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Mature work: In
what will
probably be his last year as Linde Chairman,
Group architect
Wolfgang Reitzle is
looking intensely into the future
Photo: Monika Höfler
The talks are - as the saying goes - at an advanced stage.
Major Linde shareholders are unanimously behind the project.
The chairman of the supervisory board glows with enthusiasm.
The company boss has already pushed a first deal to the point where it is ready to be signed.
A new large German conglomerate seems within reach.
It turns out differently.
Company designer Wolfgang Reitzle (71) called off the project at the last minute.
A decision that, in retrospect, cannot be valued highly enough.
Had it turned out differently in 2003, Reitzle, who had just started as head of Linde AG at the time, might have led the company straight to the company cemetery.
Central comrades-in-arms of the planned united German engineering colossus are mere zombies today.
Either, as in the case of MAN, you have completely given up the spirit as a corporate unit and only exist as one of the many brands of the VW Group.
Or, as in the case of Heidelberger Druckmaschinen, they have been hanging between life and death for years.
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