The Supervisory Board of the
"Gesellschaft für Linde’s Eismaschinen"
in 1932, with Carl von Linde (center) at
the age of 90. |
Before the First World War, Carl von Linde had already begun to transfer responsibility in stages for project planning, production and management of Department B to his sons Friedrich and Richard and to his son-in-law Rudolf Wucherer when he started to withdraw from operations in 1910 and handed over the reins in Höllriegelskreuth to Friedrich Linde. |
While Friedrich Linde increasingly concentrated on the organization of the company and took over from Friedrich Schipper as chairman of the Executive Board in 1924, Wucherer primarily took care of building and expanding Linde’s own oxygen and acetylene plants. Between 1914 and 1929 he built 13 new oxygen factories with 25 new plants. This allowed the quadrupling of oxygen production and the tripling of acetylene output between 1914 and 1929. At the same time he established regional monopolies in the cylinder business.
Rudolf Wucherer can rightly be called the founder of the Linde Gas Business Segment. He was appointed to Linde’s Executive Board in 1928 and became chairman in 1952.
Richard Linde organized the installation and start-up of the many new plants during the war as head engineer. In the 1920s he began increasingly to make a name for himself as the leading technical mind in the Munich business segment.