Otto Bertram (businessman)

Otto Bertram (* April 1895 ; † July 22 or 23, 1963 in Hamburg ) was a German businessman. He was particularly active in the cocoa business and held numerous offices and honorary posts.

Among other things, he was the sole owner of Otto Bertram & Co. The Bertram group included the companies Wehrstedt & Sprung, Reiswunderwerk Otto FC Bertram , Ganpuley & Co., Donauländische import and export Otto FC Bertram, Otto Bertram & Co. Assekuranz GmbH and C. Hedrich KG.

Life

Otto Bertram's family ran a gardening business in Klein Flottbek . In 1912 he graduated from high school, after which he began a commercial apprenticeship at the trading house Rickmers & Co. He participated in the First World War as a front officer, where he was wounded several times. Afterwards it was time volunteer in a Hamburg Freikorps , before returning in 1920 to Rickmers & Co.. There he became an authorized signatory, later managing director, co-owner, personally liable partner and most recently sole owner.

At the age of 45 he married his secretary Gertrud Jahn, with whom he had a son, Heinz Otto, who also became a businessman.

In addition to cocoa, Otto Bertram also imported green coffee, pulses, rice, powdered milk, fruit juices, sugar and dried fruits.

In 1959 he was awarded the Great Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany .

Bertram, who used to work twelve to 16 hours a day, left his office building on Alsterufer 10 on the evening of July 22nd, 1963 to take the underground to Ohlstedt , where he lived. The next day his body was found next to the tracks. Whether it was an accident or a suicide was not conclusively clarified.

The fact that, a few hours after Bertram's death, the authorized signatory Hans Bahlmann discovered a notarial notification about the entry of four million DM mortgages and land charges on Bertram's property that had always been unencumbered up to this point spoke in favor of suicide. Neither Bahlmann nor the other authorized signatories, Pape and Feths, had known of the difficulties the company was facing. Bertram, who had never been in debt before and had earned well on raw cocoa imports, had always been considered creditworthy and enjoyed an excellent reputation as a businessman. What had broken his neck were the ten medium-sized cocoa and chocolate factories known in the industry as "Bertram satellites", to which he had given unusually generous payment terms. Among the “Bertram satellites” were the Agila Schokoladen- und Zukkerwarenfabrik GmbH, the Nordische Kakao- und Schokoladenfabrik GmbH in Flensburg and the Dortmunder Rohmassenfabrik GmbH. In the summer of 1963 these companies owed Bertram about 15 million marks. In a report in Der Spiegel about Bertram's life and death, it was speculated that the businessman did not have the heart to drive these financially weak companies into bankruptcy and that he could not bring himself to admit his mistakes. He tried to plug the financial holes by taking out loans from various banks and was ultimately forced to put mortgages on his private and business real estate and land.

After Bertram's death, the liabilities were estimated at around ten million marks; after his sudden demise, the creditors agreed on a 30-day grace period for the company. The auditor Friedrich C. Busch was supposed to determine the exact status. Bertram had never taken anyone into confidence, had only given his authorized signatory a free hand in limited areas and had no personal contact with his employees. The collapse of his company was considered the greatest illiquidity of the city-state of Hamburg after Willy Schlieker's bankruptcy.

In the same year the trading house Otto Bertram & Co. with all affiliated companies was sold to the Swiss holding company Savyon SA in Lausanne for 5.5 million marks .

Offices and honorary positions

Bertram held 25 honorary positions in the West German economy. According to the Mirror , he held "13 Executive and Präsidialposten with German and international chambers of commerce, economic bodies, foreign trade committees, major trade associations, market associations, administrative and research councils." As chairman of the Import Committee wholesalers and retailers, he published in 1951 in the time an article entitled Raw materials for the German export industry and as chairman of the association of companies involved in the raw cocoa trade and the Research Institute for the Cocoa Industry e. V. he wrote a foreword to Herbert Holst's Little Cocoa Customer in 1960 .

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b} Eva Maria Gajek, Christoph Lorke et al., Social inequality in sight. Perception and interpretation of poverty and wealth since 1945 , Campus Verlag 2016, ISBN 978-3593504728 , p. 45
2. ↑ Der Spiegel 40, October 2, 1963, p. 126 ( digitized version )
3. ^ Bertram crisis. Chocolate in the balance sheet , in: Der Spiegel 35, 1963, p. 28 f. ( Digitized version )
4. ^ Die Zeit 41, October 11, 1951 ( digitized version )