Like his father he is very dark. His face is drawn, almost haggard. Well it might be; for he has been roughly handled of late. He was born in the days before the war—more than 30 years ago— when his father was no one in particular. He lived to see his father become the most powerful figure in Germany. He lived to see his father die less than a year and a half ago. (TIME Apr. 21, 1924). Today Dr. Edmund Hugo Stinnes, eldest son of Hugo, looks out from under his father's black brows, seeing the future grim and desolate, and his face blanches.
It is a grim thing anyhow for a son to live in the shadow of his father's greatness. Only the very great shine through the umbra— Alexander, son of Philip; Alexander, fils de Dumas pere; William, son of the elder Pitt. But what was the waning fortune of the sons of Cromwell, Napolean, Caesar?
So the prospect for Edmund, son of Hugo, was not bright. First after his father's death he quarreled with his brother Hugo Hermann. As his share of his father's estate, he was given a controlling interest of the Nordstern Insurance Co. and of the Aga Automobile works. Recently he sold the former. Last week he got into serious difficulties with the latter. Short of cash, he could not pay his men's wages. He accused the banking interests of boycotting him. He offered $500,000 worth of stock to his employes, bargained with U.S. financiers for the sale of the Aga works, appealed to the state to save him and German industry from avaricious bankers.
Yet he hopefully remarked: "The banks can't break me, no matter what they do to the Aga. But my family's position is frightful. They may be paupers when the banks are through with them."
His reference to his family is to the liquidation of a good part of the Stinnes estate by its bank creditors. Hugo Stinnes had borrowed continuously while the mark was declining—with resulting magnification of his profits. But his successors had allowed themselves to get over-extended when deflation was begun.
The effect of this on the Stinnes fortune was exemplified last week. The Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung was sold by the bank syndicate to whom the Stinnes family (headed by the younger son, Hugo Hermann) had given full power of attorney. The sales price was only 3,000,000 marks—about one third of the material valuation of the property, exclusive of good will. Incidentally it was rumored that the purchasers of the paper, Walter Salinger and Dr. August Weber, had secured it for the Government which intended to utilize it as an administration organ.
Naturally the faces of the Stinnes are haggard.