The Germany of 1918 was a broken country, defeated in The Great War and stripped of much of its wealth while the Treaty of Versailles limited manufacturing and research.  The year also marked the birth of the Wiemar Republic under which a new constitution was drawn, attempting to organize Germany as a democratic republic.  Initially, it was a time of great optimism for Germans, but in less than a decade that optimism grew more and more into frustration as the country faltered economically and despair opened the door to more radical thinking.

             This was the Germany that Dr. Fredrick E. Schwab was born into on October 16, 1918, amidst one of the final air raids of World War I.  His mother, Alice Schwab, was forced to go to a basement and seek cover while she was in labor.  His parents saw promise for Germany and for their son’s future.  Living in the financial capital of Frankfurt am Maim, Herr Dr. Alfred William Schwab was a lawyer, held the title of Judge, and he was a businessman, selling industrial and commercial rubber products throughout Germany.  The Schwab family lived comfortably in cosmopolitan Frankfurt, a center of science and technology and also known for its pragmatism and tolerance.  This was important to Jews, who in many other parts of Germany were targets of discrimination. 

            Fred had an older brother, Hank (Hans), who was born in 1914.  Together they attended school in Frankfurt and worked hard.  In fact, Hank went to work in his father’s business, which by the mid-1930s had grown to a substantial size.  Following school Fred became an apprentice at the rubber manufacturing firm of Gummiwerke Odenwald/ Metzler.  It was here that he became technically interested in synthetic polymers and later gained a specific interest in acrylics.  In fact, prior to his leaving Germany, Fred took a job in a dental laboratory working with acrylic polymers.

            Fortunately for Fred, he was a mere step ahead of the Nazi soldiers when his family insisted that he leave Germany and go to New York City where he had an uncle, who had agreed to help him in getting settled in America.  Fred left Germany on June 16, 1937 and joined his uncle in New York.  Little did he know when he left what was about to happen to his family left in Nazi Germany. 

            This period is a particularly sensitive one for Fred.  One of his prized possessions is a gold ring that his father gave him when he left Germany.  He has worn it always and still wears it today.

            Dr. Schwab was just the kind of businessman that Adolph Hitler wanted to eradicate from Germany and in November 1938 Dr. Schwab’s office building was taken over by Nazi soldiers who then took the entire stock of products in the warehouse and threw them into the street.  Dr. Schwab was sent to Buchenwald, one of the notoriously harsh concentration camps operated by the Nazis. 

            Immediately Hank left Berlin where he was living and working for his father.  He joined his mother to care for her.  Soon after he arrived in Frankfurt he too was arrested by Nazi soldiers and sent to Buchenwald as well.  Dr. Schwab, of course, didn’t know his son was arrested and one day they met in the camp by chance.  Both were put to hard labor during their stay at Buchenwald.

            Fearful of what might happen to them, Alice quickly contacted a cousin of hers that was living in England with Lady Knutsford, who had influential political contacts.  Pleading their case, Lady Knutsford prepared legal documents that were delivered to the Nazi authorities demanding the Schwab family be deported from Germany and sent to live in England.  Hank went on to marry and then moved to the United States and settled in Gary, Indiana.

            At this point Fred is 19 years old and living in New York.  His Uncle Albert Ruthberg, a successful banker for the Halgarten Co. of New York, and an art collector, loaned Fred $6,000 to get himself started in his new country.  Fred told the Society of Plastics Engineers once, “(I) did the greatest sales job of my life. I convinced him to lend me $6,000, which was a lot of money in those days, interest free to start my business.

            It took Fred only a few months to find a partner, Jack Frank, who had some connections in Detroit, Michigan.  The two decided to use Fred’s experience with acrylics and begin manufacturing dentures out of acrylic polymer/monomer resins.  They named their company Schwab & Frank, Inc. and developed a pink acrylic material sold under the name Crystalex.  It was the first material of its type introduced into the U.S. market and it caught the attention of a lot of people, dentists, in particular.  It is still marketed today by a Kerr successor in Romeo, Mich.

            The acrylic compound immediately caught the attention of Kerr Dental Laboratories, a manufacturer of dental supplies and searching for just the product and technology Schwab & Frank were developing.  Kerr was located in Detroit and insisted that Schwab & Frank establish a plant in Detroit.  They began supplying Kerr with materials, but more importantly, began developing new products.  On a trip to Philadelphia, Fred met Otto Haas, founder of Rohm and Haas and one of the world’s premier developers of acrylic resins.  Fred also met with scientists at the DuPont Company, another major acrylic resin manufacturer at the time and they continued to improve Schwab & Frank products for their dental customers.

            In the meantime, however, the winds of another world war were blowing and as Fred had received U.S. Citizenship in 1943, he was now eligible to serve in the armed forces.  At age 25 Fred was called up to serve in the U.S. Army’s Army Specialized Training Program (ASTP) where he was trained as an interrogator.  The Army’s interest in Fred was in his ability to speak German and French, later Italian and, of course, English.  While in the Army, Fred served as a translator assigned to a unit managing prisoners of war.  He was often present for high-level interviews and the interrogation of prisoners seeking to learn intelligence the Army could use against the enemy.  He served with the Army for three and one-half years, leaving the business to be run by his partner Jack Frank.

