harsh. Herbert was the director of Pertrix GmbH, a Berlin-based subsidiary of AFA. The company used female forced laborers, including Polish women who had been transferred from Auschwitz. In 1940 he joined the NSDAP . During the time of National Socialism he was a member of the board of the Accumulatoren-Fabrik AG (AFA; since 1962 VARTA ) and alongside Günther Quandt, among other things, head of the personnel department. A concentration camp sub-camp, complete with gallows and an execution area, was built on the premises of the AFA plant in Hanover.

According to Benjamin Ferencz , who worked for the prosecution at the Nuremberg Trials , Herbert Quandt and his father Günther, as well as Alfried Krupp von Bohlen and Halbach , Friedrich Flick and those responsible for IG Farben , would have been charged as major war criminals if the documents available today the prosecutors at the time. The decisive documents for her work in the "Third Reich" were available to the authorities in the British occupation zone . The British withheld the material because they had recognized the importance of AFA's battery production even after the war, and wanted to protect the owners because of that.

Since 1954

After the death of their father in 1954, Herbert and his half-brother Harald Quandt inherited the Quandt Group, a conglomerate of company holdings, including the Akkumulatoren-Fabrik AG (AFA, VARTA since 1962 ), BMW , Mercedes-Benz and today's KUKA AG . The sons managed the inheritance jointly, but had agreed to create areas of responsibility: whoever was in charge, made the decisions. Herbert Quandt managed the electrical, vehicle, oil and fertilizer as well as textile areas, Harald Quandt until his death in 1967 the machine and apparatus construction, the light and heavy metal semi-finished product production and other metal processing.

At the end of the 1950s, BMW AG got more and more financial difficulties. The restructuring plan of the management and major shareholders provided for a takeover by Daimler-Benz , but this was prevented at the general meeting in December 1959 by minor shareholders and BMW dealers. Herbert Quandt was impressed by this fighting spirit and saw an opportunity to renovate BMW on his own. With his considerable financial commitment and by securing loans, Herbert Quandt helped the banks to regain confidence in the company. On November 30, 1960, Quandt's restructuring plan was approved at the BMW general meeting in Munich. Thanks to the business and type policy of the new management, the renovation work was successfully completed as early as 1964.

“Right from the start I was absolutely convinced that BMW would make it. Only the errors had to be recognized and resolved to eliminate them. We now have good leadership and a sensible program. Everyone who works at BMW is quickly gripped by a certain passion, you could almost say, by a “BMW bacillus”. The work of the board of directors and the supervisory board is carried out in a very special harmony. "

- Herbert Quandt : Interview in the BMW Journal 1967

In 1967 Herbert Quandt was CEO of VARTA AG. He chaired the supervisory board a. at Industriewerke Karlsruhe AG , Keller & Knappich GmbH , Busch-Jaeger Dürener Metallwerke AG and worsted yarn spinning mill Stöhr & Co. AG . At Daimler-Benz AG he was deputy chairman of the supervisory board and a member of the executive committee. He was also deputy chairman of the supervisory board of the Wintershall union and Wintershall AG . He was also a member of the supervisory boards of the Gerling Group Allgemeine Versicherungs-AG and the Frankfurter Bank .

Herbert Quandt set a motorboat world record in the 3-liter class in 1959, which he held until 1967. Together with his boat builder, he won several first and second prizes in races on European waters. He was also a collector of art. After 1945 he had himself portrayed by the National Socialist sculptor Arno Breker . In doing so, he followed the example of his father Günther Quandt, who knew Breker from Berlin.

Herbert Quandt died on June 2, 1982 in Kiel. He is buried in the forest cemetery in Bad Homburg . His main heirs were his widow, his third wife Johanna Quandt , and his two youngest children Susanne Klatten and Stefan Quandt .

Honors

On November 19, 1956, the Philosophical Faculty of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz unanimously awarded him an honorary doctorate for his services to in-company training , for which Herbert Quandt presented himself to guests of the University of Mainz and industry on June 22, 1957 during his birthday celebrations thanked.

