Wilhelm Kissel

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Wilhelm Kissel (1929)

Wilhelm Kissel (born December 22, 1885 in Haßloch , † July 18, 1942 in Überlingen ) was a German businessman and manager in the automotive industry . From 1924 to 1926 he was department director at Benz & Cie. and between 1926 and 1942 board member of Daimler-Benz AG .

Life

The son of a railroad worker did a commercial apprenticeship in a company in Neustadt an der Haardt after completing secondary school . He then worked at Benz & Cie from 1904. in Mannheim . As early as 1908, he became head of purchasing there and earned services in the procurement of raw materials for the plant during the First World War . In 1917 he became an authorized officer and in 1922 a department director. Two years later he became a member of the Management Board of Benz & Cie. called.

When his employer got into financial difficulties due to the machinations of the stock exchange speculator and majority shareholder Jacob Schapiro , Kissel tried to work with his competitor, Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft in Stuttgart. He was the driving force behind the merger of the two companies to form Daimler-Benz AG in 1926 . This makes him one of the founding fathers of this automobile manufacturer, alongside Carl Benz and Gottlieb Daimler . In 1930 he was appointed CEO of the stock corporation . Together with the chairman of the supervisory board and head of Deutsche Bank AG , Emil Georg von Stauß , he successfully managed the separation from Schapiro. From March 1932 he was also on the supervisory board of BMW AG in preparation for a possible merger ; a seat he kept until his death. The planned merger with BMW failed, however.

According to his successor Wilhelm Haspel , Kissel is said to have been a declared opponent of the Nazis. In 1933, however, Kissel joined the SS (membership number 108.896), where he was finally promoted to SS-Obersturmbannführer in November 1940 . In 1934 he became a member of the NSDAP (membership number 2,009,653) and emphasized the “longstanding ties to the National Socialist movement”. He assured the DAF that he wanted to "connect and merge more and more with the party". Jakob Werlin , a long-time friend and supporter of Hitler, was placed at his side on the Daimler-Benz Board of Management .

At Werlin's insistence, the first 30 test vehicles of the KdF car ("VW 30", later the VW Beetle ) were built at the Sindelfingen plant in 1936 , although the car's designer, Ferdinand Porsche , had already had Daimler-Benz AG in a dispute with Kissel at the end of 1928 had left.

Kissel had always advocated a clear division of body and engine construction, as well as car and truck production, between the company's individual plants. He never succeeded in realizing this idea. When Daimler-Benz AG was obliged to manufacture the “ Opel Blitz ” truck and various spare parts for other manufacturers as part of war production , Kissel saw his efforts completely thwarted. The task of setting up the production of Daimler-Benz aircraft engines in the new Ostmark plant , which was ordered at the end of 1941, and the death of his only son as a soldier in the field were so bad on his health that he died of a heart attack on July 18, 1942 . Other sources speak of suicide .

Honors

literature

  • Werner Oswald: Mercedes-Benz Passenger Cars 1886–1986 . 4th edition, Motorbuch Verlag, Stuttgart 1987, ISBN 3-613-01133-6 .
  • Hans Pohl, Stephanie Habeth, Beate Brüninghaus: Daimler-Benz AG in the years 1933 to 1945. (= Journal for Company History, Supplement 47.) Franz Steiner Verlag, 1987, ISBN 3-515-04733-6 .
  • Hans Christoph Graf von Seherr-Thoss:  Kissel, Wilhelm. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 11, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1977, ISBN 3-428-00192-3 , pp. 685-687 ( digitized version ).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Fabian Müller: Daimler-Benz . Ullstein Taschenbuch, ISBN 3-548-35946-9 , page 8.
  2. ↑ a b List of seniority of the NSDAP Schutzstaffel. As of December 1, 1936, p. 102 f. (JPG; 1.03 MB) In: http://www.dws-xip.pl/reich/biografie/1936/1936.html . Retrieved November 2, 2019 .
  3. ↑ Honorary doctorate - honors and awards at TU Darmstadt. Technical University of Darmstadt, accessed on November 2, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Kissel, Wilhelm
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German businessman and manager in the automotive industry
DATE OF BIRTH December 22, 1885
PLACE OF BIRTH Hassloch
DATE OF DEATH July 18, 1942
Place of death Überlingen