“Biographer Günter Ogger once called industrialist Friedrich Flick a "genius of silence." However, compared to the inconspicuousness with which the Quandt family has always conducted their business, the Flicks were noisy boasters. Hardly anything of the diverse activities of the Quandts, let alone private matters, seeps into the public eye.”
“Their almost unparalleled success story began in the 19th century in Pritzwalk, Brandenburg, where the Quandts, who had migrated from Holland, had settled. The cloth factory, which Emil Quandt took over there in 1883 and expanded with foresight and entrepreneurial daring, is the cradle of the company. From the first exclusive large order from the Imperial Navy for uniform cloths, it was a long and winding path to the top of the high earners, but, as it seems in retrospect, it was a rise that could not be stopped through the shoals of German history.”
“The Quandts are not only witnesses of the turbulent century, but part of its history. In 1931, a divorced Frau Quandt became a Frau Goebbels, and her son, Harald Quandt, grew up in the house of Hitler's chief propagandist.”
“They have consistently succeeded in producing types of entrepreneurs who are as committed to expansion as they are to preservation. Thus, they have built an entrepreneurial dynasty that has lasted four generations and is unparalleled.”
“The business magazine Capital even got the impression that the Quandts would rather read something false about themselves than say something true.”
“The story of the Quandts is the story of successful immigration. When Prussia rose to the kingdom in the beginning of the 18th century, the Quandt family left their Dutch home and moved eastward. A small group of Calvinists set out for the sandy Mark Brandenburg.”
“The economy of the young empire was set under steam by them. Alone in the years 1871 to 1874, which would later be called the "founder years", capital-strong citizens in Germany founded 857 joint-stock companies.”
“However, the departure into a new era ended abruptly. After the stock market crash in Vienna on May 9, 1873, the boom turned into a sharp recession. In Berlin, the prices of all the newly founded railway companies, banks and mining firms collapsed. Suddenly, the founder boom appeared to people as a great fraud and the new economy was built on sand. The big profit promises were not fulfilled, wages fell. After the French billions had been spent, many of the companies that had emerged in the course of the industrial revolution no longer found enough buyers for their products. It was a crisis due to overproduction, the economy was out of balance. Deep resignation spread throughout the country.”
“Since 1858, the founding year of the North German Confederation's navy, Draeger Brothers' factory had been its supplier. This did not change when it became the Imperial Navy in 1871. This business connection was now paying off, as military orders made the cloth factory immune to economic fluctuations.”
“Emil Quandt was a conservative Prussian, pious and loyal to the crown. Even in business matters, the factory owner remained old-fashioned, he would never have thought of buying new machines on credit. Any expansion of the factory had to be financed from profits. Despite all the wealth the family enjoyed, Emil Quandt had no use for ostentation.”
“Günther Quandt wrote about his father in later years: "He thought like an old-style farmer or craftsman in generations. What he had worked for, his sons, my brothers Werner, Gerhard and I, were to continue. "”
“Günther Quandt was 17 years old when his father took him out of Lower Secondary School. With that, his youth suddenly ended. This was followed by a six-month crash course in the family business. At six o'clock in the morning, Günther Quandt sat at the loom, where an experienced weaver trained him, then he practiced spinning, and learned fulling and laundry. A dye master introduced him to the art of cloth dyeing and taught him how to create vibrant maritime blues and dragoon blues from the juice of the indigo plant.”
“In the technical part of the training, Quandt became familiar with the steam engine. The afternoons were reserved for commercial training. Every day from two to seven o'clock, Quandt sat with his father in the office and learned from him about correspondence, bookkeeping, and inventory.”
“His Rhenish friends raved to him about the delights of the carnival, and the Prussian, who had only a little pocket money available, wrote to his father asking for an allowance. He received the negative answer after three days of continuous partying on Ash Wednesday: "You must learn to cut your coat according to your cloth. Learn to save, accomplish something, so that you can be something, have something, and be somebody!".”
“Günther Quandt quickly proved that he was up to the task at hand. But just maintaining and managing was not enough for him, he was not one of those people who quickly settle for what they have achieved. He managed to convince his cautious father, who had been marked by the crash and its countless bankruptcies, that the family business should be expanded. The opportunity for expansion was found within the family.”
