Albert Ottenheimer

Albert Ottenheimer or Albert Otten (born January 19, 1886 in Bonfeld , † September 1985 in the USA ) was a German businessman, entrepreneur, art collector and patron who had to emigrate in 1937 .

Life

Ottenheimer was born in a traditional Jewish community near Heilbronn and started his own business in Cologne in 1910 with a wholesale company, the Albert Ottenheimer Eisengroßhandlung company . His company expanded rapidly and after the First World War he opened a network of branches in Germany and the Netherlands.

In addition, he participated in companies in the iron and steel industry and mechanical engineering companies with varying degrees of success. The Vogtländische Maschinenfabrik AG (VOMAG) in Plauen , which he controlled as the main shareholder, had to file for bankruptcy in 1932 . The bankruptcy administrator filed a criminal complaint against Ottenheimer, among other things, and he was temporarily arrested at the instigation of the local NSDAP district leader , Alfons Hitzler , but was released again in return for a security of 200,000 Reichsmarks .

Until 1937 he was also the main shareholder of Eisen- und Hüttenwerke AG (EHW) in Thale am Harz , a company that had had a monopoly in the manufacture of steel helmets for the German armed forces since 1934 . He had to sell this stake under pressure from government agencies, the proceeds were confiscated in favor of the German Reich and offset against the Reich flight tax. The stake in the ironworks then came through the Dresdner Bank to the Cologne-based Otto Wolff Group .

As a collector and patron, Ottenheimer was interested in modern visual arts. He was active as a member of the Cologne Museum Association. As a sponsor, he donated a number of works of art to the Wallraf Richartz Museum . Some of his collection activities have not yet been conclusively clarified. His collection has been on loan from the Otten family to the Portland Museum of Art in Portland , Maine , since 1993 . The collection includes the paintings Mai by Paul Klee , Early Morning by Max Pechstein and Stramm by Wassily Kandinsky , as well as the sculpture Position de quatrième devant sur la jambe gauche by Edgar Degas .

Ottenheimer emigrated via Switzerland , from where he liquidated his last German assets, and Canada to the USA. There he worked as an entrepreneur in the iron and steel trade with Albot Industries in New Jersey until the 1950s .

In his home town of Bonfeld, Ottenheimer made a foundation of 10,000 RM in 1929 to support the poor and needy. One third of the interest income from the Albert Ottenheimer Foundation , which was named after him, was intended to benefit the needy Jews and two thirds to the remaining poor in the town. The foundation was renamed the Bonfelder Poor Foundation by a municipal council resolution of 1939 . After the Second World War, the foundation was given its original name again in 1946. At Christmas 1946, interest income was again distributed to the needy. In 1947 there was no more interest, the last time it was mentioned in a note from the Heilbronn tax office on the presentation of the foundation deeds and the cash accounts, the foundation's track is lost. Founder Ottenheimer, now very old, tried several times in 1979 to obtain information about the whereabouts of the foundation, but received no more answers from Bonfeld.

literature

• Hans Georg Frank: Last trace: March 14, 1949. In Bonfeld, the Bernhard Ottenheimer Foundation disappeared from one day to the next . In: Wolfram Angerbauer , Hans Georg Frank: Jewish communities in the district and city of Heilbronn. History, fates, documents ( series of publications of the district of Heilbronn . Volume 1). Heilbronn district, Heilbronn 2006, DNB 870067818 , pp. 277–283

Web links

• Georg Wellmann: Albert Ottenheimer, Cologne citizen
• Judgment of the Cologne Higher Regional Court in the Aryanization dispute with the DuMont family (PDF file; 14.25 MB)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ On the provenance of a Munch painting in the Ottenheimer Collection ( memento from September 26, 2008 in the web archive archive.today )
2. ↑ Portland Museum of Art