Carl Bergmann (State Secretary)

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Carl Bergmann

Carl Bergmann (born April 20, 1874 in Sömmerda ; † September 26, 1935 in Berlin ) was a German banker and diplomat.

biography

Carl Bergmann studied law . During his studies he became a member of the Academic Liedertafel Berlin in the Sondershäuser Association in 1893/94 . After completing his degree with a doctorate , he first became a court assessor in Berlin in 1900 before moving to Deutsche Bank the following year . From 1901 to 1902 he was sent to the administration of the Anatolian Railway to Constantinople . From 1903 to 1904 he went on a study trip to the USA . In 1911 he was appointed Deputy Director of Deutsche Bank. From 1914 to 1918 he worked as a finance delegate at the German legation in The Hague.

After the end of the First World War , he had been a representative of the German Empire at the Reparations Commission in Paris from 1919 . In July 1919 he became undersecretary of state in the Reich Ministry of Finance alongside Stephan Moesle and at the same time chairman of the War Burden Commission. He held these offices until September 1921 and was therefore one of the closest employees of the incumbent Reich Minister of Finance Matthias Erzberger and Joseph Wirth . He took part in most of the reparations conferences.

He then returned to Deutsche Bank as a member of the Supervisory Board and was again on a trip to the USA between 1921 and 1922 before he was co-owner of the Lazard-Speyer-Ellissen bank in Frankfurt am Main between 1924 and 1927 . He also took part in reparation negotiations as a member of the board of directors of the Deutsche Reichsbahn . At the same time he was also a member of the board of directors of the Reichsbank .

Bergmann actually wanted to retire from professional life around 1930. The crises at that time ( world economic crisis , German banking crisis ) made this impossible. Most recently, he was trustee of the Darmstädter und Nationalbank (Danatbank) from 1931 until his death in 1935 . After the Dresdner Bank came under trusteeship in the summer of 1931, with the state assuming its debts, Bergmann also became a trustee there. In addition, he was appointed to a council of experts by Chancellor Brüning to advise the cabinet on solving the financial and banking crisis. In addition to Bergmann, the council included Hermann Schmitz ( IG Farben ), Markus Wallenberg ( Stockholms Enskilda Bank ) and Carl Melchior (Warburg & Co.).

With his wife Enriqueta, Carl Bergmann had two daughters and a son. Enriqueta Bergmann was a pianist who transported an Ibach concert grand specially built for her because of her small hands to her concert dates all over Europe. After the breakdown of the marriage, she was temporarily active as a painter in the Hague artistic circles.

Bergmann's two daughters died of tuberculosis after the war ; his son Carl-Heinz (1920–1978), who grew up in the Netherlands, was drafted into the Air Force during World War II and was sent to a concentration camp for sabotage, from which he managed to escape to the Netherlands, where he remained in the Dutch resistance until the end of the war was active. He used the first name Tom, adopted there, for the rest of his life.

Appreciations

In his book Réflexions sur le franc et sur quelques autres sujets (Thoughts on the Franc and Some Other Topics, Paris 1926), John Maynard Keynes particularly remembers the German diplomats Bergmann and Schacht and writes about Bergmann:

“From the appointment of the Organizing Committee for the Reparations Commission in 1919 to the adoption of the Dawes Plan in 1924, Bergmann was consistently behind the scenes. He was one of the most excellent representatives of that kind of people who do not sit on their gilded armchairs, but rather establish friendly relations with the opposing camp, regardless of formalities. "

In his History of the Reichsbahn, the American historian Alfred C. Mierzejewski describes the ongoing efforts of Carl Bergmann (as a long-time member of the administrative and supervisory board of the Reichsbahn) not to let the railway fall into the hands of the Nazis.

Publications

  • The way of reparation: From Versailles via the Dawes plan to the goal. Frankfurter Societäts-Druckerei, Frankfurt am Main 1926.
  • The current status of the reparations question, presented on May 23, 1928 at the annual general meeting of the Association of Central German Industrialists e. V. Frankfurt am Main 1928. (Federal Archives)
  • Germany and the Young Plan . In: Foreign Affairs . Vol. 8, July 1930, pp. 596 f.

swell

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Otto Grübel, Special Houses Association of German Student Choral Societies (SV): Cartel address book. As of March 1, 1914. Munich 1914, p. 1.
  2. ^ Peter-Christian Witt: Reich Finance Minister and Reich Finance Administration in: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte , January 1975, p. 23, footnote 79 ( PDF ).
  3. ↑ Deutsche Bank Annual Report 1921 ( Memento of February 8, 2006 in the Internet Archive )
  4. ^ Liberalitas - Festschrift for Erich Angermannl. 1992
  5. ^ Gall, Lothar / Pohl, Manfred: The railroad in Germany. 1999
  6. ↑ Graml, Hermann: Between Stresemann and Hitler. 2001
  7. ↑ «M. Bergmann s'est trouvé constamment dans la coulisse, depuis la nomination du comité d'organisation de la Commission des Réparations, en 1919, jusqu'à l'adoption du plan Dawes, en 1924. Il a été l'un des plus heureux représentants de cette catégorie d'hommes qui ne restent pas assis dans leurs fauteuils dorés, mais établissent avec le camp opposé des relations amicales, exemptes de tout formalisme. " In: John Maynard Keynes, Réflexions sur le franc et sur quelques autres sujets , chap. II: Les dettes de guerre: La reconstruction financière de l'Allemagne .
  8. ^ The Most Valuable Asset of the Reich. A History of the German National Railway. (Volume I) , 1999.
personal data
SURNAME Bergmann, Carl
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bergmann, Karl
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German banker and diplomat
DATE OF BIRTH April 20, 1874
PLACE OF BIRTH Sömmerda
DATE OF DEATH September 26, 1935
Place of death Berlin