. NMT06-T0180
Volume VI · Page 180
| for success, became his retreat, a source of
strength and a place of rest. Flick's appointment to the Vorstand of the "Aktiengesellschaft Charlottenhuette" in Niederschelden on 1 April 1915, was the starting point of his development which led steeply upward. The Charlottenheutte became in the course of the years one of the leading enterprises of the Siegerland. Flick now faced a comprehensive, industrial task. The war requirements urged a consolidation of production, and the expansion of the Ruhr concerns into the Siegerland, too, demanded a union of forces as a basic condition for self-preservation. In the summer of 1916 the Koeln-Muesener-Bergwerks-Aktienverein in Kreuztal (a blast-furnace mill) was amalgamated with the Charlottenhuette. Thus, a considerable expansion of the ore and crude iron sources was attained. In the same year various other ore mines were purchased. The affiliation with the "Eichener Walzwerke" increased the production program still further and assured the Eichener works its own raw material bases. During 1917 and 1918 additional light sheet-metal rolling-mills in Weidenau and Siegen, and the railway-car factory Siegener Eisenbahnbedarf A.G. [Siegener Railway Equipment Co.] were absorbed. After the war this form of amalgamation was further continued in the Siegerland. The desired amalgamation with Geisweider Ironworks, however, was prevented by the intervention of the Ruhr concerns. For the Charlottenhuette, however, negotiations resulted in its being freed from any outside influence. Friedrich Flick became, in the course of these developments, the undisputed leader of the Charlottenhuette. Since that time his career has been identical with the history of this company, which remained until its amalgamation with the Mitteldeutsche Stahlwerke in 1943, the pillar of his enterprises. Flick also aspired to independence in the question of raw materials, but since the failure of the "Plan Geisweid," it could no longer be realized within the Siegerland. The influences emanating from the Ruhr were too strong. Germany, as a whole, was politically and economically a country of unrest and decay. The crisis which prevailed compelled those who wanted to survive to avail themselves in a determined manner of every possibility which offered itself. Friedrich Flick, true to his real nature, responded to the call of the moment. In 1919-20, the Charlottenhuette purchased an interest in the Bismarckhuette, and soon changed this position into a majority ownership and assumed leadership of the Upper Silesian enterprise. The ore mines of the Bismarckhuette in the Siegerland and the Harz were |