In 1968 Herbert Quandt was awarded the Bavarian Order of Merit , in 1979 he received the Great Gold Medal of Honor with the Star for Services to the Republic of Austria (corresponds to a Grand Officer's Cross ).

Streets in Dingolfing , Göttingen , Hildesheim , Regensburg and Munich were named in honor of Herbert Quandt . Furthermore, the Herbert Quandt School in Pritzwalk is named after him. He was an honorary citizen of Öhningen , where he owned the Stutengarten estate.

The BMW Foundation Herbert Quandt, founded by BMW AG in 1970 and the Herbert Quandt Foundation in Bad Homburg vd H. , founded by Altana AG in 1980, spun off in 2007 and operating until the end of 2016 , now bear his name or the suffix, and also the Herbert Quandt Media Prize of the Johanna Quandt Foundation is named after him. Her school competition “Trialog der Kulturen” was held ten times between 2005 and 2015, and according to media reports, her “Trialog der Kulturen” scholarship was considered “one of the best and most renowned exchange programs in German journalism”.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c The Quandts' silence . Documentation, 60 min., Production: NDR, first broadcast, ARD, September 30, 2007, 11:30 p.m.
  2. ↑ Dietmar Hawranek: Breaking the Silence: BMW's Quandt Family to Investigate Wealth Amassed in Third Reich. In: Spiegel Online . October 12, 2007, accessed June 9, 2018 .
  3. ↑ a b c d e Dr. hc Herbert Quandt: Entrepreneur with a passion . In: BMW Journal . No. 23 , 1967, p. 8–11 ( BMW Group Archives - Publications - Sales Literature ). BMW Group Archive - Publications - Sales literature ( Memento of the original from September 23, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.bmw-konzernarchiv.de
  4. ↑ Thomas Fromm: BMW: Rescue 50 years ago "The birth of the mia-san-mia feeling" . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung . November 30, 2010 ( Sueddeutsche.de [accessed June 18, 2012]).
  5. ↑ BMW - "Cold Duck" . In: Der Spiegel . No. 36 , 1962, pp. 30-33 ( online ).
  6. ↑ BMW renovation - "The Cancer" . In: Der Spiegel . No. 49 , 1960, pp. 46-49 ( online ).
  7. ↑ The BMW renovation decided . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . December 1, 1960, p. 12 .
  8. ^ BMW - "Bavaria's Gloria" . In: Der Spiegel . No. 8 , 1965, p. 62-66 ( online ).
  9. ↑ Angelika Baeumerth: Das Jahrhundert im Taunus, 2008, ISBN 978-3-7973-0731-6 , p. 273.
  10. ^ Herbert Quandt Foundation - Chronicle. (No longer available online.) Formerly in the original ; Retrieved June 21, 2012 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.herbert-quandt-stiftung.de  
  11. ↑ Honorary doctorate for industrialists from Bad Homburg . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , Rhein-Main-Zeitung . June 24, 1957, p. 8 .
  12. ^ Federal Association of German Foundations (ed.): Private foundations as partners of science - a guide for practice. Berlin 2013. p. 150.
  13. ↑ Chronicle. (No longer available online.) Herbert Quandt Foundation, archived from the original on March 19, 2018 ; accessed on March 18, 2018 . 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. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.herbert-quandt-stiftung.de
  14. ↑ Trialog of the Cultures School Competition. (No longer available online.) Herbert Quandt Foundation, archived from the original on March 19, 2018 ; accessed on March 18, 2018 . 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. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.herbert-quandt-stiftung.de
  15. ↑ Quandt Foundation turns the tap on journalists. In: Der Tagesspiegel. April 27, 2015, accessed March 18, 2018 .
personal data
SURNAME Quandt, Herbert
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Quandt, Herbert Werner (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German industrialist
DATE OF BIRTH June 22, 1910
PLACE OF BIRTH Pritzwalk
DATE OF DEATH 2nd June 1982
Place of death Kiel