STUVWXYZ – Historical Association of Deutsche Bank

Show content of Salomon, Max

first name(s), surname:

Max Salomon / Max S. Shellens

day of birth:

03.11.1884

birthplace:

Frankfurt am Main

day of death:

19.02.1961

place of death:

Plymouth, United Kingdom

photo / document:

	Max Salomon in December 1927
	Letter from Max Salomon to the Management Board of Deutsche Bank dated 21 December 1938, in which he announced his emigration and requested information about his future pension. His family initially stayed behind in Germany and emigrated to the US in 1941. His wife had received pension payments from the bank until then. (HADB, P02/S1062)

life:

The son of the Frankfurt stockbroker Emil Salomon joined the Frankfurt branch of Disconto-Gesellschaft in 1913 after completing his law studies with a doctorate. After a number of years, he advanced to head of the Secretariat (syndicate department). In 1925 he moved to the Elberfeld branch (now part of Wuppertal) of Disconto-Gesellschaft, where he became head of internal affairs. In mid-1929 he was appointed full director and co-manager of the Erfurt branch of Disconto-Gesellschaft. He retained this position even after the merger between Disconto-Gesellschaft and Deutsche Bank. At the end of 1934, he was retired early because of his Jewish descent. Already in mid-1934, Salomon moved his residence back to Frankfurt. He was imprisoned in the Buchenwald concentration camp from 11 November to 20 December 1938. On 19 April 1939, Salomon emigrated to the United Kingdom. His non-Jewish wife and two children initially remained in Frankfurt, but decided to emigrate to the USA in May 1941. In the post-war period, the family lived in the United Kingdom, where Max Salomon took his wife's maiden name - Schellens - and changed it to Shellens. Under the name M. S. Shellens, he published a series of writings on legal philosophy that attracted attention in professional circles.

joined Deutsche Bank:

04.03.1913 (Disconto-Gesellschaft)

end of employment:

31.12.1934

career:

1913 - 1925 Disconto-Gesellschaft Frankfurt am Main branch (1919, Prokurist [holders of commercial power of attorney], 1921 deputy director)
1925 - 1929 Disconto-Gesellschaft Elberfeld branch
1929 Disconto-Gesellschaft Erfurt branch (director)
1929 - 1934 Deutsche Bank und Disconto-Gesellschaft Erfurt branch (director)

last known address:

Frankfurt am Main, Eppsteiner Str. 45, "Stolperstein" (literally “stumbling stone or block”, metal cobblestone commemorating an individual victim of Nazism) laid in May 2022 on the initiative of Deutsche Bank

emigration:

19.04.1939 to the UK

archival source:

HADB, P02/S1062

literature:

M. S. Shellens, Das sittliche Verhalten zum Mitmenschen im Anschluß an Aristoteles, Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag 1958

link:

https://spurensuche.dav-frankfurtmain.de/biografien/details/Salomon-Max.html

https://catalog.princeton.edu/?f%5bauthor_s%5d%5b%5d=Salomon%2C+Max%2C+1884-

Show content of Simon, Emil

first name(s), surname:

Emil Simon

day of birth:

09.03.1856

birthplace:

Friedberg (Hesse)

day of death:

29.03.1934

place of death:

Frankfurt am Main

photo / document:

	Emil Simon around 1920
	Letter of condolence from the Frankfurt am Main branch to Gertrud Simon dated March 29, 1934 (HADB, P3/S69)

life:

Emil Simon was born in Friedberg on March 9, 1856. In 1871, he began an apprenticeship at the Frankfurt private bank Marcus Königswarter, which took him on as an employee after he completed his apprenticeship. When the private bank went into liquidation in 1878, he joined Frankfurter Bankverein. When Frankfurter Bankverein was absorbed into the Frankfurt branch of Deutsche Bank, which had been newly founded in 1886, Simon rose to become its stock exchange representative and head of the stock exchange department, followed by his appointment to a holder of power of attorney in 1890. In 1895, he married Gertrud Epstein (born in London in 1873). The marriage produced two children Siegfried (later Frederick) Hermann Simon (b.1899) and Hermann Ernst Simon (b.1900). In 1911, Emil Simon was appointed deputy director of the Frankfurt branch of Deutsche Bank. He retired at the beginning of 1925.
He did not have to experience personal persecution by the Nazi regime, since he died in spring 1934. His wife Gertrud emigrated to Great Britain in November 1935. She passed away in London on September 19, 1943. Their two sons also managed to escape from Germany. Frederick, like his mother, went to Great Britain, where he died in Merstham on November 23, 1984. Hermann emigrated to the United States in 1937, served in the U.S. Armed Forces, and settled as a lawyer in New York, where he died on August 14, 1990.

