Alfons Kassel

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Alfons Kassel (* 1902 in Frankfurt-Sachsenhausen ; † March 26, 1975 ) was a German banker .

From bank apprentice to private banker

Alfons Kassel was born in Frankfurt-Sachsenhausen in 1902 and graduated from high school in Frankfurt. He then completed a banking apprenticeship at Deutsche Effecten- & Wechsel-Bank in Frankfurt. At the age of 23, his employer sent him to Berlin to set up their stock exchange department. The next 20 years of Alfons Kassel's life are summarized in a publication by the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main (Goethe University) in 2007 as follows:

“The global economic crisis and the stock market crash didn't stop him from going into business for himself - as an individual banker he invested assets for his potent customers. By founding his own banking business in 1932, he demonstrated great entrepreneurial courage. Germany had the highest unemployment rate in the world at 44 percent. "Alfons Kassel never talked about this time or about experiences of war," says Sättele - not uncommon for men who faced the new beginning after the collapse and pushed forward the economic upswing of the 1950s with the utmost commitment. "

Alfons Kassel didn't want to talk about the 1930s and 1940s, and the Goethe University, which is one of the “strongest research universities in the Rhine-Main region”, saw no reason to inquire. Instead, it spreads the legend of "his instinct for profitable values" (according to a banker colleague quoted in the article Searching for traces), with whom Alfons Kassel returned to Frankfurt in 1948 and founded a new banking company here, which he managed until his death in 1975. He is considered one of the last individual bankers in Germany. After his death, the company was wound up and the customers were taken over by the Frankfurt bank Metzler . Kassel's wife Gertrud then managed her husband's assets.

Gertrud Kassel

Gertrud Kassel, née Siewert (* 1914 - † February 2007), came from Pomerania and completed an apprenticeship as a textile trader. At the age of 20 she came to Berlin and became assistant to a director of the private bank Merck Finck . On the recommendation of Berlin bank friends, she was later hired by Alfons Kassel as an assistant. The private connection established in this way led to the marriage of the two in 1960. The couple were childless.

When Alfred Kassel died in 1975, “he left behind a fortune of four million marks - invested in shares”. In 1985, when the transfer of the assets to a foundation was up for discussion, there was talk of "almost ten million marks". When Gertrud Kassel died in 2007, “33 million euros” flowed into the foundation for the Goethe University. This suggests that Gertrud Kassel had no less »instinct for profitable values« than her husband. In public praise, however, it always comes second.

The Alfons and Gertrud Kassel Foundation

Already in 1985 Gertrud Kassel decided after a conversation with the above-mentioned Ekkehardt Sättele, the auditor and tax advisor who had been working with Alfons Kassel since 1964, to join his proposal and later to leave her assets to the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt in the form of a foundation . Their only condition was to keep absolute silence about this project. Sättele, who, according to research in Frankfurt “was not just an asset and tax advisor”, “but soon became a trusted friend who looked after Gertrud Kassel and who in recent years also organized round-the-clock care for the very old” then arranged a meeting with the physicist Walter Greiner and the then President of the Goethe University, Klaus Ring . After this meeting, says Sättele, “I suggested a foundation for the Frankfurt University to Ms. Kassel. Ms. Kassel was enthusiastic, because Alfons Kassel was not only interested in the practice of the capital market but also in the latest scientific developments. So this foundation is entirely in his sense. And it enables the preservation of assets that have been lovingly cared for over the years. "

What was negotiated that evening was a securities account "of almost ten million marks, recalls Ring", which Sättele and Gertrud Kassel continued to manage for twenty years. "At times, the secret of the Kassel Foundation was so well guarded within the university that President Rudolf Steinberg , who has been in office since 2000, only found out about it through Greiner in connection with the establishment of the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies (FIAS)."

