born July 10, 1883, Ernsdorf, near Bonn, Ger.
died July 20, 1972, near Lake Constance, Switzerland
German industrialist.
Before World War II he built an industrial empire that included iron-ore and coal mines, steel mills, trucks, airplanes, and munitions. He became Adolf Hitler 's biggest industrial supplier, and at the Nürnberg trials he was convicted of using slave labour in his mines and plants. Though much of his empire was confiscated, he later amassed another fortune in coal and steel, and at the time of his death was probably West Germany's wealthiest man.