Introduction

Among the significant businessmen that the Siemens family has produced with uncommon regularity, Carl Friedrich von Siemens holds a special position. His biography is informative, if only because he headed the Siemens group of companies longer than anyone else in the 20th century – from 1919 to 1941. It becomes even more intriguing if we consider the era during which he served: the worst inflation in German history, the most severe global economic crisis, the creation and destruction of Germany’s first democracy, the National Socialist dictatorship, and Hitler’s war of aggression. Company history generally tends to emphasize pioneers and founding figures. But in many ways, the actions of descendants in times of such challenges and disruptions are more revealing.

As the youngest son of company founder Werner von Siemens, Carl Friedrich became “Head of the House of Siemens” – a title he himself introduced – after World War I. At the time, the Siemens companies had suffered the first really serious setback in their history. The devastation left by the war, the shortage economy of the post-war era, and the currency’s steady decrease in value made it imperative to find new strategies. At the same time, Carl Friedrich found himself in a new family environment. Following the deaths of his much older half-brothers Arnold and Wilhelm in 1918 and 1919, responsibility for the companies and for the family’s welfare fell for the first time on the shoulders of a single man. It was now entirely up to him to reconcile the family’s influence with the rapidly rising capital needs of their original company, Siemens & Halske. Meanwhile, Carl Friedrich was firmly determined to champion a liberal collective movement that would help the middle class achieve political clout in the country’s new Weimar Republic. This sets the stage for the three main themes of this biography: business action, preservation of the family firm, and political involvement.

As a businessman, Carl Friedrich von Siemens constantly had to adjust to new challenges. The international business had to be rebuilt and the inflation of that era made it necessary to seek out strong partners. In addition, new ways had to be found to raise the necessary capital. The global economic crisis forced a break with fixed principles. The rapid evolution of communications technology brought new competitors onto the world market. And finally, the armaments economy of the Third Reich led to a seemingly unstoppable shift of business from civilian to military orders. Carl Friedrich’s era was a kind of laboratory for entrepreneurial action, and for him such activity was not limited to the Siemens companies. After being installed as President of Germany’s national railway in 1924, he headed two of the five largest companies in the country, with a total of some 800,000 employees.

Yet Carl Friedrich had grown up during the time of the Wilhelmine Empire, amid a different, transnationally structured network of his family’s companies. In those days, Siemens was still a European corporate group, the form established by the brothers of the founding generation. Carl Friedrich had earned his stripes working for six years in the management of the British Siemens companies – a world that was lost as a result of World War I. It was thus all the more important for him to safeguard the surviving assets in Germany and ensure cohesion within the family. Yet a single family member could no longer head both base companies, Siemens & Halske and Siemens-Schuckertwerke, as had been done before. They had grown too big, and their structures were too complex. If he, as head of the family, wanted to remain the head of the businesses, Carl Friedrich would have to delegate responsibility to the companies’ Managing Boards. And those boards would have to be willing to go along with his principles of corporate management.

Carl Friedrich also had a distinct inclination to seek political impact. This must be understood against the backdrop of his expectations for the introduction of democracy in Germany. He organized party donations and accepted election to the Reichstag in 1920, representing the left-liberal German Democratic Party. Three years later, he became President of the Provisional National Economic Council – although this body was supposed to be “apolitical.” Carl Friedrich never wished to immerse himself solely in politics, but he viewed himself as a politically active representative of business in the Weimar Republic. The evolution of his perception of the world of politics, and the associated growing estrangement, are a lesson in how democracies can become endangered.

The disruptions during the era of Carl Friedrich von Siemens create the problem for his biographer that the portrayal must repeatedly start anew. The changes in conditions, issues, and protagonists preclude any continuous flow. Further amplifying the difficulties is Carl Friedrich’s private life, which did not always go smoothly. He divorced twice and had no close friends – just one old friend from his student days with whom he corresponded occasionally.

His business activity, on the other hand, is fully documented. For this, a biography can draw on the holdings in the excellently curated Siemens Archives at the Siemens Historical Institute, one of the oldest and largest business archives in Germany. For a few years now, the Archives have been back at their original site in the Berlin district of Siemensstadt. In addition to Carl Friedrich’s extensive documentary estate, here we can consult and evaluate relevant records left behind by multiple members of the Managing Board – for now, we might mention only Carl Köttgen and Max Haller – and details from the Supervisory Board’s documentation. For Carl Friedrich’s early years, the archived diary of his brother and predecessor as company head, Wilhelm von Siemens, is an extraordinarily fruitful resource.

For reasons that remain elusive, the archived correspondence from within the Siemens family breaks off after Wilhelm’s death in October 1919. All correspondence between Carl Friedrich and his children is believed lost, and it probably no longer exists. The same goes for his correspondence with his sisters. While traveling, he must also have corresponded with his second and third wives, Augusta (“Tutty”) and Margarete, but it appears that none of these letters has survived either. This biography is thus unable to delve more than cursorily into Carl Friedrich’s private life during his career as head of the Siemens companies.

In addition to the holdings of the Siemens Archives, the German Federal Archives in Berlin offer numerous records that furnish a complementary view to the one provided by the company’s documents. These sources reveal Carl Friedrich’s activities as President of the Reichsbahn and as a representative of German industry. In addition, relevant records from the estates of industrialists Hugo Stinnes and Paul Reusch were consulted for this biography.

Given Carl Friedrich’s significance and the quality of his large documentary estate in the Siemens Archives, it seems utterly incomprehensible that historical research has treated him with such neglect. Since his death, there has been only one biography, a hagiographically oriented work by his contemporary Georg Siemens, which drew on preliminary work by Siemens Archivist Friedrich Heintzenberg.1 Since that time our knowledge has been expanded by only two articles from Siemens archivists, along with Günter Schmölders’ commemorative speech, published by the Carl Friedrich von Siemens Foundation for the 100th birthday of the man for whom the organization was named.2 The literature on the history of the Siemens companies during Carl Friedrich’s time offers illuminating comments on his impact.3 All these publications have in common that they were authored by people from within Siemens or authors associated with the company or a Siemens family foundation.4 It may be that there were reservations at Siemens about letting independent historians investigate Carl Friedrich’s biography because he also lived during the National Socialist era.

Yet biographies of industrialists from Carl Friedrich von Siemens’ time have enjoyed lively interest from historians of economics and business for a considerable time now. Where Gerald D. Feldman’s weighty 1998 biography of Stinnes was a lonely phenomenon in its day, it has been succeeded in recent decades by biographies of Paul Silverberg, Paul Reusch and Carl Duisberg.5 In Siemens historiography as well, several biographies written by researchers in the past ten years have opened up a new chapter. But that series was dedicated entirely to the first generation of entrepreneurs, the brothers Carl, Werner, and William.6

Like all archive-based projects in recent years, work on this biography suffered from the restrictions brought about by the Covid pandemic. Contrary to the original plans, the book could not appear for the 150th birthday of Carl Friedrich von Siemens. The fact that the project nevertheless continued is thanks to the understanding of the parties who commissioned it. Special appreciation is owed to the Werner Siemens-Stiftung for its support of this biography. The research for the project and its printing were made possible and backed by the Siemens Historical Institute, to whom I owe a deep debt of gratitude. I would like to thank Christoph Frank for his expert selection of pictures from among the treasures in the Siemens Archives and Dr. Frank Wittendorfer and Dr. Ewald Blocher for their...