ITALY: The powerful family behind the Fiat Group
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Agnelli at a wedding, followed by Italy’s rich and powerful.
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In 2004, John Elkann married Princess Lavinia Borromeo of Milan.
Elkann is considered the successor of his grandfather, Giovanni Agnelli.
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The celebrity guest list shows how deeply the Agnelli clan’s roots lie in the country’s politics and economy.
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John Elkann would like to give the name Agnelli new power.
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Actually, Edoardo should have taken over the legacy of the family.
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But the son of Giovanni Agnelli lacks vitality. The young man is suffering from severe depression, and a heroin addiction he can never get to grips with. The father figure has been overbearing. Giovanni Agnelli was always very distant with his two children.
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In November 2000, Edoardo plunged off a bridge. His death shook the family to the core and the whole of Italy was in mourning.
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Vito Avantario has documented the ups and downs of the Agnelli family in his book.. We met the German-Italian in the car museum in Hamburg.
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The real patriarch of the Agnelli family was Gianni. In 1921, he was born into a large family of industrialists. His grandfather had founded the Italian automotive industry at the turn of the century, and had died in a plane crash.
Giovanni enjoyed a typical upper-class education: rigorous and luxurious.
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3`10 OT Gianni Agnelli 1921-2003
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Gianni was a citizen of the world and enjoyed life.
He even took his yacht out during a storm warning. I love the wind, he said, because the wind cannot be bought.
He lead a jetset life.
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Dozens of prominent women succumbed to his charm. The Italians voted him the man most attractive to women.
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4`10 OT Vito Avantario, Buchautor
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Fiat was founded by Agnelli (Gianni’s grandfather?) in 1899. Ten years later, the company had 1,500 workers and produced a few hundred cars a year.
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World War I transformed the car dealership with an arms company. When Italy went to war, the domestic arms industry was running at full speed. Fiat had a huge business. The number of employees increased by ten times.
Agnelli copied from Ford’s assembly line production.
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5`15 OT Vito
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Fiat is good, Italy is well, was the motto in the 50s and 60s.
FIAT is a symbol of progressive, industrial Italy. It also maintains a social consciousness: the Agnelli family organize pilgrimages to Lourdes and finance kindergartens for their employees.
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Like other big capitalists, the Agnelli clan gained enemies from the left.
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There was apparently a plan to abduct Rotbrigadisten Giovanni. Agnelli moved house, and he always carried a cyanide capsule with him to swallow in case of emergency, should he be the victim of a kidnapping.
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At the end of the nineties, the group slips into a severe crisis. General Motors secured 20% of the shares of Fiat.
Fiat was on a respirator, as the newspapers of the time reported. Gianni Agnelli was critically ill.
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Workers blocked the Italian cities. Their jobs were threatened because Fiat was not selling cars anymore.
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In January 2003, Gianni Agnelli died.
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After a long rollercoaster ride Fiat now controls the home stretch once more.
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The Italian carmaker, repeatedly declared dead, is about to rise to the status of one of the largest auto companies in the world.
If successful, the plan would also restore the name Agnelli to its former glory.
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Inserts:
Reporter: Alexander Steinbach
Camera: Thomas Reinecke
Editing: Astrid Conrad
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