            In 1939 Fred visited New York and had dinner with Marianne Rothschild.  He knew Marianne from childhood growing up in Germany.  They had a common cousin living in Frankfurt and both attended the cousin’s birthday party when they were about 10 years of age.  While, of course, they weren’t romantically involved, they became friends and remained in touch with each other after Fred left Germany. 

            Marianne left Germany in March 1939 and went to live in England for several months before coming to the U.S. to attend George Washington University.  Following a short stay in New York she moved to Washington, D.C. where she lived with the Executive Officer of Walter Reed Hospital and worked part time as an au pair for a wealthy Washington family while she attended school. 

            Fred’s duties, now as a Master Sergeant in the Army, found him spending time in Washington, D.C., where he visited with Marianne.  Their relationship soon evolved from platonic to romantic and the two decided to marry.  Fred and Marianne were married on September 2, 1945, V-J Day, the day Japan signed the surrender document aboard the USS Missouri.  Coincidentally, Fred was transferred about this time and was stationed at Fort Getty, Rhode Island where he conducted interrogations of prisoners of war, the Army once again relying on his German-, French-, Italian- and English-speaking skills.  After being sent back again to Virginia for a brief period, Fred was discharged and he and Marianne moved to Detroit where Fred took over where he left off in running Schwab & Frank. 

            Prior to his military service, Fred and Jack Frank were actively pursuing new business in dental compounds.   By chance, in a Detroit haberdashery where he was having some business suits fitted, Fred met the owner Jack Gould, whose nephew was a partner at Detroit Macoid with George Hendrie, Sr., one of the earlier inductees into the Plastics Hall of Fame (1982).  Macoid was developing extrusion processes for thermoplastic materials for the automotive industry and pioneered numerous extrusion innovations, which influenced Schwab & Frank and led them to develop the first multi-color and double-durometer crosshead extrusion process that they called Spectro-Line.  With it they developed lines for jewelry, decorative products and industrial applications that were of the highest quality.  They also developed extruded coiling that was used to protect telephone lines.  With AT&T anxious to develop international telephone communications, Schwab & Frank sold enough of the material to go around the world. 

            During this time, Fred had visited Dow Chemical on one of his business trips and they showed him some of the new things that were being done with its Styrofoam resins.  Fred and Jack immediately purchased an extruder and began making blocks of Styrofoam polystyrene from which various shapes were cut for decorative products like Christmas tree decorations, floatation and other applications.  Their polystyrene business was so strong that they needed to find a more efficient way to cut shapes from the blocks they were molding and Fred developed a hot-wire technique of cutting three-dimensional shapes out of foam blocks, and he also developed a pour-in-place method for molding polystyrene shapes.  One of the more memorable fabrications of Schwab & Frank was in working with the U.S. Army’s Detroit Arsenal in building a floatation device for a 90 mm tank that was floated across the Detroit River.  Schwab & Frank supplied the polystyrene used to keep the tank afloat in the successful crossing.  In the years of 1946 and 1947, Schwab & Frank became Dow Chemical’s largest buyer of polystyrene resin. 

            Now Fred was anxious to get into fabricating other plastic parts.  While away from the business he had conjured many ideas and he foresaw that following World War II there was going to be new opportunities for growth in the automotive industry.  He was already driving a LaSalle and his interest in the auto industry was growing, fueled by where he had come to live, Detroit, the center of it all. 

            It’s important to keep in mind that Fred, although only having spent a short period of time in Detroit with his Army service and busy as he was in starting up his business, already knew a lot of people.  Many of these important introductions came from a new organization being organized called the Society of Plastics Engineers.  Fred believed that such an organization was needed where technical people could exchange ideas and report on technology they had developed.  He became a founding member of the organization in 1942 and has been one of its most avid advocates since then.  Fred told Plastics Ingenuity in 1970, “We all can help each other and the buyers at G.M., Ford and Chrysler.  Even though we were competitors, we got along very well.  The SPE meetings got us together and enabled us to be educated together.”

            To be sure, Fred has been good for the SPE and the organization has recognized his achievements, his dedication, and enthusiasm for spearheading the use of plastics, not just in the automotive industry, but in a variety of industries. 
In 1952 Fred bought out his partner and began concentrating harder on automotive and other industrial parts.  This would become the focus of his new company Schwab Plastics.  He was doing things with extrusion that no one had ever done before, and he pioneered processes for extruding interlocking tubing and for extruding multiple colors, even in two durometers.  One of Fred’s technical achievements was the development of the first all-plastic tension spring.

            By this time his company had manufactured millions of polystyrene Christmas balls and various other decorations.  He had developed a cellulose acetate butyrate steering wheel for the Army in 1941 and it became a model for steering wheels on millions of cars produced after the war in the 1940s and 1950s. 
In 1954 he scored with the development of molded bead foam components used for automotive insulation.  He was doing work for Studebaker at the time, but many other automakers investigated and adapted similar technology. 

