Background
Emil Kirdorf was born in Mettmann on 8 April 1847.
Emil Kirdorf was born in Mettmann on 8 April 1847.
He began his career as an industrialist in the 1870s when he co-founded the Gelsenkircher Mine Works. Later he also participated in the creation of the Rhine-Westphalian Coal Syndicate - a bituminous coal cartel in which he played an active role right up to April 1925 - and another powerful cartel, the United Steel Works.
An extreme authoritarian and right-wing nationalist, Kirdorf was much feared as a ruthless industrial employer and hater of the trade unions. He organized and controlled the Ruhi treasury fund established by the big Rhineland industrialists to protect their mining interests.
In 1927 the octogenarian survivor of the early phase of German monopoly capitalism joined the NSDAP. He resigned a year later (a fact long concealed by the Nazis), distrustful of the socio-economic radicalism of the Nazi left wing, but maintained cordial personal relations with Hitler. It was Kirdorf who persuaded Hitler to write a secretly printed pamphlet designed to reassure big business circles that the ‘socialism' of the NSDAP need not be taken seriously and would not endanger their interests. Kirdorf was attracted by the extreme nationalism and anti-Marxism of Hitler, but in the years between 1929 and 1933 he supported the German National People’s Party more than the NSDAP. Having retired from active business by this time and having no access to corporate or associational funds, there is no hard evidence that he was a heavy financial contributor to the Nazi Party, as has frequently been asserted. It is nonetheless true that he was a fellow-traveller, sympathetic to nationalist aims and impressed by Hitler’s charismatic power over the masses. In 1934 he rejoined the Nazi Party and was eagerly appropriated by the regime as a respectable patron and supporter from the business world.
Kirdorf died in Muhlheim an der Ruhr on 13 July 1938.