Georg Solmssen (born Georg Adolf Salomonsohn, 7 August 1869 – 10 January 1957) was a German

banker A bank is a financial institution that accepts Deposit account, deposits from the public and creates a demand deposit while simultaneously making loans. Lending activities can be directly performed by the bank or indirectly through capital m ...

Life

His father was German banker

Adolph Salomonsohn Adolph Salomonsohn (19 March 1831 – 4 January 1919) was a German lawyer and banker. He was a proprietor of the Disconto-Gesellschaft and influenced the establishment of the stock market in Germany. Biography Salomonsohn was born in Inowrazlaw, ...

and his mother was Sara Rinkel. His uncle was German banker

Arthur Salomonsohn Arthur is a common male given name of Brythonic origin. Its popularity derives from it being the name of the legendary hero King Arthur. The etymology is disputed. It may derive from the Celtic ''Artos'' meaning “Bear”. Another theory, more wi ...

, and his nephew was American writer Arthur R.G. Solmssen. He studied German law. In April 1900, he converted from Judaism to Christianity and changed his family name from Salomonsohn to Solmssen. Solmssen worked from 1900 for German bank

Disconto-Gesellschaft The Disconto-Gesellschaft (full name: Direktion der Disconto-Gesellschaft), with headquarters in Berlin, was founded in 1851. It was, until its 1929 merger into Deutsche Bank, one of the largest German banking organizations. History It was fou ...

in Berlin. He was a member of the supervisory board of German company Lufthansa AG and German company

Vereinigte Stahlwerke The Vereinigte Stahlwerke AG (VSt or Vestag, ''United Steelworks'') was a German industrial conglomerate producing coal, iron, and steel in the interbellum and during World War II. Founded in 1926, economic pressures (decreasing prices and exces ...

. In 1933, Solmssen was for a short time the speaker of the management board for German bank

Deutsche Bank Deutsche Bank AG (), sometimes referred to simply as Deutsche, is a German multinational investment bank and financial services company headquartered in Frankfurt, Germany, and dual-listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and the New York Sto ...

, which took over ''Disconto-Gesellschaft'' in 1929. He lived in the 1920s on the island of

Schwanenwerder Schwanenwerder (; English: "Swan Ait") is an island in the locality of Nikolassee in southwestern Berlin, located in a wider stretch of the Havel close to the eastern bank and adjacent to the Großer Wannsee to the south of it. The neighbourhood i ...

. When the Nazis came to power, Solmssen left Germany and emigrated to Switzerland.

Literature

* Berlin-Brandenburgischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (ed.): Acta Borussica. Neue Folge, Reihe 1: Die Protokolle des Preußischen Staatsministeriums 1817–1934/38. Band 12, 2: Reinhold Zilch, Bärbel Holtz: April 4, 1925 until May 10, 1938. Olms-Weidmann, Hildesheim u. a. 2004, , p. 702. * Gerald D. Feldman: Jewish bankers and the crises of the Weimar Republic (= Leo Baeck Memorial Lecture. 39, ZDB-ID 415081-8). Leo Baeck Institute, New York NY 1995. * Harold James, Martin L. Müller (Hrsg.): Georg Solmssen – ein deutscher Bankier. Briefe aus einem halben Jahrhundert 1900–1956 (= Schriftenreihe zur Zeitschrift für Unternehmensgeschichte. 25). Herausgegeben im Auftrag der Historischen Gesellschaft der Deutschen Bank e.V. C. H. Beck, Munich 2012, . * Martin L. Müller: Solmssen, Georg Adolf. In: Neue Deutsche Biographie (NDB). Band 24, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2010, , pp 557 f.

External links

*
Biography by Historische Gesellschaft der Deutschen Bank

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sollmsen, Georg German bankers Businesspeople from Berlin German jurists Converts to Lutheranism from Judaism German Lutherans People from Steglitz-Zehlendorf 1869 births 1957 deaths Deutsche Bank people Jewish emigrants from Nazi Germany to Switzerland