Henri Deterding
Sir Henri Wilhelm August Deterding KBE (* April 19, 1866 in Amsterdam, † February 4, 1939 in St. Moritz ) was a Dutch industrialist, the founder and main shareholder of the Shell Group and in his time one of the richest men in the world.
Life
Growing up and first jobs
August Wilhelm Heinrich Deterding came from a Dutch citizen family, who made a fortune in the 17th century by selling the old family secret for growing onions for blue tulips on a prince of the House of Orange.
The assets held, however, not long in the family. Henry's father was captain of a Dutch merchant ship. After his death, his modest legacy was just enough to let the older sons learn a befitting their profession. Henry Deterding itself was plugged with sixteen years as an apprentice in a banking house in Amsterdam. His performances were poor. According to the forming accountant his calculations always reported back to error because Deterding was not in the matter of the mind. Since he had poor prospects of finding a job in Europe for this reason, he applied for jobs abroad.
For the branch of the Dutch trading company in Medan in the Dutch Indies, two young officers were looking for. He got one of the two places, but here his performance was deficient. The other place was a gentleman Waahat, the president of the largest Dutch Colonial Bank, the Dutch trading company was later.
In 1922 he married Lydia Pavlovna, daughter of a Russian general, of which he was in 1936 divorced.
Add to Medan Deterding August Kessler met. Kessler had a mineral promotional company with the name " Koninklijke Maatschappij tot Exploatatie van Petroleum Bronnen in Neederländisch indie ". He offered Deterding a job as a sales director at, Deterding said yes and asked for dismissal at the Dutch trading company. Kessler was when he met the now 30-year old Deterding, no longer in good health, he died not long after the setting Deterding.
As his son August Jr. was not yet of age, Kessler transferred to the responsibility of his son the management of the business to Deterding. At that time it was on Broadway, 26, became aware of Deterding business the central office of the Standard Oil Company, the largest of its time oil company in the world and it was causing it to buy up. As Deterding came to Holland to submit to its shareholders report on the state of things, were almost all very inclined to sell. Deterding was not, and he managed to avoid the sale because of the will Keßlers. However, it was foreseeable that the Standard Oil Co.. would not be so easily defeated. In addition, they had missed the boat in the battle for the big oil in London. Due to this fact Deterding company could not be swallowed by another company here. On the other hand, it could be assured of the support of the British government.
The Shell
He learned Marcus Samuel (later 1st Viscount Bearsted ), who had founded The Shell Transport and Trading Company and the goodwill of the Rothschilds as an international banking house, which strongly engaged in the Russian Erdölgeschaft, enjoyed. With it, Deterding did together. China had been a domain Rockefeller for 20 years. Deterding was hereby obtain a logistical superiority in the region and undercut the prices of the Standard Oil because of this fact. After a long price war, Shell and Standard Oil eventually split in 1911 the Chinese market.
Deterding now bought everything at oil wells on American soil, what he could get. Since the Standard Oil Company until then to acquire the resources put no value, there was much to acquire.
The Shell Co.. promoted after that up to forty percent of its oil from the floor of the United States. It was policy Deterding to conserve resources on other continents and to empty out the of the United States of America.
Deterding and the Nazis
Deterding biographer Glyn Roberts writes in "The most powerful man in the world" that Deterding was impressed in 1921 by Adolf Hitler and have him already donated in those early days by the agent Georg Bell four million guilders. This donation was in 1923 after the failed coup attempt but Hitler seized.
He financially supported the German Free Corps, who fought in the East, and armed uprisings in the Soviet Union. Early on, he financed Alfred Rosenberg, who visited him in 1931 and in May 1933 at his country home in Buck Horst Park in Ascot.
In 1922 he founded the International group of oil companies in Russia. In 1922 he hired the head of the British military intelligence service George MacDonogh as policy advisers. His liaison with the SA was the international spy George Bell.
1926 and 1927 were held in London under the auspices of Deterding conferences, at which the plans of the industrialist Arnold Rechenberg and General Max Hoffmann, to lead an anti- Soviet campaign were discussed. In 1937, he donated 10 million Dutch guilders to Hitler.
In addition, it initially included 60 percent of the Caucasian oil fields, of which he was dispossessed in the wake of the October Revolution of 1917. With immense sums he unleashed a campaign against buying the " stolen oil".
1936 acquired the manor Deterding Dobbin- Linstow in Krakow am See in Mecklenburg. His personal friend, the director of the Deutsche Bank Emil Georg von Stauss, had his estate in the neighborhood.
Deterding should have (according to Roberts) Hitler's NSDAP donated up to 55 million pounds, with the thought that this would help to better position on the German oil market him. However, documents (as Sutton ) untraceable.
1937 donated Deterding the German Winter Relief 40 million Reichsmarks. Joseph Goebbels noted this on January 12, 1937 in his diary:
" Hilgenfeld reported W.H.W. Deterding has donated 40 million. "
After his death on February 4, 1939 in St. Moritz, the funeral took place before the assembled Nazi prominence in Mecklenburg Dobbin on February 10, 1939. Hitler sent a ceremonial wreath, the grave speech was Emil Georg von Stauss, in which he praised him " as one of the first champions of the world against Bolshevism." Deterding was buried in the woods near the castle demolished in 1947. On the site today is a large boulder with the inscription Henri Deterding .. In 1968 at the request of his family, the reburial after Liechtenstein.