Günther Quandt

Günther Quandt (28 July 1881 – 30 December 1954) was a German industrialist who founded an industrial empire that today includes BMW and Altana (chemicals).

Eight of the hundred currently richest Germans are among his descendants.

He was born in Pritzwalk in Germany, the son of Emil Quandt (1849–1925). Emil had married in 1883 the daughter of a rich textile manufacturer (Reichswolle AG) and he took charge of the company in 1900. He had three siblings: Gerhard, Werner and a younger sister named Edith. Werner married Eleanor Quandt, who after the Second World War helped to protect her brother-in-law, Günther, from prosecution by the Allies. Günther's sister Edith married the owner of another textile company.

During World War I, with Günther in charge, the Quandts supplied the German army with uniforms, building up a larger fortune that Günther would use after the war to acquire Accumulatorenfabrik AG (AFA), a battery manufacturer in Hagen that would become VARTA, a potash-mining company, metal-working companies (including IWKA) and stakes in BMW and Daimler-Benz.

Günther Quandt first married Antonie ‘Toni’ Ewald. They had two sons Helmut Quandt (1908–1927) and Herbert Quandt. Antonie died of the Spanish flu in 1918 and Helmut died of complications from appendicitis in 1927.

His second marriage on 4 January 1921 in Bad Godesberg to Magda Ritschel produced another son, Harald Quandt. Magda was half Günther's age. The marriage ended in divorce in 1929. Two years later Magda married Joseph Goebbels with Adolf Hitler as best man.

After Hitler's election in 1933 Quandt joined the Nazi Party. In 1937 Hitler gave him the title of a Wehrwirtschaftsführer, (Leader in the Defence Economy), like other industrialists who played a leading role in the war economy. Quandt's businesses supplied ammunition, rifles, artillery and batteries, using slave labourers from concentration camps in at least three factories. Hundreds of these labourers died. An execution area was set up in the grounds of AFA's Hanover factory. Quandt also appropriated factories throughout Europe after German invasions.

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