Emil Rathenau

Emil Moritz Rathenau (11 December 1838 – 20 June 1915) was a German entrepreneur, industrialist, mechanical engineer. He was a leading figure in the early European electrical industry and founder of AEG.

Early life Rathenau was born in Berlin, into a wealthy Jewish merchant family based on Viktoriastrasse by the Tiergarten, an old Jewish quarter of the city. His father Moritz Rathenau, was a grain trader who had moved to Berlin to set up business. His mother, Therese, was the daughter of Josef Liebermann, another businessman attracted to the growing opportunities of the burgeoning Prussian capital. Emil was particularly close to his mother, whom he regularly visited until her death in 1894. Realizing the potential of electricity, he acquired the rights to manufacture products based on Edison's patents with the help of a bank group. By 1907 AEG had become the largest commercial company in the world. The bank advised him to partner with his competitor Werner von Siemens. Since both were followers of the idea of monopoly they signed a contract of trust (monopoly) where Siemens was producing and selling generators and Rathenau built power stations and laid cables. In 1883 he founded the "German Edison Corporation for Applied Electricity" (Deutsche Edison-Gesellschaft für angewandte Elektrizität), which in 1887 changed into the Allgemeine Elektrizitäts-Gesellschaft (General Electricity Incorporated) abbreviated AEG.

On 19 February 1884 Rathenau and the magistrate of Berlin signed an agreement on the electrification of the city.

One of his sons was Walther Rathenau, an industrialist, politician, and progressive economist who served as German Foreign Minister during the Weimar Republic. He was assassinated in Berlin in June 1922 by the right-wing terrorist group Organisation Consul. He had another son named Erich Rathenau and a daughter Edith.

Literature Armin Chodzinski: Kunst und Wirtschaft. Peter Behrens, Emil Rathenau und der dm drogerie markt. Kulturverlag Kadmos, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-8659-9030-3, S. 94–115. Markus Dahlem: Fallstudien zum Verhältnis von Banken und Großunternehmen im Deutschen Kaiserreich, 1871–1914. Die Farbenfabriken vormals Friedrich Bayer & Co. in Leverkusen und die Allgemeine Elektrizitäts-Gesellschaft. (PDF; 218 kB) In: Akkumulation. Informationen des Arbeitskreises für kritische Unternehmens- und Industriegeschichte. Ruhr-Univ. Bochum; 19, Bochum, 2004, S. 1–28. Jesko Dahlmann: Das innovative Unternehmertum im Sinne Schumpeters: Theorie und Wirtschaftsgeschichte. Metropolis Verlag, Marburg 2017, ISBN 978-3-7316-1269-8, S. 141–191. Ursula Mader: Emil und Walther Rathenau in der elektrochemischen Industrie (1888–1907). Eine historische Studie (= Gesellschaft, Geschichte, Gegenwart, Band 20), Trafo-Verlag Weist, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-89626-198-3. Manfred Pohl: Emil Rathenau und die AEG. Verlag von Hase & Koehler, Mainz 1988, ISBN 3-7758-1190-7, mit zahlreichen Bildern und Faksimiles