A. Levy & Co.

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The bank A. Levy &. Co. was a Cologne credit institute that, until its liquidation in 1936, played an important role in the banking industry far beyond the Cologne region.

Foundation phase

About the founding phase of the Jewish banking house A. Levy &. Co. ("Levybank") is little known. Founder Abraham Levy (* 1797) was married to Eva Hirtz and in 1844 worked as a cashier at the Cologne bank Sal. Oppenheim . He worked his way up to become an independent stockbroker and in 1858 founded a modest banking business under the name A. Levy . Her son Hermann Löb-Levy (* 1825, † 1873) had been married to Johanna Coppel (* 1832, † 1902) since 1852, whose parents, who were also Jewish, ran a steel goods and weapons factory in Solingen . The marriage resulted in 4 children (Albert, Elise, Fanny and Louis), of which Louis Heymann (later Hermann) Levy attended the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Gymnasium (Cologne) and the commercial college in Antwerp for two semesters before he went to early After his father's death in 1873, he joined his father's bank and had been a partner there since 1877. The Cologne banking system was leading in the west at the time. Bank JD Herstatt (since 1782), Sal. Oppenheim (1789), Bank JH Stein (1790) and the A. Schaaffhausen'scher Bankverein (since 1791) resided here .

Rise of the Bank

After marrying Anna Emma Hagen (from the Akku Hagen family dynasty ), Louis Hermann Levy took on her maiden name Hagen in 1893 and was henceforth Louis Hagen . He supported with his bank the emerging Rhine-Westphalian industry with a kind of early investment banking by next emission finance mainly start-ups and mergers promoted by companies.

The establishment of the Kölner Land- und Seekabelwerke AG in May 1898 required high capital requirements, which was covered by Levybank with a 50 percent stake with the help of a banking consortium , which was sold by the consortium to Felten & Guilleaume in 1901 . The acquisition of the stake promoted the growth of this Cologne company. As a result, Louis Hagen attracted attention in West German industry. The Cologne banker also played a decisive role in the merger of the Hörder Bergwerks- und Hütten-Verein with Phoenix AG for mining and smelting operations (1906). The Levybank often cooperated with the already established bank Sal. Oppenheim & Cie., For example in the restructuring of the Scherl-Verlag (1913). Louis Hagens Bank was connected to the United Steelworks van der Zypen & Wissener Eisenhütten AG, Eschweiler Bergwerksverein and Felten & Guilleaume. In 1904, Levybank initiated the community of interests between A. Schaaffhausen'scher Bankverein and Dresdner Bank, ensured the merger of Kölnische Maschinenbau-AG with Berlin-Anhalter-Maschinenfabrik [Bamag] (May 1909), Carlswerk AG with AEG (1915) or for the affiliation of the “Nordstern” and “Zollverein” collieries. In 1923 Oppenheim and Levy favored a community of interests between the Allianz and Colonia insurance companies , but this did not materialize. In 1925, Phoenix AG for mining and smelting found itself in a corporate crisis that could be averted by liquidity loans from the Darmstädter und Nationalbank and the Levy bank. The German-South American Telegraph Company, founded in Cologne, needed 27.65 million marks for the overseas cable laying to Pernambuco , in which Levybank participated in a bank consortium with a consortium quota of 4.63%. The banking house A. Levy rose within a short time in the financial markets of the Reich and belonged to the "aristocratic class" of the German banking system at the latest since 1926 through its inclusion in the Reich loan consortium. Through the intermediary of Levybank, Friedrich Flick and August Thyssen acquired shares worth 75 million Reichsmarks in Phoenix AG at the end of 1927 . The connection to Flick was intense, because Levybank, together with the Cologne-based bank JH Stein, provided the growing Flick Group with acceptance loans and return loans and, with Bankhaus Stein, held a total of 6% in the Flick bond consortium.

Banking crisis and the time of National Socialism

The Sal. Oppenheim bank, which got caught in a corporate crisis, was still forced to work with A. Levy & Co. in 1922. The bankers chose the form of a "community of interests" and were thus able to stabilize the economic situation of their banks. Louis Hagen now had 68 supervisory board mandates and therefore had a lot of information about German companies. Through the merger, he became a partner in Sal. Oppenheim and remained so until his death in 1932. Sal. Oppenheim hoped that the interest group would help him to recover. With this merger, Hagens Bank gained access to the most respected and solid private bank in Cologne. At first both banks were active in the coal and steel industry. In a bank consortium that had been founded for the capital increase of Rheinische AG für lignite mining , they had a quota of 21% and were thus ahead of Deutsche Bank. In November 1930, Hagen had appointed Paul Silverberg , the long-standing director of the Rheinische Braunkohlenwerke, to be the limited partner of the bank and mandate of the Hagen heirs.

