Banking house Gebr. Rosenfeld
The banking house Gebr. Rosenfeld was a Württemberg private bank in Stuttgart. It was founded in 1856 by the brothers Götz and Wilhelm Rosenfeld and from 1876 was owned by Abraham Einstein and Sigismund Frank and their sons. After the seizure of power in 1933, the bank was dissolved and liquidated in 1936. Reparation proceedings after the war were unsuccessful.
Development until 1933
Until the middle of the 19th century, there was only a poorly developed banking and credit system in Württemberg. The only larger bank was the Württembergische Hofbank, founded in 1802 and run by Jews. Many Jews participated in the beginning of industrialization by founding new companies. In her book “Weg und Schicksal der Stuttgarter Juden”, the Stuttgart historian Maria Zelzer describes the euphoria of those years, in which the Jews played an important role: “The banks are loyal to all start-ups. ... But it is not the Hofbank alone that helps promote economic life. The golden age of private banks has begun, and these, in turn, are predominantly in Jewish hands. ”The establishment of the company“ Gebr. Rosenfeld, banking and exchange business ”in 1856 by the brothers Götz and Wilhelm Rosenfeld.
The business of the banking house developed brilliantly up to the First World War. According to Maria Zelzer, in 1914 the bank owners Sigismund Frank and Abraham Einstein were among the “newly emerging rich of the Stuttgart Jewish community”. At that time there were 250 millionaires in Stuttgart, including 33 Jews, and Sigismund Frank had a fortune of two million marks (this corresponds to almost 10 million euros) and an annual income of over 140,000 marks.
The effects of inflation from 1914 to 1923, the global economic crisis between 1929 and 1931, and the time up to the seizure of power in 1933 on the business of the bank are not known. For the bank's performance from 1933 until its liquidation in 1936, see below .
Head office
The company was located at Stiftsstraße 1 until 1860, Lindenstraße 8 until 1864, Königstraße 27 until 1875, until 1908 in Kronprinzstraße 11 or 12, from 1909 on Kronprinzstraße 30 and from 1927 on the first floor of the newly built Hahn & Kolb -Haus , the first high-rise in Stuttgart.
organization
The banking house Gebr. Rosenfeld in Stuttgart was founded in 1856 by the brothers Götz Rosenfeld from Frankfurt am Main and Wilhelm Rosenfeld from Stuttgart and entered in the commercial register on March 7, 1866 as a general partnership . In 1871 Götz Rosenfeld left the company, and Moritz Frank and Abraham Einstein were granted full power of attorney . Moritz Frank left the company in 1874, Abraham Einstein and Sigismund Frank received individual power of attorney . In 1876 Wilhelm Rosenfeld ceded the bank “without assets and liabilities” to the two authorized signatories.
In 1912 and 1919 the sons of the two owners, Edgar Einstein and Helmuth Frank, were appointed sole authorized signatories. In 1921 they became equal partners alongside their fathers. In 1925, Helmuth Frank left the company and moved to Genoa . In March 1927, Lothar Frank joined the bank as a partner. After Sigismund Frank's death, on February 26, 1930, the open trading company was converted into a limited partnership , with Abraham Einstein, Edgar Einstein and Lothar Frank as the liable partners and Lina Frank nee. Rothschildt, Sigismund Frank's widow, as a limited partner.
Owner and authorized signatory
The table gives an overview of the bank's owners and authorized signatories.
| time | function | Surname |
|---|---|---|
| 1866-1871 | owner | Götz Rosenfeld (mentioned 1856–1877) |
| 1866-1876 | owner | Wilhelm Rosenfeld (1825-1892) |
| 1871-1874 | General power of attorney | Moritz Frank (mentioned 1871–1929) |
| 1871-1874 | General power of attorney | Abraham Einstein (1852–1939) |
| 1874-1876 | Single power of attorney | Abraham Einstein |
| 1874-1876 | Single power of attorney | Sigismund Frank (1848–1930) |
| 1876-1936 | owner | Abraham Einstein |
| 1876-1930 | owner | Sigismund Frank |
| 1912-1921 | Single power of attorney | Edgar Einstein (1883–1961) |
| 1919-1921 | Single power of attorney | Helmuth Frank (1892 – after 1944) |
| 1921-1936 | owner | Edgar Einstein |
| 1921-1924 | owner | Helmuth Frank |
| 1927-1933 | owner | Lothar Frank (1900–1985) |
| 1930-1936 | Limited partner | Lina Frank born Rothschild (1865-1960) |
Nazi era
After the Reichstag fire at the end of February 1933, one month after the seizure of power , the writer Bruno Frank , a son of Sigismund Frank , suspected that it was not the accused communists but the Nazis themselves who were the perpetrators. In his 1939 political pamphlet against the Hitler system, “ Lie als Staatsprinzip ”, he described what went through his head at the time: “I could have painted on the wall of my bedroom what would happen tomorrow: arrest of the opposition leaders, ban on anti-Hitlerites Press, ostracism of all socialists ”, and he could have added: harassment of the Jews. Bruno Frank took the necessary steps and emigrated the day after the fire, initially to other European countries that were still free of the Nazis.
