Salomon Oppenheim junior

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Salomon Oppenheim junior

Salomon Oppenheim junior (born June 19, 1772 in Bonn , † November 8, 1828 in Mainz ) was a German banker . He was the founder of the important private bank Sal. Oppenheim Jr. & Cie.

family

Oppenheim's parents were the Bonn merchant Hertz Salomon Oppenheim and his wife Helene Oppenheim nee. Seligmann .

Oppenheim was married to Deigen Levi (1775–1842), who later called herself Therese Stein . She was the daughter of a businessman from Dülmen . He had twelve children with her. The heirs were the sons Abraham Oppenheim and Simon Oppenheim , who expanded the bank considerably. The son Dagobert Oppenheim was co-editor of the Rheinische Zeitung and a railway entrepreneur. His daughter Betty Oppenheim married Heinrich David Hertz from Hamburg. Together with her husband , she converted from Judaism to Christianity. This marriage comes from Gustav Ferdinand Hertz . The physicist Heinrich Hertz is in turn his son. The Nobel Prize winner Gustav Hertz was a great-great-grandson of Salomon Oppenheim.

Life

In 1789 he founded a commission and exchange house in Bonn . The relative Samuel Wolff entered the business as a silent partner. By marrying his daughter from a wealthy merchant family, Oppenheim was able to further improve his financial base.

In 1798, after the end of Kurköln and the end of Bonn as a royal seat, Oppenheim relocated his company to Cologne . He was one of the first Jews to settle in the city after being banned from settling in the city for over four centuries. He was one of the re-founders of the Jewish community in Cologne.

Economically, Oppenheim was very successful. At first, financial and commercial transactions were closely linked. It was of great importance that the French occupation authorities entrusted him with collecting the Jewish tax. He was also active, albeit to a limited extent, in the real estate business. As early as 1810, he was considered the most important banker in Cologne after Abraham Schaaffhausen . He was the highest taxed member of the Jewish community. In 1816 his company was first named “Sal. Oppenheim jr. & Cie “.

Together with the Mendelssohn bank from Berlin, Oppenheim was commissioned from 1818 to organize the French war indemnity payments to Prussia. In gratitude he was later given the honorary title of Royal Prussian Oberhof agent.

He was the first Jew to become a member of the Cologne Chamber of Commerce in 1822. At the beginning of the 1820s he began to turn increasingly to the financing of the emerging industry. This included his involvement in setting up steam shipping on the Rhine and in establishing transport insurance.

literature

personal data
SURNAME Oppenheim, Salomon junior
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German banker
DATE OF BIRTH June 19, 1772
PLACE OF BIRTH Bonn
DATE OF DEATH November 8, 1828
Place of death Mainz