Emil Moritz Rathenau was a German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 entrepreneur and industrialist, a leading figure in the early European electrical

Electricity

Electricity is a general term encompassing a variety of phenomena resulting from the presence and flow of electric charge. These include many easily recognizable phenomena, such as lightning, static electricity, and the flow of electrical current in an electrical wire...

 industry.

Biography

Rathenau was born in Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

, into a wealthy Jewish merchant family based in that city. He was the son of Moritz Rathenau.

In 1865, Rathenau was a partner in a factory, during which time (while traveling abroad) he recognized the possibilities of the then newly emerging electrical technology. In 1881, with the help of a bank group, he acquired the rights to manufacture products based on the patents of Thomas Alva Edison. In 1883 he formed the "German Edison Society for Applied Electricity" (Deutsche Edison-Gesellschaft für angewandte Elektricität), which in 1887 formed into Allgemeine Elektricitäts-Gesellschaft (or AEG

AEG

Allgemeine Elektricitäts-Gesellschaft was a German producer of electrical equipment founded in 1883 by Emil Rathenau....

).

In 1903, Rathenau was appointed general manager of AEG. Together with his competitor and business partner Werner von Siemens, they formed the Telefunken Gesellschaft für drahtlose Telegraphie mbH. Rathenau held numerous positions on the supervisory board of Berliner Handels-Gesellschaft und der Elektrizitäts AG vorm. W. Lahmeyer & Co.

Rathenau was married in 1866 to Mathilde Nachmann, daughter of a Frankfurt

Frankfurt

Frankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010...

 banker. One of his sons was the famous Walther Rathenau

Walther Rathenau

Walther Rathenau was a German Jewish industrialist, politician, writer, and statesman who served as Foreign Minister of Germany during the Weimar Republic...

, a Weimar

Weimar

Weimar is a city in Germany famous for its cultural heritage. It is located in the federal state of Thuringia , north of the Thüringer Wald, east of Erfurt, and southwest of Halle and Leipzig. Its current population is approximately 65,000. The oldest record of the city dates from the year 899...

-era industrialist, politician, and progressive economist. Walther was assassinated in June 1922 by gangsters of the extreme right-wing. He had another son named Erich Rathenau and a daughter Edith

Edith Andreae

Edith Andreae, born Rathenau was a German salonière. She was literary executor and editor of the works of her brother Walther Rathenau....

.