Gertrud Kassel died in February 2007. This enabled her assets to be released for a foundation in accordance with her will. At a press conference on July 16, 2007 “the three foundation board members Sättele, Steinberg and von Metzler informed about the independent“ Alfons and Gertrud Kassel Foundation ”, which has a capital of 33 million euros”. But things got even better for Goethe University: The Hessian state government had promised the state's universities that they would receive another euro from the state for every euro raised privately, which is why Manager Magazin headlined the day after the press conference: " 66 million for Goethe's students ”. Ekkehardt Sättele has held the title of "Honorary Senator" of Goethe University since 2012. On October 18, 2017, the Goethe University begins its 1st Foundation Day. On this occasion, the University President Birgitta Wolff said: “In 2007 the Kassel Foundation was at the cradle for the re-establishment of the Frankfurt Foundation University. Their performance in the summer of 2007, which received nationwide attention, was also an extremely strong signal for the imminent establishment of the Frankfurt Foundation University. The Goethe University would like to thank the Kassel Foundation for the great support of many of its most important concerns over the past ten years. "

The reparation proceedings Frank & Neuthal

In 1912 the company Frank & Neuthal, Filzfabrik was founded in Berlin , with its headquarters in Hollmannstr. 18, had. In 1938 this company was taken over by the man, to whom his later tax advisor and auditor attested: “His courage was rewarded with long-term success through his trading skills and his instinct for profitable values. Alfons Kassel was considered a brisk thinker and calculator and was particularly valued as a critical interlocutor. "

The company initially operated under the old name, but with the addition “Inh. Alfons Kassel ”, further. Alfons Kassel, as already quoted above, never spoke “about this time or about war experiences”, and in view of the largest single donation in its history, Goethe University never asked itself what Alfons Kassel was doing in Berlin before and during the Second World War could have done. The reparation files in the Berlin State Archives could have provided information about this.

The subject of the reparation proceedings was the purchase contract of August 11, 1938, through which the Frank & Neuthal company was sold to Alfons Kassel. The applicants, all children of the two company founders living in Israel, assumed a forced sale, their legal representative, Investa AG for plant and administration, speaks in a letter of March 13, 1950 of an aryanized company and with regard to the contract of an " Aryanization Agreement ".

In a first reply of March 29, 1950, Kassel denies the allegations and describes the purchase as a double help and in particular as a favor for the previous owners:
a) for the company owners, to whom he paid 20,000 RM for a completely run-down company, in addition for the inventory approx. 12,000 RM. In addition, he paid 10,000 RM in black and in cash.
b) for a Jewish acquaintance who was no longer allowed to work as a stockbroker. After the takeover, he was able to employ him as managing director until 1943.

In a letter dated April 2, 1952, attorney Peyser asserted claims for the applicants in the amount of DM 34,000, which he based on calculations from business figures before the takeover. At that point in time, the fact was that the company only existed as a corporate shell, as the factory equipment had been destroyed by the effects of the war and as a result the stocks had disappeared.

The proceedings were dragged out by necessary or tactically justified procedural interruptions. Another problem was that it was often necessary to first consult with the applicants in Israel. But after the demands were on the table, Kassel, who had always voiced himself up to now, also brought in a lawyer, Hans Friedeberg, for whom Karl Leonhard, who later apparently worked in the same office (Konstanzer Str. 3, Berlin), took the mandate perceived. Apart from the fact that in his letter of September 16, 1952, Friedeberg again described the company taken over from Kassel as a run-down and neglected company, he further stated that the takeover was in truth "a fiduciary transfer of a company":

"The defendant [Kassel] repeats that such a business, which can only be described as a company by name, was completely alien to him. If he nevertheless agreed to the takeover of the company desired by the Jewish vendors, this was outwardly given the form of a contract; but that had to happen. It is about the time 1938, thus already at an advanced point in time of the Third Reich. ... The respondent, in accordance with the wishes of the applicants, has repeatedly expressed that as soon as the Hitler system is over, the deal will be returned to the seller without further ado in return for repayment of the purchase price. ... Apart from the business which is completely alien to the respondent, I ["I" crossed out in the original] only agreed to the takeover because the respondent was in a position to be able to offer his old friend Ludwig J acob, who has already made declarations in these proceedings, and who, as a Jewish stock exchange representative, was excluded from the stock exchange in 1934, to earn, albeit small, earnings by working as managing director, but also to keep him away from harassment through his work. It was thus possible that Ludwig Jacob could be held until the end of 1943, albeit sometimes with great difficulty and danger for the respondent. It was also possible for the respondent, since there was a commercial enterprise to the outside world, to keep another 4 mixed race there without the work they performed being in any way essential. So there was camouflage in all places. It is the typical case of a fiduciary relationship. "

