Wilhelm Berliner

Wilhelm Berliner (born May 1, 1881 in Vienna ; † February 17, 1936 there ) was the general director of the Austrian Phönix life insurance group. His sudden death "as a result of a negligently treated otitis media" triggered the Phoenix scandal .

His parents were the Lviv factory owner Adolf Berliner and Sali (Selma) Kolischer, who came from a well-known Jewish family in Lviv. He was born at Babenbergerstrasse 5, Vienna I.

Little was known about the Berliner born in Vienna, a bachelor, even during his lifetime, but he was considered a brilliant personality with mysterious features and the “Napoleon of the insurance industry”. In 1919 Berliner was an advisor to the Austrian delegation in Saint-Germain .

An article in TIME Magazine on April 20, 1936 describes him as corpulent, bald, power-conscious and respected in all the state chancelleries in Europe. Since the end of the (First World) War, he has not had his own apartment, but has spent around 300 nights a year on trains - practically without sleep. Berliner never used sleeping cars either, but dictated four secretaries in his compartment at night. Berliners also traveled practically without luggage and only stayed in third-class hotels, but occupied six rooms each. Gerald D. Feldman calls Berliner a "remarkable personality, linguist, mathematician, financial expert and lawyer". In the obituary of the "Wiener Zeitung" of February 18, 1936, it is said that Dr. Berliner had “mastered all the world's languages” and was “so masterful that he was highly valued not only as an expert but also as an interpreter at international congresses”. A special relationship of trust connected him with the Yugoslav politician Milan Stojadinović . After Berliner's death, the financial house of cards in his long-hollowed corporation collapsed.

Berliner died in the sanatorium Auerspergstraße , Vienna VIII., And was found on February 20, 1936 in the new Jewish part of the Vienna Central Cemetery (Gate IV.), Group 2, Row 4 No. 32 buried.

literature

• Gerald D. Feldman : Allianz and the German Insurance Business 1933–45 , Cambridge (England) 2001.
• Hans H. Lembke: Phoenix, Viennese and Berliners. The rise and fall of a European insurance group. Springer VS, Wiesbaden 2016, ISBN 978-3-658-10973-8 .