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Erwin Dircks was a businessman and diplomat based primarily in Germany, and known for his policy of creating holding companies on a national basis too avoid wartime state supervision and ownership during the First and Second World Wars.

Early Life
Dircks was a family friend of Alfred Steffens - a German-American businessman who worked as a general agent for the Glucose Sugar Refining Company, Chicago. As a consequence of this relationship, Dircks joined this company as a bookkeeper and manager of the packaged goods department in 1902, prior to its integration as part of the Corn Products Company (CPC) in 1905. In 1906, he relocated to Antwerp as a representative for the new CPC office, CPC mbH Hamburg, and was subsequently appointed as country manager in 1909.

First World War
Prior to the War the CPC had factories in France, Belgium, Holland, Scandinavia, Italy, Austria, Spain, Portugal and Turkey - upon the outbreak of hostilities, Dircks was able to ensure the continuation of operations in these countries despite increasing shipping shortages and a blockade on imports to America. He achieved this by turning the Scandinavian and Italian offices into national companies - though they remained under the ownership by the CPC - thereby establishing their neutrality. Once the United States entered the war, CPC MbH Hamburg, as an American-owned company, would have come under state supervision, but Dircks had preempted this by creating a German company, Deutsche Maizen Gesellschaft MbH (DMG), to act as a holding name for CPC's German assets, holding its shares in his own name until 1919. He also acted as the Commerical Attache to the German Embassy in Stockholm from 1917-1918.

Interwar Period
Dircks returned to Hamburg in 1919, and set about establishing DMG offices in Cologne - as having a base in the US-occupied Rhineland would facilitate doing business with the United States - as well as buying several plants throughout Germany. In this period, Dircks became Managing Director of CPC/DMG for Germany and Europe, and was elected to the board of C.H. Knorr AG in 1923, acquiring shares amounting to 10% of capital in that company in 1926. This was an indication of the forthcoming departure from the company's longstanding policy of focusing on corn refinery rather than on the consumer goods.

Also in 1926, the German Government intruded a Maize Monopoly, placing high tariffs on corn imports - to protect CPC/DMG's interests under these circumstances, Dircks decided to diversify the company's portfolio to include potato as well as corn starch. Towards this end he purchased capital in, and then manufacturing facilities from, W.A. Scholten AG, Germany's largest potato starch producer.

Second World War and Later Years
During the Second World War, he formed Gesellschaft fur Industriebeteiligungen mbH (Gestufen) as a wartime holding company - again to protects CPC trademarks and shares from coming under the ownership of the German government. During the War he also became General Director of C.H.Knorr GmbH.

He retired from CPC GmbH Hamburg in 1950, and died at the age of 90 in March 1971.