[Rezension zu:] Werner Plumpe, Carl Duisberg. 1861–1935. Anatomie eines Industriellen, München (C. H. Beck) 2016, 992 S., 39 Abb. (Historische Bibliothek der Gerda Henkel Stiftung), ISBN 978-3-406-69637-4, EUR 39,95

Wilhelmine Germany enjoyed something of an economic miracle that enabled men from modest backgrounds to become wealthy and influential. Among these was Carl Duisberg, who rose as the son of a modest ribbon weaver in Barmen to head the Bayer chemical works and later the massive German chemical trust I. G. Farben. Like others of his generation, Duisberg was the beneficiary of an excellent scientific education and the opportunities opened up by a rapidly expanding economy. In this massive and definitive biography of the man, Werner Plumpe explores Duisberg’s life as an industrial entrepreneur to uncover the role of the individual manager in the creative-destructive dynamics of capitalism, drawing on his own extensive knowledge of German entrepreneurship and industrial relations in the Wilhelmine and Weimar eras. ..