From 1883 August Thyssen buys shares in the not especially flourishing coal mine Gewerkschaft Deutscher Kaiser (founded in 1867 as Gewerkschaft Hamborn) and becomes a director of the mine. Its favorable location on the Rhine with its own docks, a link to the railway network and direct access to coal seem to him to be particular advantages in realizing his business ideas. Over the next few years he gradually buys up all the mine's stock. In 1889 he takes over as chairman of the board. On September 29, 1891 August Thyssen announces that together with his brother Joseph he is in possession of all of Gewerkschaft Deutscher Kaiser's stock. A year earlier, on August 14, 1890, the board had decided to build a steelmaking shop and rolling mill directly next to pit 3. The growth of Gewerkschaft Deutscher Kaiser into an iron and steel mill with its own coal base begins. The first steel is tapped from the open-hearth furnace on December 17, 1891. Both events of the year 1891 are later seen as the birth date of the Thyssen group. Today the main facility of Thyssen Krupp Stahl AG is still producing steel at the same site as over a hundred years ago.