joined Deutsche Bank:

01.08.1878 (Frankfurter Bankverein)

end of employment:

01.01.1925

career:

1871 private bank Marcus Königswarter, Frankfurt am Main (apprenticeship and empolyee)
01.08.1878 Frankfurter Bankverein (employee)
01.10.1886 Deutsche Bank Filiale Frankfurt am Main (stock exchange representative and head of the stock exchange department)
19.12.1890 Deutsche Bank Filiale Frankfurt am Main (attorney)
21.12.1911 Deutsche Bank Filiale Frankfurt am Main (deputy director)
Oktober 1924 Deutsche Treuhand A.G. für Warenverkehr, Berlin (trustee)
01.01.1925 retirement

last known address:

Finkenhofstraße 40, Frankfurt am Main

archival source:

HADB, P3/S1435, P3/S69

link:

https://www.geni.com/people/Emil-Simon/6000000176905082929

Show content of Solmssen, Georg

first name(s), surname:

Georg Solmssen

day of birth:

07.08.1869

birthplace:

Berlin

day of death:

10.01.1957

place of death:

Lugano

photo / document:

	Georg Solmssen around 1920
	In a letter to the Chairman of the Supervisory Board Franz Urbig on April 1933, Solmssen expressed himself prophetically on the coming fate of the economic elite with Jewish origins: "I fear we are only at the beginning of a conscious and planned development which is aimed at the indiscriminate economic and moral destruction of all members of the Jewish race living in Germany." (HADB, P01/0014)

life:

detailed biography

joined Deutsche Bank (or precursor):

August 1900 (Disconto-Gesellschaft)

end of employment:

End of May 1934 as Member of the Management Board, August 1938 as Member of the Supervisory Board

career:

1904 - 1911 Director Disconto-Gesellschaft
1911 - 1929 Joint Proprietor Disconto-Gesellschaft
1929 - 1934 Member of the Management Board of Deutsche Bank und Disconto-Gesellschaft
1933 Spokesman of the Management Board of Deutsche Bank und Disconto-Gesellschaft
1934 - 1937 Member of the Supervisory Board of Deutsche Bank und Disconto-Gesellschaft
1937 - 1938 Member of the Supervisory Board of Deutsche Bank

last known address in Germany:

Berlin, Alsenstraße 9

emigrated:

1938 to Switzerland

archival sources:

HADB, P01/0014

literature:

Harold James / Martin L. Müller (Hrsg.), Ein deutscher Bankier. Briefe aus einem halben Jahrhundert 1900-1956, München 2012

links:

https://www.deutsche-biographie.de/gnd117462497.html

Show content of Steckelmacher, Fritz

first name(s), surname:

Fritz Steckelmacher (Frederick Stokes)

day of birth:

25.05.1885

birthplace:

Mannheim

day of death:

30.12.1987

place of death:

London

photo / document:

Steckelmacher-Fritz--Schreiben intern--300

Letter from the personnel department of the Berlin head office to the management of the Frankfurt branch. The "Betriebsführer" (operating manager) and the "Vertrauensrat" (Council of Confidence) of the Wiesbaden branch had previously approached the management in Frankfurt with the demand that the authorised signatory Fritz Steckelmacher be transferred or retired because of his Jewish origin. The personnel department of the Berlin head office reluctantly gave into the pressure and prematurely retired Steckelmacher in July 1935. (HADB, P03/S1443)

life:

