Kurt Hamann (born 26 September 1898 in Berlin; died 13 October 1981) was a German businessman who, as chairman of the Victorian Insurance Company, foreclosed on Jewish homes and covered slave labor factories. Honors bestowed upon Hamann were revoked in 2008 after information about his Nazi-era activities emerged. [1]
Hamann had a doctorate in law and a district judge. D.[ clarification needed ]
He initially worked in the Reich Ministry of Economics and in export credit insurance until he switched to Victoria Insurance in 1932.
As general director (since 1935) he was chairman of the board of directors of Victoria zu Berlin Allgemeine Versicherungs AG , Victoria Feuer-Versicherungs-AG and Victoria Rückversicherungs AG, all Berlin. Hamann was also a member of various supervisory boards.
Hamann was CEO of Victoria Insurance from 1935 to 1968.
After the war, however, Hamann received numerous honors from the Germany government. Hamann was twice awarded the Federal Cross of Merit and was also an Honorary Senator of the University of Mannheim. [2]
Kurt Hamann died in 1981 at the age of 83. His grave is in the St.-Annen-Kirchhof in Berlin-Dahlem.
Hamann's role in aryanizing the Jewish business at Krausenstrasse 17/18, during the Nazi era was revealed in the investigative memoir, Stolen Legacy : Nazi Theft and the Quest for Justice at Krausenstrasse 17/18, Berlin which tapped into previously unavailable archives. [3] [4] While not officially a member of the Nazi party, Hamann was listed in Who's Who in Nazi Germany published by the British War Office in 1944. [5] [6] As the CEO of Victoria Insurance Company during and after the Nazi era, the investigation into Victoria shed light on activities that Hamann had been able to conceal during his life. [7]
In the Los Angeles Review of Books review of Stolen Legacy in 2016, "Reclaiming What Was Lost" Daniel Slifkin described the role of the Victoria Insurance Company and its CEO in aryanization (theft from Jews and transfer to non-Jews by the Nazis):
The building had a mortgage on it, held by the Victoria Insurance Company. By 1936, like essentially all large German companies, the Victoria was run by someone with demonstrably close ties to the Nazi party — Dr. Kurt Hamann. And in November 1936, the Victoria suddenly foreclosed on the mortgage, demanding immediate payment, and requiring a forced auction of the property. The building was then bought by the Nazi-run national railroad, which was expanding as Germany geared up for war, and which had “bought” the neighboring building through an identical forced auction process. The evidence was pretty clear that the foreclosure was pretextual, and that the price paid was grossly inadequate. Indeed, after World War II, when the East German state took over the building in 1949 it noted in the land registry: “the Jewish owner was forced by the prevailing political circumstances to sell the property.” And the monies that remained after the mortgage was paid off were not available to the Wolff family in any real sense — the only person paid anything, Fritz Wolff, was murdered in Auschwitz a few years later. [8]
During the Nazi era, Hamann served on the honorary committee of the House of German Art in Munich, which glorified what Adolf Hitler considered to be Aryan art. Hamann was also on the working committee that rewrote insurance legislation in Nazi terms at the Academy of German Law, which was directed by Hans Frank, who was later executed by the Allies for war crimes. [9]
Several lawsuits were filed against Victoria Insurance Company and its acquirer or successor organisation ERGO, including one by the family of a former executive and co-founder of Victoria, Heinrich Stahl, who was Jewish and perished in a Nazi concentration camp. [10] During litigation, Munich Re, which was closely linked to Victoria Insurance Group, promised to open Nazi-era and postwar archives which had been closed. [11] [12]
In 2000, New York state regulators accused Victoria Insurance failing to pay off insurance policies that it had issued on Holocaust victims. [13]
On 24 December 2018, the University of Mannheim, which had awarded the Kurt Hamann Prize, announced that the Kurt Hamann Foundation would change its name, writing:
...it has became [sic] clear that, under Hamann's chairmanship, the Victoria demonstrably took many properties from Jewish owners. [14]
Dr. Kurt-Hamann-Stiftung [15]
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While doing research for her book, Gold came across the name Dr. Kurt Hamann, who was twice awarded the Federal Cross of Merit and was also an Honorary Senator of the University of Mannheim. He had long been considered unproblematic in the post-war period. However, as Gold's research revealed, as the longtime CEO of the Victoria Insurance, he was responsible for many „Aryanizations" during the Nazi era. The new findings have now prompted the University of Mannheim to rename the Dr. Kurt-Hamann Foundation and also to examine the biographies of potentially questionable honor bearers and rectors from the past.
