Wilhelm Friedle

Wilhelm Friedle (born November 7, 1889 in Heilbronn ; † May 20, 1935 in Aue ) was Operations Director at the Daimler-Benz plant in Sindelfingen . In this role he introduced the assembly line at Mercedes .

Private

Wilhelm Friedle lived with his family in Sindelfingen and then moved to Aidlingen. He was married to Paula Friedle. This marriage resulted in two children.

job

Wilhelm Friedle was employed by Daimler-Benz AG for 18 years . On May 15, 1917, he joined the company. In the first time he was responsible for general operations as the manager. He distinguished himself in setting up the body shop, so that he successively rose from production assistant to production engineer and then to senior engineer. In 1926 he led the modernization of the paint shop. In 1927 Wilhelm Friedle was appointed operations manager for the entire body shop.

It was a first in Germany when Friedle introduced the assembly line in Sindelfingen and laid the foundations for the press shop. In the period that followed, the company was expanded and improved under his leadership.

In 1932 Friedle became an authorized signatory of the Sindelfingen plant and soon after became operations director. During a study trip through North America, Friedle found ideas for car body production in the most important car factories.

The Great Depression of 1929 was forgotten. The Sindelfingen plant experienced a stormy development. In 1934, the number of employees had quadrupled compared to 1932. During these turbulent times, Friedle was always in the forefront as operations director of the Sindelfingen plant. The negotiations with the machine builders and suppliers were a top priority for him.

On his last business trip at the end of May 1935 to Schwarzenberg, Saxony, to the Friedrich Volk company, the focus was on new pressing tools. Friedle fell ill, was hospitalized and died at the age of only 45 from the consequences of the operation in the Ore Mountains. Even the summoned Ferdinand Sauerbruch , the most important and influential surgeon in the first half of the 20th century, could no longer help him.

The obituary said about him: "There is literally no stone or line in this factory that he did not know himself." Wilhelm Haspel , the head of the Daimler-Benz plant in Sindelfingen, praised the work of his operations director at the grave: "He was one of those who saw the groundbreaking of the local work and he has remained loyal to it in good and bad days. His name is linked to the structure of our society. It is and will remain part of our company's history. "

Non-professional activities

The first settlement in Sindelfingen, the Schnödeneck settlement, was planned on behalf of the non-profit "Bau- und Sparverein", the later construction cooperative of Paul Schmitthenner. Wilhelm Friedle was chairman of the "Construction and Savings Association" Sindelfingen. The settlement is well preserved and is close to the center, opposite the Sindelfingen town hall.

Wilhelm Friedle was a member of the hunters' club, as well as the gymnastics club and the music club.

swell

• Funerary address from 1935, presumably given by Wilhelm Kissel or Wilhelm Haspel
• Obituary from the Sindelfinger Zeitung from 1935
• Sindelfinger Zeitung, Wilhelm Friedle, "The man who brought the assembly line" (article from December 23, 2000)
• Sindelfinger Zeitung, special publication on 40 years of the weekly newspaper, "An industrial city in the green" (article from November 2007)