            During this period of time Fred and Marianne moved their home from Detroit to Ann Arbor, Michigan and he subsequently moved his business to Ypsilanti, Michigan.  But this didn’t change his involvement in the automotive industry or with the SPE.  In fact, he became a member of PAG, a forerunner of the PIAD and the Automotive Division of the SPE. 

            This, of course, was an exciting time for the U.S. automotive industry.  As automakers went back to work at the business of building cars after World War II, there was renewed excitement and a drive to develop cars with V-8 engines, automatic transmissions, even the first plastic-bodied sports car, the Chevrolet Corvette.  Fred became caught up in this revolution, not alone, but with thousands of stylists, engineers, technicians, chemists and even business leaders.  The Automotive Division of the Society of Plastics Engineers created a forum, the first really, where people with these diverse backgrounds and talents could get together and share their ideas all toward a common goal of advancing the automotive industry.  It was during this time that Ford Motor Co. constructed a new Research and Engineering Center with unprecedented emphasis on the use of new materials, including plastics. 

            Perhaps more than anyone else, Fred saw what was happening and he saw the future.  While he could not single-handedly solve all of the motor industry’s problems, he saw the opportunity to become a diplomat bringing companies and people together for the exchange of ideas and the advancement of technology.  In February 1963 he broke new ground by establishing an adult education course at Highland Park entitled “Fundamentals in Plastics.  That same year he was elected president of the Detroit Section of the SPE and later that same year he became one of the first members of the Plastics Pioneers Association.  By now the SPE even trusted Fred with their money and he was elected Chairman of the Finance Committee of the SPE at the organization’s Silver ANTEC Anniversary. 

            Through his company, Group Four Associates, Fred stayed involved in numerous projects and programs.  He was instrumental in getting numerous automotive plastics programs started and once they were started, he never relented.  The ambassador of plastics would keep tabs on progress, he would find ways to smooth rough roads, and he would find the right people and technology to make projects successful.  There was no doubting this man’s vision when in 1969 he was named “Plastics Man of the Year” by the Detroit Section of the SPE. 

            An example of his relentless pursuit of excellence was work he performed with Crane Plastics, a long-time supplier to the automotive industry.  Fred received an award from Crane Plastics on work he did on extrusions for Ford Motor Co.  And it was at about this point that Fred saw the globalization of the automotive industry and the plastics industry and he began to realize that old tactics would not work in the future.  By this time there were Japanese and European companies making vehicles in the U.S., often referred to as transplants. 

            It was with one of those early transplants, Volkswagen of America, that Fred began working as a consultant on the use of plastics in their cars.  He was one of the early thinkers about recycling automotive plastics and became instrumental in developing a recyclable nylon resin, and then went on to convince General Motors and Ford Motor to modify their specifications for nylon to resins. 

            In 1980, Fred was named a “Distinguished Member” of the SPE at its annual ANTEC conference and two years later it was Fred Schwab who was lauded with the Chairmanship of the Detroit Section’s 40th Anniversary activities.  In 1983, Fred was honored again when he was appointed a trustee for the Plastics Center and Museum and a year later he was on the podium again at the ANTEC receiving the organization’s prestigious “President’s Cup.”

            By this time, SPE was looking to increase its membership and establish a section for Western Europe.  Just as he was called to serve his country because of his insights and linguistic skills, SPE turned to Fred.  He became the co-founder of the European Section of SPE.  It’s hard to imagine where Fred got his energy and enthusiasm.  Even at age 70, he remained active with Group Four Associates.  He attended auto industry conferences and he was still networking, using his skills, knowledge and vast contacts to advance the use of plastics in the automotive industry.  He also still had the energy to promote something he felt strongly about for many years, the revival of the Plastics Hall of Fame.  He became the co-founder of the Plastics Academy, which is the organization that cares for the Hall of Fame.  Four year’s later Fred would be inducted into that Hall of Fame, this after being honored by the SPE Detroit Section for his 50th year in the plastics industry.  There were not many competitors for the award.  In that same year, 1987, Fred was asked to perform the dedication of a 10-foot acrylic sculpture at the Ferris State Plastics Building. 

            While Fred spent most of his life in the United States, he never forgot that he was German by birth, and Germany never forgot him.  In 1995 Fred was awarded the Order of Merit First Class by President Roman Herzog, Federal Republic of Germany.  It was a treasured moment for Fred and Marianne, who celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary in September of that same year, realized how far they had come in what seemed like a very short period of time. 

            In 1996, Fred was presented with an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Ferris State University in Michigan.
Dr. Fred Schwab dissolved his business Group Four Associates in December 2002, after having been actively involved in the plastics industry for 65 years.  Fred has slowed down a bit and enjoys life with Marianne in Ann Arbor, Michigan.  For the last 65 years he has been the oar that rowed the boat for plastics in automotive applications.