Born in 1885 as the son of the Mannheim city rabbi Dr. phil. Moritz (Moshe) Steckelmacher, who came from Boskovice in the Czech Republic, Fritz Steckelmacher graduated from high school in 1901 and then began his professional career with an apprenticeship at the Weil & Benjamin bank in Mannheim. From 1906 he worked for stockbrokers in London and Paris. From February 1915 he did military service. In 1919, Steckelmacher initially returned to Mannheim to the Süddeutsche Disconto-Gesellschaft for a few months before moving to the E. Ladenburg banking business in Frankfurt as a stockbroker and authorised signatory. After the business of E. Ladenburg was liquidated during the merger of Deutsche Bank, Steckelmacher was a stock exchange representative and authorised signatory of Deutsche Bank und Disconto-Gesellschaft in Frankfurt and took over the position of authorised signatory at the Wiesbaden branch in October 1931. As early as September 1933, the "Betriebsführer" (manager) of the Wiesbaden branch took a stand against Steckelmacher with reference to his Jewish origins. Together with the so-called Council of Confidence ("Vertrauensrat"), he finally secured the retirement of Steckelmacher on 1 July 1935. In 1939, Steckelmacher emigrated to London with his wife. He had held British citizenship since 1911 and changed his name to Frederick Stokes. Pension payments to him were stopped in 1941. In the 1950s, Frederick Stokes worked as an accountant for a London wine merchant. His brother Ernst, district rabbi in Mannheim, was murdered in the Lublin-Majdanek concentration camp, his brother Siegfried, a neurologist, emigrated to Israel. Frederick Stokes died in London at the age of 102.

joined Deutsche Bank (or precursor):

01.05.1919 (E. Ladenburg)

end of employment:

01.07.1935

career:

01.09.1901 - 31.12.1905 Weil & Benjamin, Mannheim (apprenticeship, employee)
01.01.1906 - 01.08.1908 Bierer & Co., London (correspondent)
01.08.1908 - 01.09.1911 Paul & Schweder (arbitration with Paris and Berlin)
01.10.1911 - 31.07.1914 Albert Guggenheim (arbitration with London and Holland)
1919 - 30.04.1919 Süddeutsche Disconto-Gesellschaft AG, Mannheim
01.05.1919 - 30.11.1929 E. Ladenburg, Frankfurt (exchange agent, attorney) (1930 takeover of Deutsche Bank)
01.12.1929 - 04.10.1931 Deutsche Bank und Disconto-Gesellschaft Frankfurt branch (exchange agent, attorney)
05.10.1931 - 30.06.1935 Deutsche Bank und Disconto-Gesellschaft Wiesbaden branch (attorney)
1950s accountant in a London wine business

last known address:

Wiesbaden, Rheinstraße 98

emigration:

1939 to London

archival sources:

HADB, P85/S0129/1; HADB, P03/S1443; HADB, P33/St0007

Show content of Steinthal, Max

first name(s), surname:

Max Steinthal

day of birth:

24.12.1850

birthplace:

Berlin

day of death:

08.12.1940

place of death:

Berlin

photo / document:

Max Steinthal around 1925

Group photo on occasion of Max Steinthal's 80th birthday in his private Berlin home in December 1930. Steinthal is seated with the ladies in the centre, next to him on the right his wife Fanny. Behind him several Board and Supervisory Board Members of Deutsche Bank and Disconto-Gesellschaft, among them his Jewish colleagues Theodor Frank (4th left), Oscar Wassermann (7th left), Georg Solmssen (2nd right).

life:

detailed biography

joined Deutsche Bank (or precursor):

13.12.1873

end of employment:

01.05.1935

career:

1866-1871 Bankhaus A. Paderstein
1872-1873 A. Paderstein'scher Bankverein (Director)
1873-1905 Member of the Deutsche Bank Management Board
1905-1923 Member of the Deutsche Bank Supervisory Board
1923-1932 Chairman of the Deutsche Bank Supervisory Board
1932-1935 Member of the Deutsche Bank Supervisory Board

last known address:

Berlin, Budapester Straße, Hotel Eden

archival sources:

HADB, SG01/079

literature:

Max Fuchs: Max Steinthal zu seinem achtzigsten Geburtstag am 24. Dezember 1930 (commemorative publication). Berlin 1930.
Paul Wittig: Max Steinthal – Sein Wirken für die Berliner Hoch- und Untergrundbahnen, in: Die Fahrt – Zeitschrift der Berliner Verkehrs-Aktiengesellschaft, 3. Vol, No. 3, Berlin 1931, pp. 45-48.
Erich Achterberg: Berliner Hochfinanz – Kaiser, Fürsten, Millionäre um 1900. Fritz Knapp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1965. Biography Steinthal pp. 28-33.
Max Steinthal: Ein Bankier und seine Bilder. Berlin 2004.

links:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Steinthal

https://objekte.jmberlin.de/object/jmb-obj-173705/Stammbaum+der+Familie+Steinthal+%281720-1935%29

Show content of Strauss, Else

first name(s), surname:

Else Strauss

day of birth:

30.07.1896

birthplace:

Offenbach am Main

day of death:

29.01.1943

place of death:

Theresienstadt ghetto

document:

Strauss. Else, Schreiben 20-7-1940_Breite 300_dotCMS

Letter from Else Strauss to the management of Deutsche Bank Frankfurt branch dated 18 July 1940 on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of her joining.

life:

Else Strauss was the daughter of the Frankfurt merchant Siegfried Strauss and his wife Flora, née Liffmann. After attending the Lyceum and the commercial school, she worked for the Frankfurt cigar agent Julius Goetz from mid-1914 to mid-1915. At the beginning of August 1915, she joined Deutsche Bank Frankfurt branch. At that time, many men called up for military service were replaced by women with commercial qualifications. She was last employed in the bills of exchange department. Due to a severe illness (multiple sclerosis) she was retired in 1938. Her health continued to deteriorate. Else Strauss remained single. She died at the beginning of 1943 in the ghetto of Theresienstadt, where she had been deported in August 1942.

joined Deutsche Bank (or precursor):

02.08.1915

end of employment:

01.04.1938

career:

1914 - 1915 Julius Goetz, cigar agent, Frankfurt
1915 - 1938 Deutsche Bank Frankfurt branch (lastly as scale-wage employee in the exchange department)

last known address:

Frankfurt am Main, Marienbaderstraße 27 (before 1935 and after 1945 Karl-Flesch-Straße), "Stolperstein" (literally “stumbling stone or block”, metal cobblestone commemorating an individual victim of Nazism) laid in September 2021 on the initiative of Deutsche Bank

transports:

19.08.1942 from Frankfurt to Theresienstadt (XII/I)

archival sources:

HADB, P03/S1140

links:

https://www.holocaust.cz/en/database-of-victims/victim/34450-else-strauss/

https://www.ushmm.org/online/hsv/person_view.php?PersonId=1497270<

https://yvng.yadvashem.org/nameDetails.html?language=en&itemId=11643353&ind=1

Show content of Trier, Alfred

first name(s), surname:

Alfred Trier

day of birth:

30.03.1888

birthplace:

Frankfurt am Main

date of death:

April 1996

place of death:

New York

photo / document:

	In 1988, a Deutsche Bank representative congratulated Alfred Trier (centre) on the occasion of his 100th birthday in New York. On the right his wife Adele
	In August 1941, Alfred Trier had to provide a certificate of existence from his New York exile, in order to maintain pension payments from Germany. Since the German consulate had ceased its activities at that time, he commissioned a New York notary to do so. (HADB, P03/T0001)

life:

After school, Alfred Trier joined the Frankfurt private bank E. Ladenburg as an apprentice in 1903. Following his apprenticeship, he was permanently employed there and worked mainly in stock exchange trading. In late 1929, E. Ladenburg was taken over by Deutsche Bank. Due to general rationalization measures, but also for health reasons, Trier took early retirement at the age of only 42. In the meantime he had risen to the position of holder of a power of attorney (Prokurist). In February 1939, he emigrated to New York with his wife Adele, née Abraham, and his son Paul (from his first marriage). With the entry of the United States into the Second World War in December 1941, the pension payments of Deutsche Bank ended. They were resumed after 1945. Despite his challenged physical constitution, Alfred Trier reached an exceptionally old age of 108. On his 100th birthday in 1988, a delegation from Deutsche Bank visited him in New York.

joined Deutsche Bank:

01.10.1903 (E. Ladenburg)

end of employment:

31.12.1930

career:

