Louis Hagen

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Louis Hagen (born Ludwig Levy on May 15, 1855 in Cologne ; died on October 1, 1932 there ) was a Cologne banker who pursued industrial policy with his bank and thereby rose to become a German business elite.

Career

His parents were Hermann Abraham Löb (then: Levy; * 1825, † 1873), who had been married to Johanna Coppel (* 1832, † 1902) since 1852, whose also Jewish parents ran a steel goods and weapons factory in Solingen. The marriage resulted in seven children (in addition to Louis, among others, Carl , Fanny, married Maximilian Kempner , Albert and Elise). Louis Levy attended the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Gymnasium (Cologne) and the commercial college in Antwerp for two semesters before starting his banking training with Jacob Freiherr von Landau in his banking and trading house Jacob Landau in Berlin. After the early death of his father, Louis Levy joined his father's bank “ Bankhaus A. Levy & Co. ” in 1873 and had been a partner there since 1877. The Cologne-based banking at that time was a leader in the West through the financing of industrialization in the Rhineland and the Ruhr area . Sal. Oppenheim (since 1789), JH Stein bank (1790), A. Schaaffhausen'scher Bankverein (since 1791) and the IH Herstatt bank (since 1793) resided here .

Rise of the Bank

Louis Levy tried to do the banking business with industrial corporate customers, through which he met his wife Anna Emma Hagen (born August 20, 1866, † February 14, 1929). Their father Gottfried Hagen (* 1829, † 1900) was a respected Cologne metal trader and lead pipe manufacturer. In 1886 Levy married his fiancee Anna Emma Hagen, converted to Catholicism and in 1893 took her family name Hagen.

The establishment of the Kölner Land- und Seekabelwerke in May 1898 required high capital requirements, which were covered by a bank consortium through the intermediary of Louis Hagens Bank with a 50% stake and sold by the consortium to Felten & Guilleaume in 1901 . The acquisition of the stake promoted the growth of this Cologne company. In 1903, Hagen was instrumental in creating a cartel in the explosives industry. The United Steelworks van der Zypen emerged in 1903 from the merger of the Wissener Bergwerks- und Hütten-AG with the Cologne steelworks Gebr. Van der Zypen , with Hagen being ascribed a significant share in the merger efforts. In 1913 the A. Levy & Co. ("Levybank") and Oppenheim financed the newly founded "Deutsche Verlagsverein" to take over the Scherl newspaper publisher for 8 million marks to protect it from being acquired by a liberal publisher. In January 1908, Hagen offered his Thyssen share package to the industrialist Hugo Stinnes , who refused. After 1918, Louis Hagen, together with Thyssen , Klöckner and Otto Wolff von Amerongen, acquired the majority of shares in Deutsche Bank AG; Until 1923, Hagen and Otto Wolff held the majority of the shares, which he then left to Otto Wolff alone in 1924. Hagen also had a bank account with the Eschweiler Bergwerksverein , in whose merger with the Luxembourg steel company Arbed in 1913 he played a major role, which earned him a board position at Arbed. When his father-in-law's company converted into a stock corporation in 1922, Levybank was there (the company remained largely family-owned, however). In 1925, Phoenix AG for mining and smelting was in a crisis that could be averted by liquidity loans from the Darmstädter und Nationalbank and the Levy bank. Louis Hagen made the A. Levy banking house one of the most important private bankers of the Weimar Republic.

Mandate activity and offices

Hagen was one of the bankers who linked their company contacts with one another (“big linkers”). Its main task was the bundling of industrial interests, which promoted numerous mergers. The contacts to industry not only brought business to his bank, but also led to a large number of supervisory and administrative board positions for Hagen. This gave him a deeper insight into the respective company and extensive control options. In 1912 he combined a total of 39 supervisory board mandates, in 1927 it had 58 mandates, at its peak in 1930 there were even 93. That is why historians - next to Jakob Goldschmidt , who held up to 123 supervisory board mandates, dubbed him the "king of supervisory boards".

In addition, Louis Hagen held numerous public offices. In 1904 he was appointed to the Commerce Council and in 1916 to the Secret Commerce Council. From 1906 he was a member of the Cologne Chamber of Commerce, in 1912 he was elected its deputy chairman and in 1915 for the first time president. He held this office until his death in 1932. Between 1909 and 1929 he was a city councilor and from 1921 to 1930 a member of the Prussian State Council . He was also represented on the main committee of the German Industry and Trade Congress , the Provisional Reich Economic Council and the Rhenish Provincial Parliament and was also a member of the exclusive General Council of the Reichsbank. From 1922 until his death he was a "supporting member" of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society .

Contacts to Konrad Adenauer

In 1919 Hagen switched to the Center Party , of which Cologne's Lord Mayor Konrad Adenauer was a member. Hagen was subsequently actively involved in German politics. In particular, he was involved in the attempt to make the Rhineland into an at least monetarily autonomous state within the German Republic. According to the "Notes on the Peace Negotiations of Versailles in 1919" by the General Commissioner of the German peace delegation, Ministerialdirigent Hans Simons , the District President Karl von Starck , Mayor Adenauer, the banker Louis Hagen and several members of parliament were present from Cologne on June 6, 1919 . Hagen conducted negotiations with France about the establishment of a Rheinisch-Westfälische central bank , as can be seen from his letter of December 31, 1923 to the then Chancellor Wilhelm Marx . France assumed that all important bankers in the occupied French territories were ready to set up a "Rheinische central bank" for the purpose of their own Rhenish currency ("Rhein-Mark"). In November 1922, Hagen and Mayor Adenauer founded a Cologne emergency community, which was supposed to alleviate the financial distress of the small pensioners affected by the inflation. Louis Hagen bought Birlinghoven Castle privately in 1904 , and Lord Mayor Konrad Adenauer first immortalized himself in his guest book on October 21, 1917.

