August Thyssen

August Thyssen was a German industrialist, born in 1842 and died in 1926, who founded Thyssen and Co and built it into one of the vertically integrated industrial combines that came to dominate the Ruhr valley's coal and steel economy. His company controlled every stage of steelmaking from its own mines and blast furnaces through its own ships, docks and railroads, and it built Germany's first blast furnace of 500 tons capacity and its first large-scale tube works. Alongside Hugo Stinnes, Thyssen co-founded the electricity utility RWE, tying his coal and steel operations directly into the young German electricity industry, and by the time of his death his conglomerate had grown into Vereinigte Stahlwerke AG, then the largest mining and steel cartel in the world. Despite his wealth, Thyssen worked from a plain office in Mulheim under the personal motto if I rest, I rust, and stayed personally involved in the business into old age.