Kurt Arnhold

Kurt Arnhold (born April 29, 1887 in Dresden , died September 9, 1951 in São Paulo , Brazil ) was a German-Brazilian banker.

Kurt Arnhold was born as the fourth child of the Dresden banker Georg Arnhold and his wife Anna. Beyer (1860–1917) was born in Dresden and, after completing elementary school, attended the Kreuzschule in Dresden, studied law in Freiburg, Munich, Berlin and Leipzig and completed this period of study in Leipzig in 1911 with a doctorate on The Right to Dividend in Public Companies . In 1914, like his brothers, he became a partner in the banking house Gebrüder Arnhold , which was founded in 1864 by his uncle Max Arnhold , and in the same year he became a soldier in the First World War (awarded the Iron Cross 1st class). After the war he took over the business of the bank at the side of his brother Heinrich .

Kurt Arnhold was involved in the social field and, like most of his family, promoted art and culture and was active as treasurer of the Dresden Museum Association founded in 1911. He himself collected paintings, but also drawings and graphics of contemporary art, mainly impressionists and a few expressionists.

The process of "aryanization" of the Arnhold brothers' banking house began as soon as the National Socialists came to power. Kurt Arnhold was in Dresden until the end of 1938, after the death of his brother Heinrich in 1935, he was solely responsible for it from the family, who, under increasingly difficult conditions and increasing pressure, made it possible in large parts to store large parts of the private collections, albeit at great financial losses , could be taken abroad and the family could travel to Switzerland in several stages by 1939 and all family members were able to survive.

Kurt Arnhold then came from Switzerland with his family to Great Britain via the Netherlands. He himself and his wife moved to São Paulo, where his brother Adolf had already emigrated in 1936, although almost nothing is known about his work in Brazil.

He himself was able to save the so-called Arnhold Library , consisting of around 350 titles with 450 volumes, which he collected in the period from approx. 1910 to approx. 1935, some with personal dedications, to Brazil. This came in the early 1990s, donated by his son George Gerard Arnhold , directly from São Paulo to the Evangelical Kreuzgymnasium in Dresden.

Kurt Arnhold married Else Leonore Zimmermann (born August 17, 1895) in 1917 and had three sons with her (Georg-Gerhard, later George Gerard (born September 4, 1918), Hans-Eduard (born December 10, 1921) and Werner-Georg (born March 17, 1925)).

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b c d} Lars Weber: “Arnhold Library” ?! What's this? What is it? How did she get to us? , (PDF), accessed on May 26, 2018.
2. ↑ On the process itself and the effect on the departure see Ingo Köhler: The 'Aryanization' of the private banks in the Third Reich: repression, elimination and the question of reparations. CH Beck, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-406-53200-9 , pp. 207-239, limited book preview at books.google.de , accessed on May 26, 2018.
3. ↑ Wolfgang Appell: Jews in Erlangen , Volume II, First World War, pp. 3–4, PDF , accessed on May 27, 2018