Willy Dreyfus (born 24 March 1885 in Frankfurt am Main; died 12 January 1977 in Montreux) was a Swiss banker of German-Jewish origin.
Willy Dreyfus (born 24 March 1885 in Frankfurt am Main; died 12 January 1977 in Montreux) was a Swiss banker of German-Jewish origin.
Willy Dreyfus, son of partner Isaac Dreyfus (1849-1909) and grandson of the founder of the banking house J. Dreyfus & Co. with branches in Frankfurt and Berlin, Jacques Dreyfus-Jeidels (1826-1890), completed an apprenticeship in the family business in Berlin and London. [1] After his father's death in 1909, he took over management. Active in the banking department of the German General Government in Brussels, he worked with Hjalmar Schacht, Hans Fürstenberg and Paul von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, among others.
From 1924 onwards, Dreyfus brokered significant foreign loans for the German Reich and German industrial companies through his contacts with British as well as U.S. banks. He was a member of the board of the Jewish Community of Berlin and, from 1927, vice president of the Benefit Society of German Jews (Hilfsvereins der deutschen Juden). [2]
When the Nazis came to power in 1933, Dreyfus was persecuted as a Jew. His bank was Aryanized, [3] that is transferred to non-Jewish owners in 1937 (Frankfurt branch) and 1938 (Berlin branch). [4]
Dreyfus emigrated with his family to Switzerland in 1938. He attempted to recover some of the property looted by Nazis. [5]
Willy Dreyfus, who died in 1977 at the age of 91, was the younger brother of the neurologist Georg Ludwig Dreyfus, [6] who had already emigrated to Switzerland in 1933.
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M.M.Warburg & CO KGaA is a German private bank, based in Hamburg. A family-owned bank, it was founded in 1798 by Banca Levi Kahana of Warburg and brothers Moses Marcus Warburg and Gerson Warburg, two members of the Warburg family. The bank was Aryanized under the Nazis. The Warburg family still owns the bank, continuing a more than 200-year legacy of private ownership.
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{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)Plaintiff, a Jew and former resident of Germany, was forced to emigrate from that country to Switzerland and sold defendants his interest in the banking firm of J. Dreyfus & Co., allegedly under duress and at a price which was one and one-half million dollars below its actual value. Following World War II, plaintiff sought additional compensation from the defendants, and, in 1948, settlement was agreed upon. This settlement was never consummated, allegedly because of wrongful repudiation by defendants; and plaintiff then sought relief in a Restitution Court, or "Chamber", established under the aegis of the United States Military Command in Germany. In 1951, while the decision of this tribunal was on appeal in the Court of Restitution Appeals, a second settlement agreement was reached in open court; and plaintiff's petition was thereupon dismissed. The consideration recited in this agreement, four hundred ninety thousand German marks, was paid.
Provenance Willy Dreyfus (1885-1977) then by inheritance