In 1928 the world economic crisis began. When it worsened, Simon Alfred von Oppenheim decided in January 1931 to hire Robert Pferdmenges as a partner in the Sal. Oppenheim bank. Throughout Germany, banks refinanced their medium and long-term industrial and municipal loans with short-term foreign balances. These consisted of balances in foreign currency that reached at least 50 million Reichsmarks at Levybank in August 1931 and were reclaimed by foreign creditors. This resulted in a liquidity crisis at the German banks, as many loans and large loans could not be mobilized. After Louis Hagen died in October 1932, the hitherto unsuspecting partner Paul Silverberg discovered that Hagen had left Bank A. Levi in debt of over 200 million Reichsmarks through speculation during the Great Depression and caused excessive indebtedness . As Hagen's successor, the general manager Hermann Leubsdorff became a partner in November 1932. These debts triggered annual payments of 30 million Reichsmarks that A. Levy could not afford. The resulting liquidity crisis threatened Oppenheim via the interest group, so that in November 1932 it was decided to abolish this profit and loss group. According to the syndicate agreement, the Sal. Oppenheim bank was obliged to take over Bank A. Levy after Hagen's death.

Oppenheim's partner, Pferdmenges, initially managed to have this takeover suspended. He then worked with Silverberg to prevent A. Levy from going bankrupt. The heirs were urged to use their inheritance to help maintain the bank. In addition, the shareholders of Oppenheim agreed to continue the two banks for their own account and to discuss the fate of A. Levy again in 1935. In order for the restructuring measures to be successful and Sal. Oppenheim not to be endangered, the illiquidity of Bank Levy was not allowed to become known. Pferdmenges also joined Levybank as a partner in order to solve its problems with his personality and the weight of the Sal. Oppenheim bank. Together with Silverberg, he asked the Reichsbank for permission for a "silent liquidation". The Reichbank directorate accepted this proposal. The bankruptcy of Levy and possibly of Oppenheim could have led to a new banking crisis after the German banking crisis of June 1931 had just been overcome. Between 1933 and 1935 the securities on the stock exchanges recovered, so that an improvement occurred at Levybank. A very large profit from a deal made years ago after the US dollar fell, offset a large part of the bank's losses. But when Levybank was closed in 1936, there was hardly anything left for the heirs and shareholders. Bank Oppenheim also lost the capital it had brought into Levybank. After the war, Oppenheim partner Friedrich Carl von Oppenheim made it clear that the liquidation of Bank A. Levy had not been caused by National Socialist persecution, but that the silent liquidation was inevitable because of the ailing bank. The crisis in the Levy banking house was solely due to Louis Hagens ' questionable business conduct and would have had to occur even without " Aryanization ".

At the end of 1933 the Jewish Silverberg retired to Switzerland. Levybank's crisis situation could only be stabilized through considerable financial expenditure by the Oppenheim bank and the Hagen heirs. The A. Levy banking house was continued until December 31, 1935 to avoid rumors of imminent bankruptcy . Finally, all accounts, syndicated participations and securities holdings were transferred to Sal. Oppenheim. On January 1, 1936, the Hagen heirs were released from shareholder liability .

In the "Deutsche Volkswirt" of January 31, 1936, the incorporation of the A. Levy bank into the Sal. Oppenheim & Cie. expressly welcomed because of the resulting and used "opportunity ... to eliminate the rest of the non-Aryan character through the personnel changes now made". An explosive issue was a circular issued on March 27, 1933 by Mayor Günter Riesen in Cologne , Konrad Adenauer's successor as Mayor of Cologne. Riesen, a proven fighter of the Nazi movement, had been an authorized officer of Levybank since May 1925 and now banned “Jewish companies” from advertising in newspapers, which particularly affected Levybank and Oppenheim. On December 31, 1938, the Levy bank passed to Hagen's heirs and was finally liquidated on January 10, 1939.

