The story of Karl Meidinger and his three sons is not a biographical work – but it could be. The examination of this fictional entrepreneurial family with their different life stories, especially those of the three sons, is embedded in the respective economic and political events of the Federal Republic of Germany. It shows that it is not only successes but also failures that pave the way for our country's economic history . Parallel developments, mostly from the smallest beginnings of many entrepreneurs, peppered with the author's aptly incorporated entrepreneurial experiences, make the book a contemporary historical document, not only for laypeople interested in economics.