“The young businessman was soon no longer content to simply renovate the existing in Wittstock either. He sought the opportunity to create something new and wanted to build another factory according to his own plans. The father hesitated at first. But then he wrote a letter that the son later read so often that he could recite it by heart even in old age: "To my sons Günther and Werner Quandt. My dear boys! My decision is made. Construction will continue immediately. Raw materials and especially factory storages must be kept small. Bank loans should only be used in emergencies. Dear God will give us His blessing. And now forward with fresh courage! Your father." Within two years, Günther Quandt built a new modern cloth factory in Wittstock.”
“In 1908, the long-awaited heir was born in the Quandt family. The child was baptized as Hellmut in the Pritzwalker Nicolai Church. From this day forward, Günther Quandt also began to think in terms of generations. If the young factory owner, who started his workday at seven o'clock in the office, had a second breakfast at home around ten o'clock, he usually took a short contemplative walk beforehand: "Often I would then wander through the old park, always with the knowledge that the steady and industrious work every day and every year was taking the family businesses good steps forward," he recalled later.”
“Günther Quandt did not rest. After considerably expanding the production facilities in Pritzwalk, he went to great lengths to maximize the use of the new machines. Thus, for four months every year, he embarked on a long representative tour that took him across the empire. He lugged around two large suitcases. One housed his personal belongings, the other samples of all possible types of uniform cloth for the army, navy, post office and railway, for the police, marksmen, chauffeurs, and gatekeepers. From Königsberg to Cologne, from Frankfurt to Hamburg, Günther Quandt traveled through all major cities by train to acquire new orders for the domestic factories. These travels made all of Germany his home and broadened his view for other regions, mentalities, and industries.”
“Around 1910, his sister Edith became engaged to the only son of the Wittstock textile factory owner Rudolf Paul. Soon after, the Quandt clan thus controlled three significant German firms in this industry. And it was, of course, Günther Quandt, who was given the task of forming an economic unit from the companies.”
“For this purpose, the equal owners of the factories - the three Quandt brothers and their brother-in-law Fritz Paul - signed a partnership agreement in which they agreed to jointly run the companies henceforth. They pooled their sourcing of materials and raw produce as well as distribution and also coordinated the production of the establishments. Günther Quandt had the final say; it was his first conglomerate.”
“This arrangement of the cloth makers was in line with the spirit of the times. All over the country, companies were looking for ways to make their business financially more viable. A popular method was to eliminate the competition among themselves, to form cartels or even conglomerates. Quandt later wrote: "Competition in an increasingly tight space can have a very unfavorable effect on the national economy, namely when too many resources and energy are spent on fighting the opponent. Therefore, it was entirely in line with the economic principle that an understanding was reached about the market instead of making life difficult for each other."”
“An entrepreneur like Günther Quandt was in a peculiar position in the Wilhelmine world. In the factory, he was the master - an unbounded ruler over workers and employees. But in the social hierarchy, there was still another class that was dominant: the pre-capitalist nobility, those squires who sat on their knight's manors and whose sons served as officers in the emperor's army.”
“For a uniform cloth manufacturer, the outbreak of a war was synonymous with a massive wave of orders. Günther Quandt immediately took the helm of the factories. While his brother Werner stayed in Pritzwalk, he took care of the factories in Wittstock. There, Fritz Paul's father had suffered a nervous breakdown out of fear for his son, so Quandt also had to take the reins in this company. For all three factories, plans had been in place for years in case of mobilization. Up to now, about 400 uniforms had been produced per week, but this number soon quadrupled in a short time. The works were soon fully utilized. "Then Rudolf Paul regained his courage," Quandt noted.”
“The First World War was a historically novel war. The longer it lasted, the more it became an economic war, a battle that was fought in the industries of nations. Never before in history had larger crowds clashed in a war, but never before has the headcount been of so little importance. The crucial factor in this war was the equipping of the fighters with weapons of destruction, with tanks, with airplanes, with machine guns and poison gas. Their mass production was a task for the economy.”
“The phrase from Golo Mann is: "It's an old experience that war makes the strong stronger and the weak, already declining, even weaker."”
“The entrepreneur from Brandenburg was undoubtedly one of the winners of the war. Like other German manufacturers, Quandt worked with exorbitant profit margins during the war years. The state agencies were unable to control the prices of arms manufacturers and army suppliers. Basically, they weren't even willing to. The military wanted to win a war with the help of industry, they were not interested in saving tax evaders. After all, the plan was to charge the defeated enemies the bill.”
