User:Virtualiter/Karl Kahane

Karl Kahane (20 March 1920 in Vienna – 28 June 1993 in Venice) was an Austrian entrepreneur, economic policy advisor and close friend of Federal Chancellor Bruno Kreisky.

Family
His father, Mendel Kahane (5 November 1886, in Zbaraz – 23 June 1949, in Vienna) worked around 1911 in Zbaraz as a clerk at a credit company founded in 1890 with president Franciszek Sobol. He married Sabine „Simca“ Balin (October 19, 1892 in Zbarza – September 28, 1972) and have the sons "Nuschu" Aryan (1914– ~1992 in London) and later Karl. They left Zbaraz in mid or late 1914, when elder his brother was a few months old. On December 18, 1926 in Vienna his father changed his name from Mendel to Emil by official deed.

Distant relative Stephan Schifferes explains in his book My Life: „According to [their grandson] Dr. Anthony (see below), Emil and Simca “were joined in Vienna by Simca's parents, Isaak Hersch Balin and Rozia (Ester Reisel), née Schapu and also by Simca's three siblings, Wolf (Willi, Wilhelm, later [in Israel] Ze’ev), Malcia (Amalia), and Gusta. All of them — eight people including one infant — lived in a single living space of one or two rooms at Schweidlgasse 15 in the Leopoldstadt (Vienna II). This was the area where many Jewish immigrants from the east had settled and continued to settle, and was a generally poor area. It was also close to the Nordbahnhof, where trains from the east arrived. By 1920, the family was living at Nordbahnstrasse 18, also in the Leopoldstadt and very close to the earlier address.” Wolf (Willi) met and married Eva Klier (born in Czernowitz, Poland) in Vienna in 1921; Chaim (Kurt) was born in 1922. The same year, Malcia had married Jacob Singer (from Romania) in Vienna. However, Malcia and her husband returned to Zbaraz by the end of 1921 or early 1922, and Gusta Lisbeth Kahane, Paris, 1995 and the Balin also returned around that time.“

When Karl is 18 years old, his older brother Aryan married Lisbeth Schifferes (1916 in Vienna – 2007) with whom he has the sons Jeffrey and "Toni" Anthony Erenset Kahane. Lisbeth was related to Marianne Schönauer. October 1943 Aryan is naturalized in Australia after five years of presence and November 1951 he is a lecturer in Mechanical Engineering. Since about 1965 Dipl.-Ing. Aryan Kahane directorated the Aspanger Kaolin- und Steinwerke Aktiengesellschaft which was taken over by Montana AG in 1921. In 1981 Aryan wrote a doctoral thesis about Agadir at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.

In 1932, his father together with Friedric Weill and Rudolf Steiner, bought from the Guttmann brothers the half of the shares in the Holding Montana Aktiengesellschaft für Bergbau, Industrie und Handel (Schwarzenbergpl. 18), to which the 1928 founded Montana Kohlenhandelsgesellschaft belonged. The other half is owned by the Creditanstalt (CA). „Its origins were in the Coal Division of the CA, the primary function of which was to supply coal to the CA concern. The Montana AG controlled or held shares in the bitumimous coal mines of the Steirische Kohlenbergwerke AG (general director Julius Koritschoner since 1924), the Niederösterreichische Kaolin- und Steinwerke AG in Zöbern, the Steirischen Magnesit AG, and the Continentale Gesellschaft für angewandte Elektrizität in Basel.“ The Anschluss of Austria March 1938 was accompanied by the de-Jewification of Vienna. Between October and December 1939, the old Kontrollbank bought Montana AG, including Steirische Magnesit Industrie AG, for 292 + 572 thousand RM and sold it to Bankhaus Krentschker & Co and Veitscher Magnesitwerke AG for 340 and 881 thousand RM respectively. Kahane and Moritz Krentschker still have a friendly relationship afterwards.

During the Hitler era, Emil, Simca and Karli went to Palestine where they remained until Emil could 1947 reclaim his apartment and business. Chaim remained in Palestine, where his descendants still live.

Life
„After the war he and his father devoted all their energy to reversing the 1938 'Aryanization' of the family's Montana Corporation. Despite his close ties to Israel, Kahane was increasingly supportive of Kreisky's policy, which aimed to make the PLO a partner in efforts to bring about peace in the Middle East, and also got involved in the Peace Movement in Israel. He also became Kreisky's informal emissary to Arab countries, above all to Egypt, and maintained close contacts to Issam Sartawi and US Ambassadore Milton Wolf, a successful real estate developer and investment banker in Cleveland, Ohio as well as a noted Jewish community leader.“

Karl Kahane was very successful financially with the companies Montana AG, Bank Gutmann AG (taken over in 1957), Jungbunzlauer AG and Terranova. Veitscher Magnesitwerke AG and Donau Chemie AG were also among his properties. He founded the Karl Kahane Foundation, which promotes peace-political activities, especially in connection with the Middle East conflict. He was also a co-founder of the Bruno Kreisky Forum. He has moved his headquarters to Celerina (CH).

Karl Kahane had three children: Patricia Kahane (* 1953), Emil Alexander Kahane (* 1955) and Marie-Rose Kahane (* 1956).

Awards

 * Officer of the Legion of Honour