Linde: History of a Technology Corporation, 1879-2004 (review)

Hans-Liudger Dienel's history of the German conglomerate called the Linde Group is not an ordinary corporate history, because Linde has not been an ordinary corporation. For most of its existence, Dienel argues, Linde has been controlled by engineers rather than businessmen. Starting with its founding by university professor Carl von Linde in 1877 as a refrigeration-design consulting firm, Dienel explains how Linde entered industries ranging from gas extraction to tractor production. Dienel's first book, published only in German, included Linde in the context of a comparison between the German and American refrigeration industries. Because this new work was completed with the blessing of the firm to mark its 125th anniversary, Dienel had access to its archives. However, this is anything but an uncritical examination.

The longest and most interesting chapter is the first, which is devoted to the technology of refrigeration. Carl von Linde is generally known not only for his invention of ammonia-compression refrigeration, but also for his ability to bridge the worlds of academia and business. Dienel downplays this, however, citing Linde's flexibility as an inventor and his company's close relationship with its customers as the main reasons for its success. Linde did not build its own refrigeration equipment until the 1920s. In its early years, the company licensed ammonia-compression refrigeration technology to manufacturers in Germany and around the world, and used its profits from this arrangement to grow quickly without investing too much capital in any one place.

Despite the influence of Linde's technological innovations on refrigeration industries around the world, ammonia-compression technology was inefficient compared to other technologies available by the turn of the twentieth century. Therefore, Dienel explains why the Linde firm began to enter other lines of endeavor as early as the 1890s. The first was gas liquefaction, the business with which it is now most closely identified as a result of experiments with carbon-dioxide refrigeration. Liquid oxygen was important because of its applicability to flame cutting and welding as well as in the making of margarine. Despite the firm's success in dominating markets for many extracted gases, Dienel suggests that Linde's immediate successors were convinced, as was Linde himself, "that it was more important for the company to be a leader in technology than a market leader" (p. 85).

Linde's technological breakthroughs were of great use to the Nazis. The company provided vital parts for the V-2 rocket, and its gas-separation equipment had many military applications. Although Carl von Linde's son Richard arranged for Jewish employees to take jobs with the company's competitors overseas during the 1930s in order to ensure their safety, the company used forced labor to continue operations during World War II. Dienel explains how German politics intersected with the company at other times, but nowhere is this story as engaging as during the Nazi period.

For those interested in the history of technology, the book loses its cohesive structure when covering the period after World War II, as the company became extremely diversified. What really interests Dienel about Linde is its business practices rather than its technological breakthroughs. By the time his narrative reaches the latter part of the twentieth century, Dienel is mainly concerned with corporate structure. It is fitting, therefore, that he ends his book with Linde's sale of its refrigeration unit to the Carrier Corporation, an American firm, marking a complete break with the source of its founder's fame.

The first part of Dienel's book will undoubtedly be of great value to historians of refrigeration technology, and it may also serve as a model approach for those doing corporate histories of technologically oriented firms.