01.10.1903 - 30.11.1929 E. Ladenburg, Frankfurt (apprenticeship, employess, attorney, stock exchange trading)
01.12.1929 - 31.12.1930 Deutsche Bank und Disconto-Gesellschaft Frankfurt branch (chief clerk)

last known address:

Textorstraße 17, Frankfurt am Main

emigration:

February 1939 to the United States

archival source:

HADB, P03/T0001

literature:

Die Deutsche Bank in Frankfurt am Main , 2005, p. 96

link:

https://de.findagrave.com/memorial/81032481/alfred-trier

Show content of Wassermann, Oscar

first name(s), surname:

Oscar Wassermann

day of birth:

04.04.1869

birthplace:

Bamberg

day of death:

08.09.1934

place of death:

Garmisch

photo / document:

	undated painting of Oscar Wassermann by Raffael Schuster Woldan
	Oscar Wassermann's farewell address on the occasion of his official retirement in December 1933, printed as facsimile in Deutsche Bank’s staff magazine 'Monatshefte der Deutschen Bank und Disconto-Gesellschaft': "It was no longer possible for me to lead the bank back to its former strength and greatness through the turmoil of the past and the difficulties of the present."

life:

detailed biography

joined Deutsche Bank (or precursor):

01.04.1912

end of employment:

31.12.1933

career:

1889 - 1912 Bankhaus A.E. Wassermann Bamberg, Berlin branch
1912 - 1933 Deutsche Bank (Member of the Management Board, since 1923 Speaker of the Management Board)

last known address in Germany:

Berlin, Rauchstraße 14

archival source:

HADB, SG01/084

literature:

Avraham Barkai, Oscar Wassermann und die Deutsche Bank - Bankier in schwieriger Zeit, München 2005

link:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_Wassermann

Show content of Wolff, Hans

first name(s), surname:

Hans Wolff

day of birth:

05.04.1911

birthplace:

Freiburg (Breisgau)

date of death:

unknown

place of death:

unknown

photo / document:

	Hans Wolff, 1932
	In a letter dated 7 February 1958, the State Office for Reparation in Freiburg asked the Deutsche Bank in Freiburg for information in order to decide on Hans Wolff's application due to "persecution-related damage to professional advancement". (HADB, P25/W26)

life:

Hans Wolff was the son of Willy Wolff, director of the Freiburg branch of Süddeutsche Disconto-Gesellschaft.
After attending the secondary school in Freiburg, he transferred to the upper commercial school there in 1928, from which he graduated the following year. He then began his apprenticeship at Süddeutsche Disconto-Gesellschaft branch in Freiburg, which he continued at Deutsche Bank und Disconto-Gesellschaft in Freiburg after Süddeutsche Disconto-Gesellschaft was merged to this new big bank in October 1929. After completing his apprenticeship, Wolff worked at the branches of Deutsche Bank und Disconto-Gesellschaft in Freiburg, Mannheim and finally in Villingen from mid-1931 to mid-1933. The inflammatory article "Jud Wolff der Sadist von Freiburg", published against him in the anti-Semitic weekly newspaper "Der Stürmer" at the beginning of June 1933, caused him to resign from the bank and leave Germany. He emigrated to England. After the war, he asserted claims against the state under the Federal Compensation Act due to the forced departure and the associated "damage to his professional advancement". In 1958, he reached an agreement with Deutsche Bank for a one-time payment in exchange for waiving his right to re-employment. During this time he worked in England as a freelance photographer.

joined Deutsche Bank:

03.04.1929 (Süddeutsche Disconto-Gesellschaft)

end of employment:

30.06.1933

career:

03.04.1929 - 31.03.1931 Süddeutsche Disconto-Gesellschaft, Freiburg branch, in October 1929 merged to Deutsche Bank und Disconto-Gesellschaft Freiburg branch (apprenticeship)
31.03.1931 - 30.06.1931 Deutsche Bank und Disconto-Gesellschaft Freiburg branch (clerk)
30.06.1931 - 01.11.1932 Deutsche Bank und Disconto-Gesellschaft Mannheim branch (clerk)
01.11.1932 - 30.06.1933 Deutsche Bank Villingen branch (foreign exchange department)

last known address:

Niederestraße 17, Villingen

emigration:

1933 to the UK

archival source:

