David Cord

David Schnur (born April 9, 1882 in Baranów , Austria-Hungary , † March 16, 1948 in New York City , USA ) was an Austrian tobacco entrepreneur.

Life

His parents were the businessman Markus Schnur (* 1820 in Tarnów ; † 1900 in Tarnów) and Else, b. Neumann, the daughter of a businessman from Pressburg. From the age of about ten, David lived mostly in Prussia.

In 1903 he was able to take on a leading position in Berlin at the Karmitri -Zigarettenfabrik AG cigarette factory founded in 1880 . He became their majority shareholder. He acquired Hadges-Nessim-Zigarettenfabrik GmbH in Hamburg and a trust company.

During the First World War he was a member of the Presidium of the Raw Tobacco Procurement Office. He was in contact with the Reemtsma brothers , who themselves had no knowledge of tobacco but developed machines for cigarette production from 1918 onwards. Around 1920 he was responsible for buying tobacco and composing the tobacco blends for a share of the profit. In 1921 he took part in the Reemtsma cigarette factories . His excellent knowledge of the economy in Greece and Turkey gave Reemtsma independence from middlemen.

His son Harry C. Schnur , who was born in Berlin in 1907 , received German citizenship in 1920.

Several times a year he traveled to the tobacco growing regions in the Balkans. In 1923 he discovered such an excellent harvest in Thessaloniki that he bought it up completely. Hans Domizlaff called the new cigarette Harvest 23 . Schnur had taken photos on the way.

Reemtsma moved its headquarters to Hamburg in 1922 due to the advantages of the free port . In 1924 Karmitri was merged with Reemtsma. During his travels, Schnur made contacts with government circles and became a Turkish consul in Berlin. In the early 1930s he was involved in the conclusion of bilateral compensation deals, especially with Bulgaria.

In 1929 the TH Braunschweig awarded him the Dr. Ing.hc

Around 1931/32 the SA, which financed itself with drummer cigarettes, complained that Reemtsma would produce Jewish cigarettes. Although the Minister of Economic Affairs, Hjalmar Schacht, stood up for him, in 1935 an expatriation procedure was initiated against him. He escaped by accident during a Gestapo raid in early July.

In 1939 he arrived in the USA and was able to gain a foothold in the cigarette import-export business.

literature

• Elisabeth Lebensaft , Christoph Mentschl:  Cord David. In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 (ÖBL). Volume 10, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 1994, ISBN 3-7001-2186-5 , p. 419.
• Schnur, David , in: Joseph Walk (ed.): Short biographies on the history of the Jews 1918–1945 . Munich: Saur, 1988, ISBN 3-598-10477-4 , p. 332
• Schnur, David , in: Werner Röder, Herbert A. Strauss (Hrsg.): Biographical handbook of German-speaking emigration after 1933. Volume 1: Politics, economy, public life . Munich: Saur, 1980, pp. 659f.