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Kontorhaus Börsenbrücke 2–8, erb. 1895-95
© StaH

Ludwig Moritz Mainz * 1867

Adolphsplatz 1 (Hamburg-Mitte, Hamburg-Altstadt)

LUDWIG MORITZ
MAINZ
JG. 1867
FLUCHT 1934 HOLLAND
HERZINFRAKT NACH
HAUSDURCHSUCHUNG
TOT 17.8.1942

further stumbling stones in Adolphsplatz 1:
Valentin Burchard, Leopold Cohn, Otto Friedeberg, John Hausmann, Heinrich Mayer, Ivan Philip, Franz Max Rappolt, Paul Salomon, Max Stein, Dr. Heinrich Wohlwill, Cäsar Wolf, Leo Wolfsohn

Ludwig Moritz Mainz, born on 4 July 1867 in Frankfurt/Main, died on 17 Aug. 1942 in Amsterdam/Netherlands

Member of the Board of Directors of the Stock Exchange, Securities Department 1929–1933

Ludwig Moritz Mainz was born in Frankfurt/Main as the third child and first son of the merchant Moses Michael Mainz (1838–1915) and his wife Dorothea, née Oppenheimer (1839–1870). Both came from Jewish trading and merchant families who had been residing in the city for a long time, and they had married in 1862. Moses Michael, together with a relative, ran the Mainz & Comp. yard goods and fashion store built by his grandfather at Fahrgasse 96, a busy shopping street. At the beginning of the 1880s, the company of the same name also traded in raw materials and bristles. Shortly afterward, Moses Michael left the company around 1884.

In contrast to many large Jewish families of that time, Ludwig Moritz Mainz grew up only with his two sisters, Jenny (1863–1915) and Amalie (1865–1942). The mother had already passed away on 3 May 1870. Nothing else is known about his childhood and youth. In 1882, the older sister married the merchant Sally Michel Mainz (1853–1932), a relative of her father. He had founded the Sally M. Mainz banking business in Hamburg in 1877. After the younger sister married the merchant Aron Hirsch (1858–1942) in 1884 and moved with him to Halberstadt, Moses Michael Mainz relocated to Hamburg together with his son Ludwig Moritz around 1885. In 1886, he was listed in the directory at the same address as his son-in-law, at Hohe Bleichen 24 in Hamburg-Neustadt, and two years later, the family was already living in an apartment at Rothenbaumchaussee 19 in the prosperous Jewish Grindelviertel neighborhood. For many years, the joint residence was maintained until Moses Michael finally moved into his own apartment at Fröbelstrasse 10 around 1900, where he died on 19 Dec. 1915.

It is uncertain whether Ludwig Moritz Mainz had already started commercial training in Frankfurt/Main. At least two relatives, Liebmann and Michael Moses Mainz, carried on their banking and exchange business there. In Hamburg, he worked in the banking house of his brother-in-law Sally Michel and he was given power of attorney on 7 Jan. 1891. At the same time, his cousin Hugo Mainz (1864–1932), the son of his uncle Liebmann, joined the small company at Passage Scholvien 10 directly on Jungfernstieg as a co-partner.

However, Ludwig Moritz Mainz did not seem to be guaranteed a rapid professional advancement in the family business. From 29 Jan. 1892, he also worked as an authorized signatory for the John M. Meyer fund business, established in 1870 at Grosse Bäckerstrasse 26, later based at Schleusenbrücke 7, where the 26-year-old joined the management as a co-partner on 1 Jan. 1894. Only one year later, the company’s founder retired, and Mainz took over the bank as sole owner while retaining the old, well-established name. His power of attorney for the banking house of his brother-in-law remained in effect as late as 1909.

There were also changes in Ludwig Moritz Mainz’s private life. On 12 June 1894, he married Helene Hirsch in Berlin, a relative of his brother-in-law Aron. Helene came from a well-known Jewish family in Halberstadt, which in the nineteenth century had led a small metal smelter to become a major industrial company, Hirsch Kupfer und Messingwerke AG. Her father Aron Joseph (1845–1880), who died at an early age, and her mother Esther, née Hirsch (1851–1919), were grandchildren of the company founder. Helene was born on 14 Sept. 1873 in Halberstadt and had three siblings – Fanny Frummet (1871–1934), Katharina/Kätchen (1877–1945), and Joseph (1880–1950). The mother had later moved with the children to Berlin.