Elsewhere in the brief from RA Friedeberg it is stated that the defendant Kassel was ready at any time to return the company to the previous owner “if the seller so wished, especially with the termination of the Hitler system. The respondent did not consider himself to be an aryan from the outset, but took into account from the outset that the business was to be returned. ”One page further, the accusation of Aryanization is reversed and directed against the applicants:“ If the applicants from an annual profit of 20,000 Speaking RM per owner, this is incomprehensible. The respondent is aware that the applicant Frank, before he sold the business, brokered a series of so-called Aryanizations, the commission of which may have flowed into Frank & Neuthal without having anything to do with their area of ​​activity. But that cannot possibly be viewed from the point of view of compensation. "

Kassel has never substantiated this allegation, and on January 16, 1953, the applicants had it rejected by their lawyer Peyser as a “denigration of the deceased”. It is also noticeable that Friedeberg / Kassel speak of "applicant Frank" as the alleged perpetrator. What is obviously meant is the late Eduard Frank, who himself was no longer part of the proceedings. It is difficult to regard this as a coincidental oversight, since Kassel itself attached great importance to correct attributions: In his very first letter on this matter of February 17, 1950, he insisted that the claims should not be directed against his banking business, " that was never the owner of Frank & Neuthal. The company was in my personal possession. ”With so much emphasis on accuracy, the crossed-out“ I ”quoted above suggests that Friedeberg's text is a takeover of the statements that his client Kassel wrote in the first person and that in Friedeberg's office had simply been written off. This suspicion is confirmed again at the end of the letter. With reference to the alleged black money payment in the sale of the company, it now says: “The payment of RM 10,000 claimed by the respondent is 'black', which means that there is no receipt because, given the situation of both parties at the time, it was more than dangerous to use one to issue a receipt for such payment. But it took place as I take my oath. ”This repeated“ I ”is corrected by hand in the text, as well as another two paragraphs further, where it says:“ I can assure ... ”In none of the three cases it can be assumed that a lawyer would have made the statements in the first person form as his own factual assertions.

The previously cited letter of January 16, 1953 closes with a counter-offer by the respondent: “Under these circumstances, the respondent is not prepared to approve an additional payment. He is ready to return the company, but demands the amount he paid of 30,000 RM, plus the warehouse fee and the bank debt, with a revaluation. ”That is more than cynical when you consider that at this point the company is only by name, as a corporate shell, existed.

In principle, the fronts were now marked out. The lawyers who represented the heirs Frank and Neuthal tried again and again to rebut the defendant's allegations, but they had to struggle with three major problems:
a) The applicants, the Frank brothers and the Neuthal siblings, could not Bring your own experience of the background of the sale. You were not involved in the company sale yourself, you were too young or you were already living outside of Germany at the time. They could only refer to what they had been told by their late parents. The only reliable document was the purchase contract, which, however, did not offer any direct points of attack against Kassel.
b) Since they all lived in Israel, cumbersome voting procedures were often necessary, which helped to drag out the process.
c) The above-mentioned Ludwig Jacob, according to Kassel the beneficiary of the company takeover, now lived in the USA and supported the statements from Kassel in his own letters. Kassel also endeavored by naming more and more witnesses to undermine the claims of the applicants or to present them as inadmissible.

When a settlement was brought into play prior to this difficult initial situation for the applicants, it cannot be clearly determined from the files. The fact is that on March 17, 1954, the parties reached a settlement at the suggestion of the court. The background may have been that the 34,000 DM demanded by the applicants was only offset by the offer to reverse the sale, which would have been an absurd deal for the applicants.