Birlinghoven Castle
Tomb for Louis Hagen in the Melaten cemetery in Cologne

Crisis in his bank

Since 1922, the Levy bank was linked to the Sal. Oppenheim bank in an interest group (today: profit and loss transfer agreement). In 1928, Hagen became a co-owner of the Oppenheim bank. Hagen, who is characterized as an unscrupulous speculator, brought his bank into a worsening liquidity crisis from 1929 onwards. In August 1931 the Levybank had foreign debts of at least 50 million Reichsmarks. Difficulties were caused by the large loans to industry and municipalities. Since these loans could no longer be mobilized, but the foreign creditors demanded repayment, the bank threatened to become insolvent . This endangered Oppenheim via the community of interests, so that in November 1932 it was decided to abolish the profit and loss community.

At the height of the crisis, Louis Hagen withdrew from the banking business at the age of 75 in 1931 and transferred his duties to the authorized signatory Hermann Leubsdorf, who also took on the role of partner at Levybank and Oppenheim. The liquidation of the Levy bank was due to Hagens' questionable business conduct and, according to Friedrich Carl von Oppenheim, should have taken place without " Aryanization ". The A. Levy banking house was continued until December 31, 1935 to avoid rumors of imminent bankruptcy . In the "Deutsche Volkswirt" of January 31, 1936, the incorporation of the A. Levy bank into the Sal. Oppenheim & Cie. expressly welcomed because of the resulting and used "opportunity ... to eliminate the rest of the non-Aryan character through the personnel changes now made". On December 31, 1938, the Levy bank passed to Hagen's heirs and was finally liquidated on January 10, 1939.

death

Louis Hagen's last official act was on September 30, 1932, the inauguration of the new Cologne Chamber of Commerce and Stock Exchange (Unter Sachsenhausen 4; now: Oppenheim), during which he suffered a stroke in the evening and died on October 1, 1932. His long-time friend Adenauer gave the funeral speech on October 4, 1932. He had two daughters who both married into aristocratic families: Elisabeth (* August 20, 1886; † April 16, 1979) married Clemens Freiherr von Wrede-Melschede in 1909 , Maria (1889–1943) married Baron Robert von Dobenck in 1911 and after his death second marriage 1932 Stanislaus Graf Strachwitz von Groß-Zauche and Camminetz .

Honors

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Louis Hagen (1855-1932), banker. Rhenish history portal of the LVR, accessed on January 23, 2017 .
  2. ↑ Reminder data and personal notes , Deutsche Bergwerkzeitung Essen, May 15, 1925.
  3. ^ The establishment of the Dresdner Bank , University of Cologne / Wolffs, undated, p. 135 (PDF; 2.9 MB)
  4. ↑ Vera Schmidt / Gerald D. Feldman, August Thyssen and Hugo Stinnes , 2003, p. 402.
  5. ↑ Alfred Reckendrees, the "Steel Trust" project: the founding of the United Steelworks , 2000, p 115th
  6. ↑ Ralf Banken, Die Industrialisierung der Saarregion 1815-1914 , Volume 2, 2003, p. 340.
  7. ↑ Alfred Reckendrees, the "Steel Trust" project: the founding of the United Steelworks , 2000, p 143
  8. ↑ Wolfgang Benz / Arnold Pauker / Peter GJ Pulzer, Jüdisches Leben in der Weimarer Republik , 1998, p. 65.
  9. ↑ Harald Wixforth, Banquiers Privés et Industrie Allemande de 1900 a 1933 , 1994, p. 681.
  10. ↑ Ingo Köhler, The "Aryanization" of private banks in the Third Reich , 2005, p. 144.
  11. ↑ Guido Müller, European social relations after the First World War , 2005, p. 298.
  12. ↑ Peter GJ Pulzer, Jews and the German State , 2003, p. 174.
  13. ↑ see Claudia Bergemann with the collaboration of Marion Kazemi and Christel Wegeleben: Directory of members of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society for the Advancement of Science, Part I: A - K , Berlin 1990, series of publications from the archive on the history of the Max Planck Society, Volume 3 / 1, page 100; here is as membership time "FM 1922-1933?" specified.
  14. ↑ Federal Archives
  15. ↑ Peter Fuchs (Ed.,), Chronik zur Geschichte der Stadt Köln , Volume 2, 1991, p. 208
  16. ^ Otto Büsch, Handbuch der Prussischen Geschichte , Volume 1, 1992, p. 596.
  17. ↑ Ingo Köhler, The "Aryanization" of private banks in the Third Reich , 2003, p. 351.
  18. ↑ Der deutsche Volkswirt 10/1936, No. 18 of January 31, 1936, p. 826
  19. ↑ RGVA component 1458, finding aid 1, File 454, F. 51
  20. ↑ Funeral speech in the house of the late privy councilor Dr. Louis Hagen in Cologne , Konrad Adenauer Foundation
  21. ↑ Andreas Freitäger: Honorary Citizen and Honorary Senators of the University of Cologne on uniarchiv.uni-koeln.de, Cologne 2005.
personal data
SURNAME Hagen, Louis
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Levy, Louis Heymann (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German banker
DATE OF BIRTH May 15, 1855
PLACE OF BIRTH Cologne
DATE OF DEATH October 1, 1932
Place of death Cologne