Bernard Baruch

Bernard Baruch (around 1935)

Bernard Mannes Baruch (born August 19, 1870 in Camden , South Carolina , † June 20, 1965 in New York ) was an American financier , punter, political advisor and later a philanthropist .

Today Baruch is best known for launching the term Cold War , which characterized the East-West conflict that arose as a result of the Second World War . He was also a co-founder of the National Recovery Administration , part of the New Deal .

Live and act

Bernard Baruch was born in Camden, South Carolina, in 1870, the second of four sons of the Jewish doctor Simon Baruch . After the family moved to New York City in 1881, Baruch went to school there and then studied at the city's City College of New York until 1889 . According to his own account, it was there, in the northern states , unlike in the south , that he was confronted with anti-Semitism for the first time (in the south, on the other hand, even the Ku Klux Klan had accepted his father as a member).

Baruch then embarked on a career as a stockbroker and became a partner in A. Housman and Company. His income provided him with the financial means to acquire the then very expensive license to speculate on the New York Stock Exchange . There he managed to amass a huge fortune before his 30th birthday. In 1903 Baruch opened his own brokerage firm in the New York stock exchange district. By 1910 he rose to become one of the recognized leaders in his trade, so that he was finally considered the "King of Wall Street". His refusal to enter one of the established financial houses as a partner also earned him a reputation as a lone wolf .

Presidential advisor in World War I.

During the First World War , Baruch advised US President Wilson on defense matters and became Chairman of the War Industries Board. In 1919 Baruch took part in the Versailles Peace Conference. By donating money to the campaigning efforts of Democratic congressmen, Baruch was able to consolidate his influential position in American politics even after the war ended (for example, he had provided US $ 50,000 in campaign support for Wilson's presidential candidacy). Under Franklin D. Roosevelt , Baruch was a member of the so-called Brain Trust , the think tank that was responsible for drawing up Roosevelt's economic reform efforts. They became known as the New Deal .

Financial advisor to Winston Churchill

Winston Churchill and Bernard Baruch in the back of Baruch's car, April 14, 1961

Baruch had been on friendly terms with Winston Churchill since the 1920s and also supported him as administrator of his private assets. Churchill had held great store by Baruch's ability as a financier ever since he had saved him from ruin in the 1929 stock market crash with his talent for investments. Further stock recommendations that Baruch had given him led to Churchill's insolvency in 1938. The banker Henry Strakosch saved Churchill from the emergency, paid off the debt and took over the rapidly declining shares.

Presidential advisor in World War II

After Churchill took office as Prime Minister, Baruch worked since 1940 in a leading position in drawing up the concept for British war financing. Among other things, Baruch was the creator of the lend-and-lease system , which made it possible to include the (still) neutral United States in the British war effort. However, Baruch turned down Roosevelt's offer to appoint him Secretary of the Treasury and instead continued to act as unofficial advisor. Because of his free-floating position in American politics, which is not controlled by any offices or institutions, both critics and admirers mockingly spoke of Baruch's office being on the bench in Lafayette Park opposite the White House (which was dedicated to him in 1960 on the occasion of his 90th birthday). The image of Baruch sitting on a park bench, conversationally shaping great politics , is now a figurative truism in American collective memory.

Late years and aftermath

In 1946 Baruch was appointed by Harry S. Truman to represent the United States in the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission , where in the same year he presented the so-called Baruch Plan , which provided for nuclear weapons to be placed under international control.

In a speech on April 16, 1947, he coined the Cold War formula to denote the conflict between the two great victorious powers, the Soviet Union and the United States , which began after the end of World War II . The present journalist Walter Lippmann took up this formula in an article and thus ensured its popularization. Baruch remained active as a political advisor until the end of his life.

He died in 1965 at the age of 94 in his New York apartment at 4 East 66th Street and was buried in Flushing Cemetery in Queens, New York City.

Baruch's country estate Hobcaw Barony in South Carolina, where he received General John J. Pershing , Wilson, Churchill and Roosevelt as guests, is now a nature reserve. In Manhattan there is a Baruch College dedicated to Baruch .

Works

My own story. 2 volumes, New York 1957, ISBN 1-56849-095-X .
A good 88 years. Munich 1958 (German translation of My Own Story ; translator: Carl Bach).
The Public Years. New York 1960.
The years of service. Munich 1962 (German translation of The Public Years ; translator: Werner von Grünau).
The Making of the Reparation and Economic Sections of the Treaty. New York and London 1920.
American Industry in War: A Report of the War Industries Board. (Ed. by Richard H. Hippelheuser) New York 1941.

literature

Margaret L. Coit: Mr. Baruch. 2000. ISBN 1-58798-021-5 .
Carter Field: Bernard Baruch, Park Bench Statesman. 1944.
James L. Grant: Bernard M. Baruch: The Adventures of a Wall Street Legend. 1997. ISBN 0-471-17075-5 .
James Grant: Bernard M. Baruch: The Path of a Wall Street Legend. TM Börsenverlag AG, 1999. ISBN 978-3-930851-29-4
Jordan A. Schwartz: The Speculator: Bernard M. Baruch in Washington, 1917-1965. 1981. ISBN 0-8078-1396-6 .
William Lindsay White : Bernard Baruch: Portrait of a Citizen. 1971, ISBN 0-8371-3348-3 .

Web links

Commons : Bernard Baruch - Collection of Images

Individual evidence

^ Bernard M. Baruch: Gute 88 Jahre , Munich 1958, p. 9ff
↑ Baruch's father, Simon Baruch , immigrated to the United States in 1855 from Posen (then part of the Kingdom of Prussia ). His mother, Belle, nee Cohen, came from a family of Sephardic merchants who had come to New York in the 1800s to do mail order and transportation.
↑ Rosengarten, Dale (ed.), Rosengarten Theodore (ed.), A Portion of the People: Three Hundred Years of Southern Jewish Life, Columbia 2002, p. 34.
↑ Cf. Stefan Scheil: Churchill, Hitler and anti-Semitism: the German dictatorship, its political opponents and the European crisis of 1938/39. , Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2008, p. 104.
↑ Bernard Baruch, 94, Dies; Financier, philanthropist; Adviser to Presidents Made and Lost Millions in Wall St. Ventures BERNARD BARUCH, FINANCIER, DEAD . ( nytimes.com [PDF; accessed August 25, 2017]).

personal data
SURNAME	Baruch, Bernard
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Baruch, Bernard Mannes (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	American financier and punter
DATE OF BIRTH	August 19, 1870
PLACE OF BIRTH	Camden , South Carolina
DATE OF DEATH	June 20, 1965
Place of death	new York

[1] Bernard M. Baruch: Gute 88 Jahre , Munich 1958, p. 9ff

[2] Baruch's father, Simon Baruch , immigrated to the United States in 1855 from Posen (then part of the Kingdom of Prussia ). His mother, Belle, nee Cohen, came from a family of Sephardic merchants who had come to New York in the 1800s to do mail order and transportation.

[antis-3] Rosengarten, Dale (ed.), Rosengarten Theodore (ed.), A Portion of the People: Three Hundred Years of Southern Jewish Life, Columbia 2002, p. 34.

[4] Cf. Stefan Scheil: Churchill, Hitler and anti-Semitism: the German dictatorship, its political opponents and the European crisis of 1938/39. , Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2008, p. 104.

[5] Bernard Baruch, 94, Dies; Financier, philanthropist; Adviser to Presidents Made and Lost Millions in Wall St. Ventures BERNARD BARUCH, FINANCIER, DEAD . ( nytimes.com [PDF; accessed August 25, 2017]).