The Vereinigte Stahlwerke AG (VSt or Vestag, ''United Steelworks'') was a German industrial conglomerate producing

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when ...

iron Iron () is a chemical element with Symbol (chemistry), symbol Fe (from la, Wikt:ferrum, ferrum) and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 element, group 8 of the periodic table. It is, Abundanc ...

, and steel in the

interbellum In the history of the 20th century, the interwar period lasted from 11 November 1918 to 1 September 1939 (20 years, 9 months, 21 days), the end of the First World War to the beginning of the Second World War. The interwar period was relative ...

and during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

Founded in 1926, economic pressures (decreasing prices and excess capacities) led to the union of several companies, including

Thyssen AG Thyssen was a major German steel producer founded by August Thyssen. The company merged with Friedrich Krupp AG Hoesch-Krupp to form ThyssenKrupp in 1999. History On 29 September 1891, August Thyssen and his brother Joseph Thyssen came to be in ...

, , Rheinische Stahlwerke, Rhein-Elbe-Union GmbH, , , and . This group united of most German iron, steel and coal producers but did not include

Hoesch AG Hoesch AG was an important steel and mining company with locations in the Ruhr area and Siegen. In 1871, Hoesch was founded by Leopold Hoesch. In 1938, Hoesch employed 30,000 people. In 1972, the prominent steel producer merged with the Dutch ...

Krupp AG The Krupp family (see pronunciation), a prominent 400-year-old German dynasty from Essen, is notable for its production of steel, artillery, ammunition and other armaments. The family business, known as Friedrich Krupp AG (Friedrich Krupp A ...

, Klöckner-Werke, , and

Mannesmann Mannesmann was a German industrial conglomerate. It was originally established as a manufacturer of steel pipes in 1890 under the name "Deutsch-Österreichische Mannesmannröhren-Werke AG". (Loosely translated: "German-Austrian Mannesmann pip ...

.http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.cgi?path=249411005252667 The company was headquartered in

Düsseldorf Düsseldorf ( , , ; often in English sources; Low Franconian and Ripuarian language, Ripuarian: ''Düsseldörp'' ; archaic nl, Dusseldorp ) is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second- ...

. During the 1930s, VSt was one of the biggest German companies and, at times, also the largest steel producer in Europe. With up to about 250,000 workers, it produced about 40% of the steel and 20% of the coal produced in Germany. Chief executive officer (chief of the

Vorstand In German corporate governance, a ''Vorstand'' is the executive board of a corporation (public limited company). It is hierarchically subordinate to the supervisory board (''Aufsichtsrat''), as German company law imposes a two-tier board of dir ...

) was initially

Albert Vögler Albert Vögler (8 February 1877 – 14 April 1945) was a German politician, industrialist and entrepreneur. He was a co-founder of the German People's Party, and an important executive in the munitions industry during the Second World War. V� ...

, until 1935. He was succeeded (1935−1943) as CEO by Ernst Poensgen, descendant of the Rhenish industrial family Poensgen and cofounder of the "Vereinigte Stahlwerke AG" in 1926.

Fritz Thyssen Friedrich "Fritz" Thyssen (9 November 1873 – 8 February 1951) was a German businessman, born into one of Germany's leading industrial families. He was an early supporter of the Nazi Party, but later broke with them. Biography Youth Thyssen w ...

was chairman of the board (

Aufsichtsrat In corporate governance, a governance board also known as council of delegates are chosen by the stockholders of a company to promote their interests through the governance of the company and to hire and fire the board of directors. In civi ...

). In 1932, as a result of the effects of the Great Depression, part of the company was nationalized to prevent bankruptcy. The Weimar government bought stock valued at 25 million Reichsmark (RM) for 99 million RM. This transaction like the similar Gelsenberg affair led to a public outcry. According to

Heinrich Brüning Heinrich Aloysius Maria Elisabeth Brüning (; 26 November 1885 – 30 March 1970) was a German Centre Party politician and academic, who served as the chancellor of Germany during the Weimar Republic from 1930 to 1932. A political scienti ...

the company then went on to support the Nazi party with 500,000 RM for the 1932 elections.Heinrich Brüning, Memoiren 1918–1934, DVA, Stuttgart 1970, S. 531 The Nazi government re-privatized the stocks four years later so that the Vst achieved a net win of 33 million RM. The Vst became a major contributor in supplying materiel and munitions to the war effort. However, as the Vst was unable to fulfill the demands of the Nazi government, another steelworks, the

Reichswerke Hermann Göring Reichswerke Hermann Göring was an industrial conglomerate in Nazi Germany from 1937 until 1945. It was established to extract and process domestic iron ores from Salzgitter that were deemed uneconomical by the privately held steel mills. The sta ...

, was founded in

Salzgitter Salzgitter (; Eastphalian: ''Soltgitter'') is an independent city in southeast Lower Saxony, Germany, located between Hildesheim and Braunschweig. Together with Wolfsburg and Braunschweig, Salzgitter is one of the seven ''Oberzentren'' of Lower ...

. During World War II, most of the production facilities were destroyed by bombing, and after the war, the company was dismantled. From the residuals several companies were founded in the

Federal Republic of Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated between ...

after 1951, including , August Thyssen-Hütte AG, , and .

References

* The start of this article is based on the corresponding article of the German Wikipedia, accessed 2/13/2008.

Bibliography

* Alexander Donges: Die Vereinigte Stahlwerke AG im Nationalsozialismus. Konzernpolitik zwischen Marktwirtschaft und Staatswirtschaft. Reihe: Familie – Unternehmen – Öffentlichkeit: Thyssen im 20. Jahrhundert, Bd. 1. Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn 2014, . * Alfred Reckendrees: ''Das "Stahltrust"-Projekt. Die Gründung der Vereinigte Stahlwerke A.G. und ihre Unternehmensentwicklung 1926-1933/34.'' Schriftenreihe zur Zeitschrift für Unternehmensgeschichte, 5. München: C. H. Beck Verlag, 2000. .

External links

* {{Authority control Conglomerate companies established in 1926 Manufacturing companies based in Düsseldorf Defunct companies of Germany Mining companies of Germany Steel companies of Germany Conglomerate companies disestablished in 1948 Non-renewable resource companies established in 1926 Manufacturing companies established in 1926 Non-renewable resource companies disestablished in 1948 Manufacturing companies disestablished in 1948 German companies established in 1926 1948 disestablishments in Germany Companies of Prussia