The settlement stipulated that the two Frank brothers together should receive 300 DM, as did the Neuthal siblings. All claims from the reimbursement procedure should be settled and the extrajudicial costs against each other should be canceled. While Kurt and Heinz Frank accepted this comparison, the Neuthal siblings objected. As lawyer Leonhard, the successor of Friedeberg, informed the regional court on June 23, 1954, this did not prevent his client, Alfons Kassel, from “the 300 DM to which the applicants Frank & Neuthal are entitled based on this settlement , on June 14, 1954 in a check to lawyer Dr. Waldeck ”. A new settlement was reached with the Neuthals on October 15, 1954: In addition to the already agreed DM 300, they were able to obtain a further DM 100 as a contribution to costs.

Alfons Kassel was "very sensitive, sensitive and sensitive". It is difficult to believe in view of the letters he wrote or commissioned during this process, the addressees of which were Jewish emigrants. But maybe that was just part of his "subtle joke [es] that flashed through from time to time, he liked the Austrian actor Fritz Muliar ," Professor of Humor ", and his Jewish jokes".

Heinz Frank

There is only one person, Heinz Frank (* February 24, 1913 in Berlin - † 1959), more information about the applicants in these proceedings, Kassel's opponent in the proceedings: He studied law in Berlin from April 1931 to August 1933 and became a Jew prevented from continuing his studies. Heinz Frank emigrated with his parents to Palestine, where he took the name Uri Ben-Horin. He studied and received his PhD in Jerusalem and worked at the Archaeological Institute of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. In WorldCat several authored or edited by him books are listed, and numerous references on the Internet still on his scientific work, which were interrupted by his early death. In 1949 he was a co-founder of the "Israel Oriental Society".

swell

  • Files in the Landesarchiv Berlin, Eichborndamm 115 - 121, 13403 Berlin (access to files on June 12, 2017)
    • 4 WGA 5707/50 Kurt (Reuben) Frank and Heinz Frank (Uri Ben Horin) against banker Alfons Kassel
    • 4 WGA 567/49 Wolfgang and Leonore Neuthal against Alfons Kassel

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l Searching for traces: From stock exchange prices and life curves , Research Frankfurt, 3/2007
  2. ↑ "LIVING COOPERATIONS" - Yearbook 2016 , p. 3
  3. ↑ a b Speech by Ekkehardt Sättele on the occasion of the press conference of the Goethe University Frankfurt on July 16, 2007 on the occasion of the establishment of the Alfons and Gertrud Kassel Foundation
  4. ↑ Pioneers of the Foundation University. 1st Foundation Day honors personalities who have decisively shaped the profile of Goethe University as a foundation university and beyond in recent years
  5. ^ Jewish businesses in Berlin 1930-1945
  6. ↑ All of the following statements and quotations are based on the reparation files in the Landesarchiv Berlin.
  7. ^ The company was founded in 1928 in Berlin W8, Jägerstr. 63 founded. The purpose was plants and administrations of all kinds, especially in and of real estate and mortgages. In 1950 the company went through the Berlin securities clearing process. Today Investa AG for investment and administration is a subsidiary of Dr. Seifert - Wilmersdorfer Hochbau - AG.
  8. ↑ Paragraph 4 of the contract states: “The buyer undertakes to take over the entire Aryan followers of the company sold.” Otherwise, it is a normal sales contract without any further irregularities.
  9. ↑ Whether this black money was actually paid could not be clarified in the course of the proceedings, nor whether Kassel had met the contractual obligation to forward outstanding customer claims from the time before the company transfer to the previous owner after they were received.
  10. ^ Jewish students at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität zu Berlin from 1933 to 1938
  11. ^ The Hebrew University of Jerusalem - Institute of Archeology - People
  12. ↑ Books by Uri Ben-Horin in WorldCat
  13. ^ Israel Oriental Society
personal data
SURNAME Kassel, Alfons
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German banker
DATE OF BIRTH 1902
PLACE OF BIRTH Frankfurt-Sachsenhausen
DATE OF DEATH March 26, 1975