Bruno Frank's mother Lina Frank (his father died in 1930), his sister Ruth Frank and his brother Lothar Frank with his wife Elisabeth and son Anton stayed back in Germany . The business operations of the bank ceased on May 16, 1933. On May 19, 1933, the two younger shareholders of the bank, Edgar Einstein and Lothar Frank, were taken into custody for “ offenses against the custody account law ”. Five months later, on October 13, 1933, the trial was dismissed and they were released from custody. The company was dissolved in December 1933 and the Schwäbische Treuhand-Aktiengesellschaft in Stuttgart was appointed liquidator. On October 22, 1936, the company was finally dissolved.
Reparation
The actual causes on which the bank was wound up after the seizure of power can no longer be determined on the basis of the documents received. Sascha Kirchner, the biographer of Bruno Frank , concludes: "Even if the available sources do not provide any information about the background to these events, one can assume, in view of comparable and better-documented cases of the liquidation of private banks owned by Jews between 1933 and 1939, that the remaining shareholders had to give up their company after the first boycott calls against Jewish companies ... under pressure from the police. "
On March 31, 1958, the London lawyer Erich Nast, on behalf of Edgar Einstein, who had emigrated to Sao Paulo in 1934, applied to the State Office for Reparation in Stuttgart for compensation “for damage to property and assets due to the persecution of the company Gebr. Rose field". The application was rejected because Erich Nast did not provide the required evidence on time. In addition, it was established that “the collapse of the banking house Gebr. Rosenfeld occurred independently of Nazi persecution measures. Rather, the applicant's insolvency and over-indebtedness were a consequence of the severe banking crisis of 1929 to 1933. "
Else Einstein, the widow of the late Edgar Einstein, complained against this decision: “The collapse was due to National Socialist persecution. The pre-trial detention was imposed in order to be able to construct accusations against the integrity of the owners, in non-Jewish companies everything was generously done to avoid a collapse. ”The Stuttgart Regional Court announced the verdict on January 30, 1964. The lawsuit was dismissed "as inadmissible because of missing the deadline for action".
literature
General
- Bruno Frank : Lies as a state principle. Unprinted manuscript, 1939.
- Sascha Kirchner: The citizen as an artist. Bruno Frank (1887–1945) - life and work. Düsseldorf 2009, pages 17-18, 227-228.
- Gert Kollmer-von Oheimb-Loup : Introduction to the banking history of Baden-Württemberg in the 19th and 20th centuries. Wilhelm Hohmann: Compendium of private banks in Stuttgart 1865 to the end of the 1980s. Ostfildern 2009, pages 197-198.
- Manfred Pohl : Baden-Württemberg banking history. Stuttgart 1992.
- Maria Zelzer : Path and Fate of the Stuttgart Jews. A memorial book. Stuttgart 1964, pages 34, 63, 74, 465.
Archives
-
State Archives Ludwigsburg
- F 303 II Bü 35, commercial register files Bankhaus Gebr. Rosenfeld.
- EL 350 I Bü 31777, compensation case Bankhaus Gebr. Rosenfeld.
Footnotes
- ↑ #Zelzer 1964 , page 34.
- ↑ #Zelzer 1964 , pp. 72–74, comparisons of purchasing power of historical amounts of money .
- ^ Address books of the city of Stuttgart, # Kollmer-von Oheimb-Loup 2009 , pages 197-198.
- ↑ #F 303 II Bü 35 , # Kollmer-von Oheimb-Loup 2009 , pages 197-198.
- ↑ # Frank 1939 .
- ↑ #F 303 II Bü 35 .
- ↑ #Kirchner 2009 , page 228.
- ↑ #EL 350 I Bü 31777 .