WITTGENSTEIN, Karl

At the end of the 19th century W. was undoubtedly considered one of the most influential entrepreneurs in the field of mining and steel industry in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. At the height of his career, he managed the most important mines, as well as iron and steel resources in the Czech Republic and Austria, and thus created a monopoly. He was born as the eleventh child in a family of Saxon wool merchant, who moved to Vösendorf, Vienna in 1851. After having completed secondary school, he at the age of eighteen left the family and arrived to America in 1865 with a false passport. There he spent two years doing various jobs. The subsequent travels across America (in 1889) had a major impact on his view of the world. After his return he attended lectures at the Vienna Polytechnic Institute, worked in a machine factory owned by the State railways, and then served as a draftsman until Paul Kupelwieser in 1872 invited him in his steel mill in Teplice. When Kupelwieser left Teplice in 1877 and moved to Vitkovice, W. succeeded him as Director General. His great skill in the business and his competitiveness were proven in 1880 when he, despite the strong competition of the Czech iron-mining company, managed to obtain a license for Czech Republic from the Dortmud-Hörder metallurgist union for the Thomas process for pig iron extraction by eliminating phosphorus. His next step was towards the Czech iron-mining company. With the help of friends he benefited from its impairment and in 1884 bought its shares and became its principal shareholder.
The same year the Rudolf metallurgical plant as the greatest rolling thin sheet facility in the empire was founded in Teplice.
Later he dealt with the takeover of Prague Iron Company (PIC). In 1885/86 he transferred Iron Company to Prague, provided that the company buys his shares of a steel mill in Teplice and pays for it with the company’s shares. After the merging, he became the central director of Prague Iron Company. Among his far-reaching actions connected with this acquisition was also the creation of cartels: Schienenkartell in 1878 and Stabeisenkartell in 1884. Prague Iron Company also owned a plant in Kladen, west of Prague, where W. in 1890 set a new steel mill. This was followed by the acquisition of a majority share in the company "St. Egydyer Eisen- und Stahl-Industrie-Gesellschaft", achieved by him in 1890. This plant in the Lower Austria in St. Aegydin Furthof manufactured wire ropes and files. His energetic rationalization and centralization of production in these two plants in 1891 was accompanied by a four-week strike. For the same reason, i.e. due to functional integration and particularly due to further cast steel processing in Poldihütte plant, the Prague Iron Company under W.’s leadership took over a number of knives and scythes manufacturing factories, which were in crisis.
The so-called W.’s concentration after 1891 brought together a large part of Upper Austrian mills for the manufacture of scythes in the newly created scythes factory, which in 1889 replaced the liquidated Judenburg ironworks. In Judenburg W.'s son appeared, who together with Sebatian Danner founfed "Steirische Gussstahlwerke" in 1906.
After W. dominated the Czech steel industry and gained influence in the processing industry, his interest was awakened at the end of the 19th century by his sole competitor - the company "Oesterreichische-Alpine Montangesellschaft" (OAMG), managing the markets of the Alpine countries of Styria and Carinthia from its foundation in 1881 on. As a member of the board of the Credit-Anstalt company he achieved that it took over the majority of OAMG shares in 1897. However, the Credit-Anstalt after two years only withdrew from the speculative transaction in which W. operated only in the background and never as an actual shareholder. Credit-Anstalt was as W.’s instrument replaced with banks under his influence - the Czech Republic Bank and Niederösterreichische Escompte Bank, Prague Iron Company and eleven of his best friends who acted as straw men, among them Max Feilchenfeld, Isidor Weinberger, Karl von Wessely, Karl and Otto Wolfrum, Karl and Paul Kupelwieser and Wilhelm Kestranek. In OAMG Guido Hell von Heldenwerth took the post of Director General, and Anton von Kerpely the post of deputy. At the turn of the century the two men led the technical and organizational transformation of OAMG company, which concentrated its production in Donawitz, while abandoning its plants in Carinthia.
After returning from a three-month journey and after a critical reaction to the planned payment of the Prague Iron Company reserves, W. abandoned all public functions and retired to private life, which he spent partly in Vienna, partly in his rural villa in the Lower Austrian village of Hochreith in the Rohr am Gebirge municipality. In 1874 he married Leopoldina, born. Kalmus (* 1850), with whom he had eight children. Three of them committed a suicide. Ludwig, the youngest son (1889-1951), became a world famous philosopher.