HADB, P25/W26

Show content of Wolff, Willy

first name(s), surname:

Willy Wolff

day of birth:

23.05.1871

birthplace:

Neviges

day of death:

25.01.1964

place of death:

Freiburg i. Br.

document:

Letter from the Freiburg branch to the Hamburg directing office of Deutsche Bank dated 19 March 1947, describing the return of Willy Wolff to Freiburg, the resumption of pension payments and his fate during the National Socialist persecutions.
(HADB, P25/W20)

life:

Willy Wolff, son of the merchant Markus Wolff (1833-1928) from Neviges, attended the Realgymnasium in Langenberg, which he left after the 10th grade. In 1886 he began a three-year apprenticeship at Barmer Bankverein in what is now Wuppertal. He remained there as a clerk until 1891. He then moved to the private bank Hermann Isaac in Ruhrort, where he worked as a cashier for five years. From 1896 to 1904 he was employed by the private bank Veit L. Homburger in Karlsruhe as a cashier and holder of power of attorney. After a further short period in Kassel as co-manager at the private bank Gebr. Goldschmidt, where the Mannheim private bank W.H. Ladenburg & Söhne had sent him, he joined the newly founded Süddeutsche Disconto-Gesellschaft in Mannheim in 1905, which had emerged from Ladenburg. In 1906 he moved to the Freiburg branch of Süddeutsche Disconto-Gesellschaft, where he was director until the end of 1932. Also in 1906 he married Berta Haarburger (1883-1928) from Rotweil. The couple had two children: Margot (10.11.1907 - 07.12.2000) and Hans (05.04.1911). Willy Wolff retired at the beginning of 1933.

The ever-increasing repressions of the Nazi state demanded high payments from him for the "expiation tax" and the "Reichsfluchtsteuer". Wolff emigrated to his married daughter in Arnhem in the Netherlands in the spring of 1939. His remaining assets were confiscated by the Gestapo at the beginning of 1940 and his pension payments were stopped. After the occupation of the Netherlands by German troops, he again fell under the National Socialist Jewish laws. In November 1942 he came to the Westerbork collection camp, were the family of his daugther was already imprisoned since January 1942, and remained until the end of the war. On 18 January 1944 he was deported from Westerbork to Theresienstadt, where he was liberated by Soviet troops in May 1945. After brief stays in England and Switzerland, Wolff returned to Freiburg in March 1947, where he spent his retirement and remained in friendly contact with his successors at the Freiburg branch. Pension payments were resumed and he received compensation for lost benefits. In the late 1950s, restitution was made for his loss of assets. Wolff died in 1964 at the age of 92.

joined Deutsche Bank (or precursor):

01.06.1905 (Süddeutsche Disconto-Gesellschaft, Mannheim)

end of employment:

01.01.1933 (retired)

career:

15.08.1886 - 15.08.1889 Barmer Bankverein, Barmen (apprenticeship)
15.08.1889 - 30.09.1891 Barmer Bankverein, Barmen (clerk)
01.10.1891 - 30.09.1892 military service
01.04.1892 - 31.12.1895 private bank Hermann Isaac, Ruhrort (cashier)
01.04.1896 - 01.10.1904 private bank Veit L. Homburger, Karlsruhe (cashier and holder of power of attorney)
01.10.1904 - 01.06.1905 private bank Gebr. Goldschmidt, Kassel (co-manager)
01.06.1905 - 31.05.1906 Süddeutsche Disconto-Gesellschaft, Mannheim
01.06.1906 - 31.12.1932 Süddeutsche Disconto-Gesellschaft Filiale Freiburg (director)

last known address:

Günterstalerstraße 61, Freiburg i. Br.

emigration:

01.04.1939 to Arnhem (Netherlands)

transports:

18.11.1942 to camp Westerbork
18.01.1944 to camp Theresienstadt

archival sources:

HADB, P25/W20, P25/W25

literature:

Gerhard Hirschfeld, Niederlande, in: Wolfgang Benz (ed.), Dimension des Völkermords. Die Zahl der jüdischen Opfer des Nationalsozialismus, München 1991, p.157.

links:

https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/document/130403310

https://www.gedenkbuch-wuppertal.de/de/person/wolff-4