User:Eli185.2/Eugen Gutmann

Eugen Gutmann (born June 24, 1840 in Dresden; died August 21, 1925 in Munich) was a German banker and art collector.

Life and work
Eugen Gutmann was born in Dresden, Germany, on June 24, 1840, the son of Marie (Marja) Lederer and Bernhard (Baruch) Gutmann, founder of the Bankhaus Bernhard Gutmann.

He married Sophie Magnus-Gerson, ((1852-1915) later also known as Contessa Sophie Sciamplicotti - Gutmann) with whom he had eight children.

Gutmann is considered to be the founder of the Dresdner Bank, and he served as Chairman of the Board of Management of the bank from 1872 to 1920 and subsequently Honorary Chairman of the Supervisory Board until his death. He also co-founded Deutsche Orientbank and Deutsch-Südamerikanische Bank in 1905. Gutmann introduced the concept of the branch bank in Germany. The first branch was founded in Berlin in 1881, which became the head office in 1884. In this way, he achieved rapid growth for Dresdner Bank.

In 1889, the Gutmann family converted from Judaism to Christianity.

In 1903, Gutmann bought the Zeesen manor (Schloss Zeesen), which was sold to the banker Ernst Goldschmidt in 1925.

Gutmann was involved in the financing of German heavy industry, including as a member of the supervisory board of Gelsenkirchener Bergwerks-AG, Saar- und Mosel-Bergwerks-Gesellschaft and Deutsch-Österreichische Bergwerks-Gesellschaft. However, his reputation with leading Ruhr industrialists such as August Thyssen and Hugo Stinnes suffered as a result of the purchase of shares in Hibernia AG for the Prussian government in the so-called Hibernia Affair, as he worked for the nationalization of mines. In 1920, Gutmann retired to the post of Honorary President of Dresdner Bank.

His son Herbert M. Gutmann (1879-1942) was involved in the economic activities of the German Empire in the Orient in the period before the First World War as co-founder, director and later president of the Deutsche Orientbank. His grandchildren are Fred Gann and Marion Whitehorn.

Their son Friedrich (Fritz) Gutmann, also a banker, and his wife Louise became victims of the Holocaust in 1944.

In 1998, Dresdner Bank's representative office on Pariser Platz in the capital was named after him. In 2002, Dresdner Bank founded the Eugen-Gutmann-Gesellschaft, whose aim is to compile and preserve the history of Dresdner Bank, Commerzbank, other private and joint stock banks and banking history in general under the motto "The future needs remembrance".

The family's neoclassical tomb, designed by architect Franz Seeck, is located in the Gerichtstraße urn cemetery in Berlin-Wedding.

Art collection and legacy
Over the course of 30 years, Gutmann had created one of the largest collections of silver and jewels with unique pieces, part of which he sold to J. P. Morgan.

Much of his famed art collection passed to his son Friedrich (Fritz) Gutmann, who would be plundered and murdered during the Holocaust because of the family's Jewish heritage. It would fall to his surviving children, grand-children and great-grandchildren to locate and recover hundreds of artworks stolen by the Nazis. An account of this effort is documented in the book by Simon Goodman, The Orpheus Clock: The Search for My Family's Art Treasures Stolen by the Nazis.

Literature

 * Laura Herr: „Den Kopf oben behalten“. Der Bankier Eugen Gutmann (1840–1924). Unter Mitarbeit von Yi Liu (= Publikationen der Eugen-Gutmann-Gesellschaft, Bd. 16); Frankfurt/Main: Henrich Editionen 2023. ISBN 978-3-96320-072-4.

Weblinks

 * Veit Damm: Gutmann, Eugen. In: Institut für Sächsische Geschichte und Volkskunde (Hrsg.): Sächsische Biografie.
 * Eugen-Gutmann-Gesellschaft e.V.