Dr. HAMANN, Kurt Chairman of the Board of the Victoria Insurance Company. /Born in 1898./
During background research for the claim, it turned out that during World War II, Hamann's name was listed in a 1944 British War Office booklet entitled "Who's Who in Nazi Germany." However, he was not a member of the Nazi Party and had continued as chairman of the Victoria until 1968. Indeed, in 1953 the German government awarded him Germany's highest civilian honor, the Federal Cross of Merit, for his services.
The Victoria's head, Kurt Hamann, was awarded Germany's highest civilian honour, the Federal Cross of Merit, after the war and had a foundation named after him at Mannheim University. Gold discovered documents linking him to the forced sale of the Wolff building, and Hamann was listed in a book by the War Office in London in 1944 called Who's Who in Nazi Germany. The archive revealed how the Victoria held a mortgage on Krausenstrasse 17/18. Once the Victoria foreclosed on the mortgage – the Wolffs had paid their premiums, but the Nazis decreed all businesses had to be taken out of Jewish hands – the insurer sold the building to the German state railways. Herbert Wolff came away with the sterling equivalent of £100.
During the Nazi era, Hamann also sat on the honorary committee of the House of German Art in Munich, which glorified what Adolf Hitler regarded as proper art. Additionally, he was on a working committee seeking to frame insurance legislation in Nazi terms at the Academy of German Law. At the time, the Academy was led by Hans Frank, who was later executed by the Allies for war crimes. A landmark book by the late Professor Gerald D. Feldman of the University of California, "Allianz and the German Insurance Business, 1933–1945," mentioned that Allianz had formed a consortium which included the Victoria to insure facilities at Auschwitz.
The court ruling came in a case against Ergo Versicherungsgruppe AG, the successor company to Victoria Insurance of Berlin. Gabriele and Werner Stahl, the elderly grandchildren of Heinrich Stahl, contend that first Victoria and later Ergo failed to honor policies and stock options possessed by their grandfather, a prominent member of the Berlin Jewish community who was himself a Victoria executive. He was seized and taken to a concentration camp, where he died of pneumonia just a few months later in 1942.
Five months ago, Munich Re entered into an agreement with California to provide access to Holocaust-era policyholder lists and other documents. Munich Re promised to open the files of a Dusseldorf-based insurance company, Victoria, with which it is strongly linked. California has received about 50 claims against Victoria, Edwards said. At a hearing two weeks ago, Munich Re's progress was challenged by lawyers working on behalf of the state. An administrative law judge set a Feb. 17 deadline for Munich Re to fulfill the agreement. Edwards said Munch Re's offer on that date was "insufficient." He said California officials wanted access to the records without any stipulations. "The bottom line is that the information is there and it's damning and they don't want it to come out. It's just another avenue of delay," said Edwards, who is part of the state's effort to develop a registry of Holocaust victims, survivors and their heirs who might have unpaid insurance claims.
The dialogue between the California Department of Insurance (CDI) and Germany's Munich Re came down to a legal standoff in March with respect to the reinsurer's perceived delays in turning over documents related to Holocaust-era policies and policyholders. According to the CDI, on Sept. 21, 1999, it reached an agreement with Munich Re which stipulated that it would provide the CDI with all its Holocaust-era reinsurance treaties and policyholder listings. However, on Jan. 6, 2000, the CDI received a letter in which Munich Re denied that it had any obligation to produce copies of the treaties or lists, some of which included records for Munich Re's affiliate, Dusseldorf-based Victoria Lebensversiche-rung AG. After receipt of that letter, hearings were held before an administrative law judge to address the issue of Munich Re's compliance with the CDI's requests for records.
-- A German company's planned $350 million acquisition of a U.S. insurer has fallen through, in large part over the state's concerns with how the company handled Holocaust-era claims, officials said. American Re, a Delaware subsidiary of Muenchener Rueckversicherungs- Gesellschaft , or Munich Re, of Germany, was negotiating to buy United National Group. But United National called off the deal after state insurers balked at the acquisition, American Re spokesman Tom Walker said. The Pennsylvania Insurance Department was concerned with how a Munich Re subsidiary has handled Holocaust-era insurance claims, said state insurance spokeswoman Melissa Fox. New York state regulators have accused the subsidiary, Victoria Insurance Cos ., which wrote primary policies during the Holocaust era, of failing to pay off policies issued on Holocaust victims
Media related to Kurt Hamann at Wikimedia Commons
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