Moritz James Oppenheimer

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Moritz James Oppenheimer (born June 10, 1879 in Butzbach ; † May 4, 1941 in Frankfurt am Main ) was a German entrepreneur, equestrian and victim of National Socialism.

Moritz James Oppenheimer was the son of Mayer Oppenheimer and Pauline Oppenheimer, nee Seligmann. He was initially of the Jewish faith and later described himself as a dissident . In 1901 he married Emma Katharina Oppenheimer, née Neuhoff. The wife was of Protestant denomination. The two children Walter Georg and Paula Hertha were also baptized Protestants.

Moritz James Oppenheimer did an apprenticeship as a printer. In the First World War he did military service . After the war he became the owner of the "Central German mechanical paper goods factory" in Frankfurt with a branch in Berlin . The company was considered the largest in the German Empire . Between 200 and 220 people were employed in Frankfurt and another 70 to 80 people in Berlin.

Moritz James Oppenheimer was an avid fan of equestrian sports and in 1922 acquired the Erlenhof stud farm in Dornholzhausen and a racing stable in Berlin- Hoppegarten . He was president of the sports cartel in Bad Pyrmont , Bad Harzburg and Bad Homburg , member of the executive committee of the Reich Association for Breeding and Testing of German Warmbloods, co-founder of the Bavarian Riding School in Munich and from 1929 to 1936 he was Honorary Consul of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in Frankfurt. He was a member of the DNVP . With the support of the well-known hippologists Gustav Rau and Richard Sternberg, the estate became a victorious racing team in horse races. The most successful horse from this time from Erlenhof was Count Isolani , two-time winner of the Hansa Prize , the Blue Ribbon, the Union, the German St. Leger and above all the German Derby 1929.

Due to the global economic crisis , his company fell into crisis in 1929. In 1930 Oppenheimer took a loan of 100,000 Reichsmarks from Richard Kaselowsky and had to pawn horses in return. Kaselowsky ran a stud in Ebbesloh since 1926 . In 1933 Oppenheimer had to file for bankruptcy and the stud with 60 horses and an estimated value of 200,000 Reichsmarks was bought by the steel industrialist Heinrich von Thyssen-Bornemisza . Thyssen paid a total of RM 350,000. For Oppenheimer's racing team in Hoppegarten 160,000 RM and 190,000 RM for the property in Dornholzhausen. Oppenheimer was dissatisfied with the sales proceeds. For Count Isolani alone, he would have had a bid of 180,000 RM. Thyssen acquired the estate through its Dutch subsidiary Naamlooze Vennootschap Hollandsch Trustkantoor. The reason for this was that he could pay the purchase price in blocked marks .

Stumbling block for Moritz James Oppenheimer
Schumannstrasse 15 in Frankfurt

There were allegations in the local press that Oppenheimer had put money from his paper factory into the stud (the stud had cost 10 to 15,000 RM annually) and that was how he triggered the bankruptcy. This reporting also had anti-Semitic features. The prosecution brought bankruptcy and fraud charges. In 1933 Moritz James Oppenheimer was arrested in Frankfurt Central Station and taken into custody until the end of 1934. In June 1933 the trial took place before the Great Frankfurt Criminal Chamber. After three days of negotiations, he was no longer able to be questioned due to health problems and the process was discontinued.

Because of his Jewish origins, he was under persecution during the Nazi era . His wife had been separated from him since 1935, and in 1936 she filed for divorce to protect her children and herself.

Moritz James Oppenheimer lived at Schumannstrasse 15 after his release from prison . The house, which is now a listed building, was owned by him. It is an Art Nouveau residential building by the architect Julius Hermann Lönholdt with sculpted decorative elements. Due to his illness, he also lived temporarily in Bad Nauheim and Wiesbaden. Because of the threat of deportation , he committed suicide in 1941 with an overdose of sleeping pills.

A stumbling block in Frankfurt reminds of him.

See also

literature

  • Felix de Taillez: Two citizens' lives in public: The brothers Fritz Thyssen and Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza, 2017, ISBN 9783657784455 , pp. 164–167.
  • Heinz Groesche: History of the Jews in Bad Homburg before the height 1866 to 1945, 1991, ISBN 9783782904124 , pp. 61–62.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Oppenheimer, Moritz James
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German entrepreneur, equestrian and Nazi victims
DATE OF BIRTH June 10, 1879
PLACE OF BIRTH Butzbach
DATE OF DEATH May 4, 1941
Place of death Frankfurt am Main