In the 1860s August Thyssen (pronounced tissen) started his steel business in a cow house outside Mulheim, in the Ruhr Valley, making hoop-iron at first. In 50 years he came to own coal fields in the Ruhr and iron-ore concessions in Lorraine and Northern France, and to employ 25,000 workers. When he died in 1926 at 84 he left an estate worth more than $100,000,000.
Miserly, always shabbily dressed, old August Thyssen used to drink beer and eat wurst with his workers. Consistently he kept away from politicians and society, and when it was...