Peter Klöckner

Peter Klöckner (November 9, 1863 – October 5, 1940) was a German businessman and industrialist.

Life and work Peter Klöckner was the second of nine children born to the Koblenz shipbuilder and shipyard owner Peter Klöckner and his wife Anna Maria, née Wenner.

He left Gymnasium (secondary school) before taking his Abitur examinations. From 1882 to 1884, he did a commercial apprenticeship at Carl Spaeter in Koblenz, the largest German iron trading group at the time. After his apprenticeship, he remained on as a commercial clerk. Between 1886 and 1888, he served as an accounting clerk at Luxemburger Bergwerks- und Saarbrücker Eisenhütten AG in Burbach, where, during night shifts, he acquired practical knowledge of steelmaking at the plant's reheating, puddling, and blast furnaces.

From 1888 to 1897, he represented the Spaeter company in the Ruhr region as a clerk in its Duisburg branch. When this branch was transformed into an independent company in 1897, he rose to partner and managing director. In addition, in 1894, he began investing in iron mills, steelworks, banks (Mittelrheinische Bank, Mülheimer Bank, A. Schaaffhausen'scher Bankverein), Through these reorganization measures, he gained control of the companies.

Activity as entrepreneur However, the position of managing director and partner at Spaeter's subsidiary afforded Peter Klöckner too little scope for his ambitions, and in 1906 he co-founded the general partnership Klöckner & Co in Duisburg with his brother Florian Klöckner. This enterprise sold the raw materials and products produced by Klöckner's holdings and became the heart of his group. In the following period, he systematically expanded his business activities to include all aspects of steel production and trading (smelting works, roller mills, mines, coking plants, shipping lines, coal trading, etc.). His goal was to create a vertically structured group that combined all processes under one roof, from the extraction and processing of raw materials to the end product. by merging all the companies in which he held at least a 50-percent states. These included Eisen- und Stahlwerk Haspe, the Mannstaedt works in Troisdorf, Düsseldorfer Eisen- und Drahtindustrie, Georgsmarien-Bergwerks- und Hüttenverein, and Eisen- und Stahlwerk Osnabrück. The Victor/Ickern, Königsborn, General, and Werne mines were also incorporated into his group. In 1924, Klöckner acquired a majority holding in Rheinische Chamotte- und Dinas-Werke in Mehlem and a 50-percent stake in the nitrogen plant belonging to Gewerkschaft Victor. As chair of the supervisory board, he directed Klöckner Werke AG until his death in 1940.

Employing some 43,000 people, Klöckner Werke AG – which held more than 99 percent of KHD's share capital – was the fifteenth largest company in Germany on the eve of the Second World War.

Klöckner was a devout Catholic who often played a special role among the major German industrialists. He was a member of the Catholic Center Party, which he supported with donations.

Literature

Adenauer, Konrad. Die Briefe Konrad Adenauers an Dora Pferdmenges 1933–1949. Bonn, 2007. Goldbeck, Gustav. "Klöckner, Peter." Vol. 12 of Neue Deutsche Biographie (NDB), 105–107. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1980. (Digitalisat). Luntowski, Gustav. Hitler und die Herren an der Ruhr: Wirtschaftsmacht und Staatsmacht im Dritten Reich. Frankfurt am Main, 2000. Muthesius, Volkmar. Peter Klöckner und sein Werk. Essen, 1941. Reviewed and expanded 2nd edition, Essen 1959. Pinner, Felix (Frank Faßland). Deutsche Wirtschaftsführer, 99–104. Die Weltbühne: Charlottenburg, Berlin, 1925. Pritzkoleit, Kurt. Männer Mächte Monopole: Hinter den Türen der westdeutschen Wirtschaft, 89–102. Düsseldorf, 1953. Pudor, Fritz, ed. Nekrologe: Aus dem rheinisch-westfälischen Industriegebiet; Jahrgang 1939–1951, 33–35. Düsseldorf, 1955. Reichert, Jakob. "Peter Klöckner (1863–1940)." In Rheinisch-Westfälische Wirtschaftsbiographien. Vol. 7, 85–104. Münster: Aschendorff, 1960. Weisbrod, Bernd. Schwerindustrie in der Weimarer Republik: Interessenpolitik zwischen Stabilisierung und Krise. Wuppertal, 1978. Wenzel, Georg. Deutscher Wirtschaftsführer, 1167. Hanseatische Verlagsanstalt: Hamburg, 1929.