As a result of the merger with Oppenheim, the "Völkische Beobachter" feared the creation of a large-scale "purely Jewish bank " on January 23, 1936, and in January 1936 the Jewish partners Wilhelm Chan and Otto Kaufmann (Oppenheim) and Hermann Leubsdorf (Levybank) give up their partnership status. Robert Pferdmenges ran the Oppenheim bank in trust for the Oppenheim family during the Second World War . In a communication from the private banking business group of March 10, 1939 to the Reich Ministry of Economics, it was stated: “On December 31, 1938, the Levy company was transferred to the son of the previous owner, Max Rudolf Levy, who is a mixed breed. According to a notification from the Reich Commissioner on January 10, 1939, the company went into liquidation. “With the takeover of assets and liabilities by Oppenheim, the name of A. Levy & Co. bank disappeared from the banking world in 1939.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Michael Stürmer / Gabriele Teichmann / Wilhelm Treue, Wagen und Wagen , 1989, p. 340
  2. ↑ Jutta Bohnke-Kollwitz: Cologne and Rhenish Judaism: Festschrift Germania Judaica, 1959-1984 . 1984, p. 138.
  3. ↑ On September 14, 1859, the company received the order to create the roof structure (roof structure and crossing tower) of Cologne Cathedral
  4. ↑ Alfred Reckendrees: The steel-Trust project: the founding of the United Steelworks . 2000, p. 143 ( limited preview in Google Book Search, accessed on March 27, 2017).
  5. ↑ Hans Pohl: On the history of the first German overseas cable to South America ( Memento from August 20, 2014 in the Internet Archive ). undated, p. 239 (PDF file; 3.93 MB).
  6. ↑ Thorsten Beckers: The private banker: Niche strategies in the past and present . 2003, p. 34 ( limited preview in Google Book Search, accessed on March 27, 2017).
  7. ↑ Kim Christian Priemel: Flick: A corporate history from the Empire to the Federal Republic . 2008, p. 142 ( limited preview in Google Book Search, accessed on March 27, 2017).
  8. ↑ Johannes Bähr, Axel Drecoll, Bernhard Gotto: The Flick Group in the Third Reich . 2008, p. 36 ( limited preview in Google Book Search, accessed on March 27, 2017).
  9. ↑ Vanessa Conze: The Europe of the Germans . 2005, p. 287 ( limited preview in Google Book Search, accessed on March 27, 2017).
  10. ↑ Michael Stürmer, Gabriele Teichmann, Wilhelm Treue: Wagen und Wagen: Sal. Oppenheim jr. & Cie. History of a bank and a family . Piper, Munich / Zurich 1989, ISBN 978-3-492-03282-7 , p. 340 ff.
  11. ↑ not a banker, but since September 1903 a member of the Rheinbraun Board of Directors
  12. ↑ Magazin der Wirtschaft dated November 7, 1930 ( Memento of the original dated August 8, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Digitized version of the Hamburg World Economic Archive (JPG; 102 kB). @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / webopac0.hwwa.de
  13. ^ Joseph A. Schumpeter: Business cycles . 1961, p. 950 ( limited preview in Google Book Search, accessed March 27, 2017).
  14. ↑ Michael Stürmer, Gabriele Teichmann, Wilhelm Treue: Wagen und Wagen: Sal. Oppenheim jr. & Cie. History of a bank and a family . Piper, Munich / Zurich 1989, ISBN 978-3-492-03282-7 , p. 360 ff.
  15. ↑ Michael Stürmer, Gabriele Teichmann, Wilhelm Treue: Wagen und Wagen: Sal. Oppenheim jr. & Cie. History of a bank and a family . Piper, Munich / Zurich 1989, ISBN 978-3-492-03282-7 , p. 362 f.
  16. ↑ Michael Stürmer, Gabriele Teichmann, Wilhelm Treue: Wagen und Wagen: Sal. Oppenheim jr. & Cie. History of a bank and a family . Piper, Munich / Zurich 1989, ISBN 978-3-492-03282-7 , p. 363
  17. ^ Albert Fischer: Jewish private banks in the "Third Reich" . In: Scripta Mercaturae, Zeitschr. f. Economic u. Sozialgeschichte 28 (1994), pp. 1 ff. ( Full text , PDF, 252 kB, accessed on March 27, 2017).
  18. ↑ Ingo Köhler: The “Aryanization” of the private banks in the Third Reich , 2003, p. 351 ( limited preview in the Google book search, accessed on March 27, 2017).
  19. ↑ Der deutsche Volkswirt 10/1936, No. 18 of January 31, 1936, p. 826
  20. ↑ Ingo Köhler: The "Aryanization" of the private banks in the Third Reich , 2003, p. 119 ( limited preview in the Google book search, accessed on March 27, 2017).
  21. ↑ RGVA component 1458, finding aid 1, File 454, F. 51
  22. ↑ Ingo Köhler: The "Aryanization" of the private banks in the Third Reich , 2003, p. 349, FN 491 ( limited preview in the Google book search, accessed on March 27, 2017).