Marthe Hanau

Marthe Hanau (born January 1, 1886 in Paris , † July 14, 1935 in Fresnes ) was a French investment fraudster. It defrauded the French financial markets of several million francs in the 1920s and 1930s , causing a scandal.

Life

Marthe Hanau's parents were Jewish small traders from Alsace . She married Lazare Bloch, from whom she later divorced. In 1925, she founded the business magazine Gazette du Franc with him , which she continued to run with him after their divorce. In this magazine, stock tips for speculators were regularly distributed, and mainly papers from companies of which the two were co-owners were advertised, and here again often mere corporate cloaks without operational activity or even bogus companies. Still, the prices of these stocks soared simply because of the increased trading volume.

Hanau further expanded its financial and advisory activities, founded a financial news agency called Agence Interpresse and launched bonds that promised eight percent profit.

At this point at the latest, banks and the rival agency Agence Havas became aware of the dubious business dealings and began to investigate and fight against them. Initially, Hanau managed to gain time and avert the public scandal by bribing various politicians, but on December 17, 1928, Hanau, Bloch and other accomplices were arrested by the police. You were charged with fraud and were initially held in Saint-Lazare prison . At that time, investors who had followed the criminal investment recommendations had already lost 120 million French francs.

Fifteen months later the trial opened. Marthe Hanau complained that the court did not understand anything about financial transactions, claimed that she could repay any money and demanded her release on bail . When she was refused this request, she went on a hunger strike and was transferred to a clinic in Neuilly three weeks later , where she was force-fed. In an unsupervised moment, she escaped, but returned to St. Lazare Prison.

The main negotiations began on February 20, 1932, during which Hanau announced the names of all politicians who had been bribed by it, thus causing a scandal. She was sentenced to two years in prison, but was credited with 15 months that she had already served. Bloch was sentenced to 18 months in prison, the other accomplices to fines.

After her release from prison, Marthe Hanau acquired the Forces magazine, but in 1932 again came into conflict with the law due to betrayal of secrets and was again sentenced to 3 months in prison. She appealed, but the decision was rejected, whereupon she fled. The police later succeeded in arresting her and serving her term in custody. She killed herself in prison with an overdose of sleeping pills.

Literature (selection)

• T. de Morembert, Hanau Marthe , in: M. Prévost, Roman d'Amat (ed.), Dictionnaire de biographie française , Paris, Letouzey et Ané, 1954
• Dominique Desanti : Marthe Hanau: la banquière des années folles . Paris: Fayard, 1968
• Florence Montreynaud, Le XXe siècle des femmes , Paris, Nathan, 1989, pp. 219-220
• Hanau Marthe, in: Lucienne Mazenod, Ghislaine Schoeller, Dictionnaire des femmes célèbres , Paris, Robert Laffont-Bouquins, 1992, p. 386.

Artistic processing

The life of Marthe Hanau forms the basis for Dieter Kühn's novel The President from 1973.

In 1980 the film La Banquière was released , which portrayed Marthe Hanau's fate alienated, with Romy Schneider in the leading role of "Emma Eckhert".

Web links

• Newspaper article about Marthe Hanau in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ HANAU Marthe 1886–1935. La banquière des années folles. ( Memento of the original from October 12, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. On: Présences féminines juives en France (XIXè-XXè siècles). 
2. ↑ Renate Merklein: And Madame's thief honor? In: Der Spiegel . No. 45 , 1973, p. 200 ( online - Nov. 5, 1973 ).