Georg Solmssen


Georg Solmssen was a German banker and lawyer.

Life

Georg Salomonsoh was born on 7 August 1869 in Berlin, German Empire to Adolph Salomonsohn, a banker, and Sara Rinkel.
Through his father Solmssen was the great-grandson of Rabbi Salomon Abraham Gedalia and the great-great-grandson of Rabbi Abraham Gedalia, the Chief Rabbi of Denmark. Solmssen was the paternal nephew of the banker, cousin of the classical archaeologist and art historian Maria Weigert Brendel and the first cousin, twice removed of the American writer Arthur R.G. Solmssen. Solmssen was one of four siblings.
He studied German law. Solmssen worked from 1900 for German bank Disconto-Gesellschaft in Berlin. He was a member of the supervisory board of German company Lufthansa AG and German company Vereinigte Stahlwerke.
In 1933, Solmssen was for a short time the speaker of the management board for German bank Deutsche Bank, which took over Disconto-Gesellschaft in 1929. He lived in the 1920s on the island of Schwanenwerder. When the Nazis came to power, Solmssen left Germany and emigrated to Switzerland.

Personal life

In 1900, Solmssen converted from Judaism to Protestant Christianity and changed his surname from Salomonsohn to Solmssen.
In 1907, Solmssen married Giulietta 'Etta' Aselmeyer, with whom he had 3 children.
Solmssen died on 10 January 1957 in Lugano, Switzerland aged 87.

Literature

  • Berlin-Brandenburgischen Akademie der Wissenschaften : 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 Institute, New York NY 1995.
  • Harold James, Martin L. Müller : Georg Solmssen – ein deutscher Bankier. Briefe aus einem halben Jahrhundert 1900–1956. Herausgegeben im Auftrag der Historischen Gesellschaft der Deutschen Bank e.V. C. H. Beck, Munich 2012,.