User:Eli185/J. Dreyfus & Co.

Bankhaus J. Dreyfus & Co. was one of the leading German-Jewish private banks in the German Reich, especially during the Weimar Republic.

History
The J. Dreyfus & Co. banking house was founded on December 1, 1868 by Jacques Dreyfus-Jeidels (1826-1890) ) in Frankfurt am Main under the name Dreyfus-Jeidels. The father of the founder, Isaac Dreyfus-Bernheim (1786-1845), had founded the company Dreyfus Söhne & Cie. in Basel in 1812, which still exists today. Taking advantage of business and family connections in Switzerland, Dreyfus-Jeidels was particularly successful in the field of stock exchange commission business and arbitrage. Among others, Dreyfus-Jeidels participated, alongside the firms A. Cheneviêre & Co. (Geneva) and Moritz B. Goldschmidt (Frankfurt am Main), participated in a large arbitrage business that followed the war compensation after the Franco-Prussian War of 1870/71 and prevented the decline of the French currency. At that time, the banks bought up the French banknotes threatening to flood the German market.

In 1890, the Dreyfus-Jeidels transformed into a limited partnership under the name J. Dreyfus & Co. The limited partners were Basler Bankierverein (Basel), Schweizerische Kreditanstalt (Zurich), Banque de Mulhouse (Mulhouse in Alsace,) and Jakob Heinrich Schiff (New York).

In 1897, J. Dreyfus & Co. was taken over by the Hamburg Commerzbank- und Disconto-Bank. The impetus for this came from the banker Saemy Japhet (1858-1954), who came from Frankfurt am Main and worked in London.,who had recognized the great urge of the major banks toward the branch system. With this takeover, Commerzbank- und Disconto-Bank, which had previously only been active in Hamburg, was given the opportunity to operate a significant branch not only in Frankfurt am Main, but also in Berlin, since J. Dreyfus & Co. had already maintained a branch there since 1891.

While the Berlin branch developed successfully, tensions arose between the Hamburg headquarters of Commerzbank- und Disconto-Bank and its Frankfurt branch, despite family and commercial ties. Commerzbank- und Disconto-Bank therefore decided to dissolve its Frankfurt branch. In this unusual situation, the son of the company's founder, Isaac Dreyfus (1849-1909), who was a member of the supervisory board of the big bank, decided to run his core business independently again and turn the big bank branch in Frankfurt into a private bank once more. He decided to take this unusual step in order to preserve the jobs in Frankfurt. Isaac Dreyfus and Commerzbank- und Disconto-Bank agreed in 1904 that the re-established bank J. Dreyfus & Co. in Frankfurt would take over the current business and all staff, and Commerzbank- und Disconto-Bank would receive all syndicate business and real estate. In addition, the latter took a share of three million marks as a limited partner in the reestablished J. Dreyfus & Co. This contribution by Commerzbank- und Disconto-Bank was repaid in 1909..

In order to expand its current account and custody account business in Frankfurt am Main, J. Dreyfus & Co. decided in 1913 under its new partner Willy Dreyfus (1885-1977) to purchase the bank M.W. Koch & Co. also based in Frankfurt. After the First World War, J. Dreyfus & Co. continued its expansion. In October 1919, it took over the business of the Berlin bank S.L. Landsberger, founded in 1818, and opened a new branch in Berlin. This offshoot soon clearly outstripped the Frankfurt parent bank in terms of business. In Vienna, a shareholding in Bank Reitler & Co. followed. To further expand its international business relations, J. Dreyfus & Co. participated in 1923 in the founding of the New York bank Strupp & Co. together with Bank Dreyfus Söhne & Cie.

Through extensive underwriting, syndicate and remembrance business, the bank built up an extensive network of valuable business relationships in Germany and abroad. Its main customers included leading German companies in the mechanical engineering, construction and electricity industries, which were able to take advantage of J. Dreyfus & Co.'s good connections, especially in Switzerland, the Netherlands, Great Britain and the USA. With a business capital of 12 million Rentenmarks in 1930, the bank headed by senior partner Willy Dreyfuss and partners Kurt Landsberg, Paul Wallich, Friedrich Flersheim, Werner Mankiewitz and Friedrich J. Kraemer was one of the leading private banks in the German Reich at the end of the Weimar Republic..

During the Third Reich, the business decline of J. Dreyfus & Co. began, culminating in forced Aryanization in March 1938. While the Frankfurt headquarters with the business located there went to the Metzler banking house, also based in Frankfurt, the Berlin branch with the activities located there was taken over by the Munich banking house Merck Finck & Co. Wallich, head of the Berlin branch, was forced into liquidation in May 1938 and committed suicide six months later - the day after the November pogroms and without a livelihood..

Literature

 * J. Dreyfus & Co. (Hrsg.): „Zur Erinnerung an die Schlußsteinlegung des neuen Bankgebäudes der Firma J. Dreyfus & Co.“, Frankfurt am Main 1914;
 * Heilbrunn, Rudolf M.: „Das Bankhaus J. Dreyfus & Co., Frankfurt am Main – Berlin 1868–1939“, Frankfurt am Main 1962;
 * Kirchholtes, Hans-Dieter: „Jüdische Privatbanken in Frankfurt am Main“, Verlag Waldemar Kramer, Frankfurt am Main 1989, ISBN 3-7829-0351-X.
 * Köhler, Ingo: „Die "Arisierung" der Privatbanken im Dritten Reich“. In: „Schriftenreihe zur Zeitschrift für Unternehmungsgeschichte“, Band 14, 2. Auflage, 2008.