Friedrich Flick (10 July 1883 – 20 July 1972) was a German industrialist and convicted Nazi war criminal. After the Second World War, he reconstituted his businesses, becoming the richest person in West Germany, and one of the richest people in the world, at the time of his death in 1972. Early life Born in Ernsdorf (today, Kreuztal) in the Prussian Province of Westphalia, Flick began his career as a clerk in the iron industry. A shrewd businessman, he was on the Board of Directors of an iron foundry by 1915 at age 32, becoming General Director four years later. He amassed a fortune during World War I and became extremely wealthy under the Weimar Republic, establishing major industrial concerns in the coal and steel industries. He profited from speculation, and stock deals. A conservative, he donated to many different mainstream political parties under the Weimar regime, and contributed greatly to the election campaign of conservative President Paul von Hindenburg. In 1932, he contributed 50,000 Reichsmarks (RM) to the up and coming Nazi Party. Nazi Party involvement After the Nazi seizure of power in 1933, Flick increased his financial support to them, and it is estimated that he contributed over 7.65 million RM by the fall of the regime in 1945. He became a member of the Keppler Circle, later called the Circle of Friends of the Reichsführer-SS, a group of German industrialists whose aim was to strengthen the ties between the Nazi Party and business and industry. He was also made a member of the Academy for German Law, an organization financed by business contributions. During the Nazi regime, Flick's businesses profited greatly from the process of Aryanization under which Jews were expropriated by being forced to sell their businesses, sometimes at a fraction of their market worth. Flick formally joined the Nazi Party on 1 May 1937, and in 1938 he was named a Military Economic Leader (Wehrwirtschaftsführer). Flick's enterprises were instrumental in Nazi Germany's rearmament efforts. After the launching of the Second World War, Flick's companies employed an estimated 48,000 forced laborers in his coal mines, steel plants and munitions works. It is estimated that some 80 percent of these workers may have perished. War crimes trial After the end of the war, Flick was arrested on 13 June 1945 and put on trial for war crimes on 19 April 1947. The Flick trial was one of