“"Everything dances to the golden calf," lamented the crown prince of Bavaria, for example. "Like a devouring poison, Mammonism had spread from Berlin, causing a terrible flattening of all thought, People only talked about business and pleasure (at least in Berlin). Exploiting the war need in the most ruthless manner, the Berlin businessmen have managed to bring the entire economic life under their control and power through the creation of all the various central offices established in Berlin."”
“The heavy and machine industry in particular profited from the cannibalistic material battles in the West to an extent previously unknown. The shareholders of these companies received enormous dividends. Daimler, at that time a poorly managed diesel engine factory in Mannheim, paid out a profit share of 24 percent to the shareholders in 1916.”
“In August 1918, as the Battle of Amiens was lost, it also became clear to the textile manufacturer Quandt that the war was lost. The military supplier of the imperial army followed the events with great attention and had to watch as the old world collapsed at the end of the war. On October 5, 1918, he sat as a spectator in the Reichstag and listened as the new, still appointed by the emperor, Chancellor Max von Baden read out a ceasefire offer. "An image of misery is my entire memory," he noted later.”
“Few people in Germany benefited from the First World War to the extent that the uniform manufacturer Günther Quandt did. Even before the war, Emil Quandt, in order to save taxes, had transferred a large part of his wealth to his children. As army suppliers, the Quandt sons were able to multiply their inheritance through the war. At the end of the war, the wealthy provincial manufacturer had therefore become a rich man - and not only that. Quandt now had important connections in other areas of industry and in the civil service, which he wanted and could use to increase his wealth and his sphere of influence.”
“Although Emil Quandt had always advised his sons to be modest: "Stick with businesses that one man can oversee, technically, commercially, and financially. You will be happiest that way!" But the father was a conservative man, his son on the other hand was a reformer and conqueror.”
“. He began a new career in a different field of economics - the potash industry. Things were much more turbulent in this industry than in the textile industry, where economic fluctuations have always been very gentle. Since Justus von Liebig had proven that salts containing the element potassium could be used as fertilizers, potash mining in Germany had become a playground for pioneers and speculators.”
“"Quandt learnt early on to remain silent as a general staff member of the economic warfare and as a complicit in official secrets,"”
“Quandt and Rosterg had little in common. One was a factory owner's son who had received plenty of startup help from his father, the other was the child of a twelve-member miner's family who had worked his way up from drillmaster to general director. However, both were bound by the urge to build empires.”
“Rosterg wanted to make Wintershall the dominant conglomerate of the German potash industry, for which he needed a partner.”
“"The collaboration had to be of benefit to both. Quandt brought entrepreneurial initiative, proven organizational skills, the connection to the important men of the political and economic power hierarchy, knowledge of the sprawling economic policy legislation and an unerring eye for the opportunities and limitations of reality”
“Pritzkoleit analyzed the relationship. "Rosterg opened up a larger and more profitable field of activity for him than the textile industry could have offered a man of Quandt's qualities until the beginning of the synthetic fiber era."”
“Wintershall had lost two plants in Alsace. In return, the company was generously compensated by the Reich. This war compensation formed the war chest for planned acquisitions. Rosterg and Quandt used the funds to incorporate numerous smaller competitors into the budding group. Already in 1920, Wintershall operated no fewer than 27 potash works with 28 shafts - with Quandt's help, Rosterg had created a massive conglomerate in a short time, for which he now also set up a head office in Kassel.”
“Rosterg was a man who enjoyed the feeling of power, but who did not hanker after basking in the glory of this power. This role model reinforced Günther Quandt's own preference for acting behind the scenes. That such a discreet approach was of inestimable advantage in business, Quandt found plenty of confirmation in the takeover battles in the potash industry. If you pursued your plans quietly and secretly, you could surprise the competitors and deny them the opportunity to thwart your own project at the last moment.”
“the concentration process in the potash industry was also a predatory raid by a few hungry entrepreneurs, not always fought with clean means. Pritzkoleit described the way Wintershall became the leading potash company as "a chronicle of stock market business, manipulations with majorities and blocking minorities, of overruns, of breaking one's word, and of the skill to create accomplished facts, and not least of accepting them".”
