For the first time since it was established 175 years ago, in the middle of the 1848/49 revolution, the Freudenberg family enterprise from the southern German town of Weinheim has had a completely source-based company history compiled.

The result is a book that is not just for the Freudenberg family and all Freudenberg’s employees, but also for history lovers who would like to read a »business novel« from real life.

If a company prospers through all upheavals – starting with the foundation of the German Empire, through World War I, the hyperinflation of the 1920s, the Great Depression, the Nazi dictatorship, World War II, the foundation of the Federal Republic of Germany, right up to a globalized world with a pandemic and digitalization – and if it defies all menaces, if it remains inventive and socially committed throughout, then that is a really good story.

In this book, Carsten Knop describes not just the protagonists, but also how the company reinvents itself time and again and remains successful up to the present day.