Hans Lachmann-Mosse

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Hans Lachmann-Mosse , b. as Hans Lachmann (born August 9, 1885 in Berlin , † April 18, 1944 in Oakland ), was a German publisher .

Family and commitment

Hans Lachmann was the only son of the brass factory owner Georg Lachmann. The final examination at the humanistic grammar school in Freienwalde was followed by several semesters of law in Freiburg and Berlin. For reasons unknown, he dropped out and switched to banking . In 1910 Lachmann joined the management of Rudolf Mosse OHG as an accountant . In 1911 he married Felicia Mosse, the only (adoptive) child of the company owner, and took the name Lachmann-Mosse. The couple moved into a large villa on Maaßenstrasse (today Karl-Heinrich-Ulrichs-Strasse) in Berlin-Tiergarten . Together they had a daughter and a son, later the historian George L. Mosse . As a soldier, he took part in the First World War.

Hans Lachmann-Mosse was a great music and art lover, Berlin patron , board member of the Berlin Philharmonic , sponsoring member of Schloss Salem e. V. , member of the Society of Friends and, among other things, chairman of the Jewish Reform Community in Berlin .

Activities and career

The Mossehaus (1923) in the Berlin newspaper district

When Rudolf Mosse died on September 8, 1920, he left the largest German press company to his son-in-law. Lachmann-Mosse took over the management of a million dollar and debt-free company. In the course of hyperinflation in 1922/23 , the group lost a large part of its current assets , but was able to save its real estate holdings at home and abroad. Lachmann-Mosse had invested the family's private assets in Swiss francs in a Basel SBV bank in good time .

Due to the inflation experience, he acquired a large number of land and real estate from 1926 using equity and debt capital. The WOGA ensemble on Lehniner Platz, financed with American bonds worth 1.5 million US dollars , is an example of a major project . This included the comedians ' cabaret , which was owned by Felicia Mosse from 1928 onwards. At the same time, he expanded the art collection in the Mosse-Palais with large sums of money , invested in music publishers, founded other advertising expeditions abroad and bought a large number of newspapers. Both Dresdner Bank , as the house bank of Rudolf Mosse OHG, granted loans amounting to millions, as did Deutsche Bank , Danat-Bank and Swiss banks. The acquisition of additional print media in particular turned out to be a wrong entrepreneurial decision because it created competition for his previous publications .

In November 1927, Deutsche Bank was the first creditor to give up its majority stake in Rudolf Mosse OHG. At that time, all properties in Germany and abroad were already encumbered with mortgages. As of January 1928, the publisher's house bank pointed to an impending insolvency , which, however, was ignored by the management. In the spring of 1928, orderly insolvency proceedings could have saved at least parts of the group; with the start of the global economic crisis in 1929 , this was no longer possible. All foreign banks now withdrew their money from Germany and insisted on immediate repayment of the loans. De jure , bankruptcy was delayed until autumn 1932 . Lachmann-Mosse was responsible for this, but especially for the Berliner Tageblatt , the publisher's flagship, the editor-in-chief Theodor Wolff , half of whom had co-determination rights and duties.

On September 13, 1932, bankruptcy proceedings were opened. Around 8,000 creditors filed their claims. At the beginning of March 1933 Lachmann-Mosse dismissed Wolff, who had worked for many years. The termination did not take place at the instigation of the new rulers, Lachmann-Mosse thus drew the line under a dispute that he had had with Theodor Wolff since 1928. Background: As early as 1926, the Berliner Tageblatt could only make losses. Due to the falling circulation , the company owner repeatedly requested corrections that Wolff did not implement.

Lachmann-Mosse fled to Paris on April 1, 1933 and stayed at the Hotel Le Bristol for several months . His wife moved to Switzerland with the children. From Paris, he arranged for the group to be converted into a foundation on April 15, 1933. On the same day, Rudolf Mosse OHG stopped all payments. With regard to the purpose of the foundation, he informed the executives in writing:

“I don't want to benefit from anything. All the fruit that the tree still bears should belong to the starving war victims (First World War). "

The executives of the publishing house who were still present were not satisfied with this “patriotic declaration by the newly established foundation”. Because nobody wanted to take over the power of attorney , they demanded concrete succession plans from Lachmann-Mosse. On July 12, 1933, the foundation also stopped all payments. Max Winkler was now appointed as insolvency administrator , who as a crisis manager and gray eminence of the German press was just as willing to serve the National Socialists as he was in previous cabinets. For reasons of prestige, Joseph Goebbels and Hermann Göring strove to at least keep the Berliner Tageblatt . In Paris, Lachmann-Mosse received an offer from Goering to continue running the newspaper as manager. For this he was even offered an "honorary arena" . Lachmann-Mosse refused the offer and never returned to Germany. The company also owned newspapers and advertising expeditions abroad, which were not affected by the bankruptcy.

In 1939 he divorced and married Karola Strauch, with whom he emigrated to the USA in 1939 . In Berkeley , the still very wealthy Lachmann-Mosse acquired a large property on the Bay of San Francisco and was also known in California as a generous patron of the arts. Hans Lachmann-Mosse died on April 18, 1944.

literature

  • Peter de Mendelssohn : Berlin newspaper city. People and Powers in the History of the German Press. Ullstein, 1982.
  • Elisabeth Kraus: The Mosse family: German-Jewish bourgeoisie in the 19th and 20th centuries. CH Beck, 1999.
  • Georg L. Mosse : Confronting History - A Memoir. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2000.
  • Dan Diner : Encyclopedia of Jewish History and Culture. Volume 1. Springer-Verlag, 2016.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Georg Lachmann Mosse: Confronting History - A Memoir. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2000, p. 44.
  2. ^ Elisabeth Kraus: The Mosse family: German-Jewish bourgeoisie in the 19th and 20th centuries. CH Beck, 1999. pp. 470 f.
  3. ^ Arnt Cobbers: Erich Mendelsohn - The analytical visionary. Cologne 2007, p. 49 f.
  4. ↑ Kraus, p. 500.
  5. ↑ Kraus, p. 366 f.
  6. ^ Elisabeth Kraus, p. 513
  7. ↑ Kraus, p. 719.
  8. ↑ Margret Boveri: We all lie. Walter Olten Verlag, 1965, p. 219.
  9. ↑ Kraus, p. 501 f.
  10. ^ Norbert Frei, Johannes Schmitz: Journalism in the Third Reich. CH Beck, 2011.
  11. ↑ Jost Hermand : Culture in dark times: Nazi fascism, internal emigration, exile. Böhlau Verlag, 2010. p. 152.
  12. ↑ Kraus, p. 519.
personal data
SURNAME Lachmann-Mosse, Hans
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Lachmann, Hans
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German publisher of the Berliner Tageblatt
DATE OF BIRTH August 9, 1885
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH April 18, 1944
Place of death Oakland