Mads Clausen

Mads Clausen (born October 21, 1905 in Elsmark ( parish Havnbjerg Sogn , later Nordborg Kommune ) on the island of Alsen ; † August 27, 1966 when being transported from Elsmark to Sønderborg ) was a Danish manufacturer and founder of Danfoss , the largest industrial company in Denmark .

Life and personality

Mads (Danish for "Matthias") Clausen was the son of the farmer and farm owner Jørgen Clausen (1875–1949) and the Maren, nee. Frederiksen (1878-1948). At the time of his birth in 1905, his home region of North Schleswig was part of the German Empire ; only with the vote of 1920 did it become Danish again.

Mads Clausen's technical interest was aroused at an early age by his great-grandfather, the wooden shoe and pump maker Jørgen Hansen (1821–1912), and after his death he inherited his tools at the age of six. After completing secondary school in Sønderborg, Clausen attended the mechanical engineering college in Odense , which he graduated as an engineer in 1927 . After working as an employee, he founded his company Danfoss in 1933 (see the second section).

Mads Clausen married on May 13, 1939 in the Cathedral of Hadersleben Dorothea Emma Andkjaer, born Hinrichsen (born October 20, 1912 in Hadersleben), commonly called "Bitten Clausen". Their marriage had five children: Karin Clausen (* 1940), Bente Clausen (* 1942), Jørgen Mads Clausen (* 1948), Peter Johan Mads Clausen (* 1949) and Henrik Mads Clausen (* 1953). Bitten Clausen actively supported her husband in running the company and after his death was himself chairman of the board from 1966 to 1971 and vice chairman until 1988; her son Jørgen Mads Clausen has been the administrative director of Danfoss since 1996.

Mads Clausen made it a point to take advantage of the evening hours, and so he had worked at his desk until one in the morning on the night he died. The next morning he suddenly felt sick, a doctor diagnosed a heart attack and had Clausen taken by ambulance to the State Hospital in Sønderborg, but despite a heart massage on the way, only his death could be determined on his arrival. On August 31, 1966, Mads Clausen was buried in the Havnbjerg cemetery with great sympathy from the population; More than 10,000 people were standing along the route of the hearse.

Personally, Mads Clausen was a down-to-earth, homely, unpretentious and in no way self-absorbed person. Even at business meetings in Copenhagen, he preferred to go to a hot dog stand rather than a restaurant. He donated millions of Danish kroner for charity or regional cultural support. His lack of words was famous. Even his marriage proposal in 1939 was rather unpoetic, as he suddenly asked Bitten, his girlfriend at the time, while drinking coffee after a break in conversation of several minutes: "When do we want to get married?"

Company formation and development

After working as an engineer for three companies in succession from 1928 to 1933, Mads Clausen returned to Elsmark in the north of the island of Alsen in 1933 and started his own factory in an attic room in his parents' house. The basis for this was Clausen's business idea to manufacture automatic cooling parts that had previously had to be imported from the USA to Europe. His first product was a so-called expansion valve for refrigerators , and his modest initial equipment included a water barrel and a bicycle air pump with which he tested the valves. Due to his inventiveness, which earned him the nickname "Mads Patent", the product range expanded steadily in the following time.

Originally Mads Clausen had called his company “Dansk Køleautomatik- og Apparat-Fabrik” (Danish Kühlautomatik- und Apparatefabrik), but in 1946 he renamed it “Danfoss”, a name derived from “Danmark” (Denmark) and the verb "Fosse" (to flow) derives. By the end of the 1950s, Danfoss had developed into the largest factory in Europe for automatic parts for cooling and heating systems as well as hermetic refrigeration compressors. In 1951 the construction of today's modern factory building began in Elsmark, Nordborg, in the north of the island of Alsen on an area of more than 50,000 m ² , which later doubled again.

The company's success is illustrated by the rapidly growing number of employees: 1933: 1; 1935: 4; 1939: 26; 1943: 179; 1947: 316; 1951: 764; 1955: 2321; 1958: 3000; 1965: 5200, of which 1700 were employed in the worldwide branches that Danfoss already had in Flensburg , London , Paris , Helsingfors , New York , Toronto , Australia, Japan, India, Portugal and Spain. In 1961 the Danfoss company was transformed into a public limited company, the main shareholder of which was the “Fabrikant Mads Clausens Fond” and its managing director Mads Clausen.

Mads Clausen's lifetime achievement is first and foremost the development of his global company Danfoss. He was highly valued in his home region as the most important employer for never considering moving his factory to Copenhagen. It is largely thanks to Clausen that Northern Schleswig and especially the island of Alsen were saved from a serious structural crisis and the large-scale emigration of the young population at a time when fewer and fewer people were able to work in agriculture.

literature

Boie, Per; Johansen, Hans Christian: En iværksætter. Histories from Mads Clausen and Danfoss. Odense 1994. ISBN 87-7492-983-6 .
Johansen, Erik Korr: Mads Clausen , in: Dansk Biografisk Leksikon, Volume 3, Copenhagen 1979, p. 427f.
Larsen, Kai Edvard: Ved manufacturer Mads Clausen's død . Nordborgtidende, September 1, 1966 [obituary].
Mariager, Leif: Nu står hun i spidsen. For requests from Mads Clausen he is nu overhoved for kæmpevirksomheden Danfoss . Billedbladet, September 20, 1966 [obituary].
Steen Hansen, Hanne: Danfoss - arven fra Mads . Valby 1994. ISBN 87-569-7864-2 .
Trap, Jens Peter: Danmark , Volume 10.3, Copenhagen 1967; therein: Sønderborg Amt, Havnbjerg sogn, p. 1309.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME	Clausen, Mads
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Danish manufacturer
DATE OF BIRTH	October 21, 1905
PLACE OF BIRTH	Elsmark, Alsen
DATE OF DEATH	August 27, 1966
Place of death	Sonderburg