August Thyssen

August Thyssen (1842 to 1926) was a German industrialist, founder and controlling shareholder of Thyssen and Co, the firm that became ThyssenKrupp. Born in Eschweiler in the Kingdom of Prussia, he studied mechanical engineering and economics and joined his father's bank before founding the iron works Thyssen-Foussol and Co in Duisburg in 1867. After it was dissolved in 1870 he set up the rolling mill Walzwerk Thyssen and Co in Mülheim an der Ruhr with his father, which became the base of an industrial empire. He united his separately run companies through a holding company, acquired the coal mining company Gewerkschaft Deutscher Kaiser in 1891, and was a cofounder of RWE together with Hugo Stinnes. The Thyssen conglomerate became the nucleus of Vereinigte Stahlwerke AG. In his last years he lived secluded and management passed to his son Fritz.