German industrialist with a spectacular career at an early age who became a convicted Nazi war criminal. After World War II, he reconstituted his businesses and recouped 75% of his losses, becoming the richest person in West Germany in the 1950s, and one of the richest people in the world at the time of his death in 1972.
He initially built a fortune during World War I and became extremely wealthy during the Weimar Republic, establishing a major industrial conglomerate in the coal and steel industries.
Flick and his most senior company director, Otto Steinbrinck, were charged at Nuremberg for their membership in the “Circle of Friends of Himmler.” The circle was a group of influential German industrialists and bankers—founded in 1932 by Wilhelm Keppler and taken over by Himmler in 1935—for the purpose of giving financial support to the Nazis. Its members “donated” annually about 1 million Reichsmark to a “Special Account S” in favor of Heinrich Himmler.
Despite being found guilty in the Nuremberg Flick Trial, he was awarded numerous honours, including the Grand Cross with Star and Sash of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1963 and the Bavarian Order of Merit, and was an honorary senator of the Technical University of Berlin. At the time of his death, his industrial conglomerate encompassed 330 companies and around 300,000 employees.
Flick died on 20 July 1972 at age 89 in Konstanz, Germany. His heirs were his son Friedrich Karl Flick and his grandson Friedrich Christian Flick, who established the modern art gallery Friedrich Christian Flick Collection.
Link to Wikipedia biography