Wilhelm Zangen

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Wilhelm Zangen (born September 30, 1891 in Duisburg , † November 25, 1971 in Düsseldorf ) was a German industrialist and from 1934 to 1957 general director of the Mannesmannröhren-Werke .

Live and act

After completing a commercial apprenticeship, the son of a machinist worked in various companies and was a member of the board of directors of Schieß-Defries AG in Duisburg from 1925 to 1929 . He held the same position at DEMAG from 1929 to 1934 . In 1934 Zangen was appointed general director of the Mannesmannröhren-Werke; he held this post until 1957. During the time of National Socialism he was a military economic leader and head of the Reichsgruppe Industrie and the subordinate export group for war equipment .

In contrast to various encyclopedias in which you can read without proof of information that Zangen joined the NSDAP and the SS as early as 1927, the NSDAP membership file, which is preserved in the Federal Archives, shows that Zangen did not join the NSDAP until 1937. In the same year he was appointed military economic leader . At the same time he was a member of the Academy for German Law . From November 1938 he was head of the Reichsgruppe Industrie and Vice President of the Düsseldorf Chamber of Commerce and Industry . He also held numerous supervisory board positions. In the summer of 1942 he was appointed to the Reichsvereinigung Eisen .

Zangen is considered to be partly responsible for the deportation of numerous forced laborers to Germany during the Second World War , because, among other things, in his function as a member of the industrial council of the High Command of the Army, he pointed to a “labor reservoir in Southeastern Europe” which could be exploited for the war economy.

From July to November 1945, Zangen was imprisoned in a number of Allied internment camps and was later classified by the Düsseldorf denazification committee as "less polluted".

From 1948 he worked again at Mannesmann. After retiring from management in 1957, he moved to the supervisory board , of which he was chairman until 1966.

Zangen, who rose to leading positions in the economy early on, took advantage of the opportunities offered by state expansion during National Socialism for German industry, as chairman of the economically important Reichsgruppe Industrie and as a senior manager of the Mannesmann company , without having had a special party career .

After the war, he continued his earlier career in business with the same skill. In 1958 he was made an honorary doctorate from the University of Münster and in 1965 he was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit with a star .

Afterlife

A street on the factory premises in Hausach, Baden, had been named after Wilhelm Zangen since 1954. It was part of the Wolf Netter & Jacobi factory until 1938 and was then " Aryanized " by Mannesmann with significant involvement of Zangen . The street was renamed on January 1, 2014 by resolution of the Hausach municipal council.

literature

  • Adam Tooze & Yvonne Badal (transl.): Economy of Destruction. The history of the economy in NS Siedler, Munich 2007 (first English 2006) ISBN 978-3-88680-857-1 , passim, new edition. Federal Agency for Civic Education BpB (series of publications by the Federal Agency for Civic Education; Bd. 663) ISBN 978-3-89331-822-3 . New edition Pantheon, Munich 2008, ISBN 3-570-55056-7 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945. Fischer Taschenbuch, Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 3-596-16048-0 , p. 691.
  2. ↑ Nazi Street is renamed . In: Offenburger Tageblatt of March 14, 2013 (accessed on January 9, 2014).
personal data
SURNAME Pliers, Wilhelm
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German military economic leader and head of the Reichsgruppe Industrie
DATE OF BIRTH September 30, 1891
PLACE OF BIRTH Duisburg
DATE OF DEATH November 25, 1971
Place of death Dusseldorf