The young Mainz couple moved into an apartment at Rothenbaumchaussee 15. There, on 25 July 1895, daughter Dorothea Helene was born. One year later, on 19 Oct. 1896, son Arnold Ludwig followed, and on 15 Mar. 1900, the second son Helmuth. The third son Franz Ludwig was born on 5 Aug. 1903; daughter Anita on 1 Apr. 1908, when the family had already moved for the second time, in 1898 to Rothenbaumchaussee 64 a (later number 77) and, with a growing number of children, in 1905 to a detached house at Hochallee 2. In June 1909, Ludwig Moritz Mainz eventually acquired the city villa at Hochallee 11 for 67,000 marks for his large family.

This did not constitute the only indication that Ludwig Moritz Mainz was economically successful with his fund commission business. Around 1899, together with the insurance broker Gustav Adolf Cohen (later Wedekind), he acquired the business property at Glockengiesserwall 17/Raboisen 1 in Hamburg-Altstadt, of which he owned just over two thirds. In the decades to come, the John M. Meyer banking house "cultivated the domestic stock and share business in particular ... and [it] was led to a great heyday by Ludwig Moritz Mainz.” Numerous companies and wealthy individuals were among his clients. Among other things, he was a financial advisor to Hugo Stinnes GmbH and the German-American Petroleum Society (DAPG). "The annual profit amounted to between 50,000 and 60.000 marks and allowed the owner to accumulate a considerable fortune in spite of the large number of children and the not inconsiderable private consumption caused by this.”

The John M. Meyer banking house changed its location in the center of Hamburg several times, but always in the immediate vicinity of the stock exchange and chamber of commerce. Until 1900 it was located at Schleusenbrücke 7, then at Plan 5 until 1909/10, and then at Grosse Johannisstrasse 13. From 1913 to 1928, the company resided at Adolphsbrücke 4 and then relocated to Börsenbrücke 2a. In the period after inflation, the owner Ludwig Moritz Mainz continued to generate large revenues, which ranged from a minimum of 63,000 RM (reichsmark) to a maximum of 210,000 RM. Even the economic and, above all, the banking crisis were only able to do little damage to the solvent company. "The business survived the crisis of 1929/1932 much better than other comparable banking operations, which consistently posted losses.”

The bank was registered with the Association of Members of the Hanseatic Stock Exchange (Verein der Mitglieder der Hanseatischen Wertpapierbörse) in Hamburg, a prerequisite for securities trading on the stock exchange. The association proposed Ludwig Moritz Mainz at the end of 1928 as a new member for the stock exchange board, department of banks and securities. The committee at the Hamburg Chamber of Commerce, to be newly appointed every year, was made up of shareholders and partners from private banks as well as executive boards and directors of major banks in Hamburg. From 1929 onward, Ludwig Moritz Mainz was again appointed to this honorary position every year by the plenary assembly of the Chamber of Commerce. Even during the Nazi era, leading Hamburg bankers attested that he had managed the prestigious John M. Meyer banking house impeccably for decades.

Ludwig Moritz Mainz became involved early on in the expansion of his bank into a family business. While the oldest son Arnold finished his studies with a doctorate and then settled as an art dealer in Frankfurt/Main, the two younger sons completed commercial training. Helmuth then joined the company in 1919 and he was granted joint power of attorney in 1920 and individual power of attorney in 1923. Franz first completed an apprenticeship at the Münchmeyer& Co. bank and import and export company at Alsterdamm 33 and he was then employed as a salaried employee until 1926. After changing to join his father’s foreign exchange bank, he was particularly concerned with customer acquisition and, together with his father, was able to acquire as customers large companies such as Reemtsma Cigarettenfabriken GmbH, a major cigarette producer, or Alfred C. Toepfer, a grain and feed import company, as well as other companies in the commodities and grain exchange. The son-in-law Dr. Otto Julius Eisner, a lawyer in Frankfurt/Main and married to the oldest daughter Dorothea since 1921, and his son Arnold were also granted power of attorney in the middle of the hyperinflation of 1923, just to be on the safe side.

A short time later, a stroke of fate shook the Mainz family. Arnold had committed suicide in Frankfurt/Main on 30 June 1924. Some years later, the children Helmuth and Anita started their own families, and only Franz lived with his parents. On 12 Oct. 1928, Anita married the Hamburg merchant Hans Norbert Julius Oettinger (1900–1944), co-owner of the H. N. Oettinger & Co. import and export business for raw tobacco. On 6 Jan. 1929, Helmuth married Lore Bacharach (born in 1909) from Berlin. His plan to convert the large townhouse at Hochallee 11 into an apartment building was finally abandoned by Ludwig Moritz Mainz for cost reasons.

The "seizure of power” by the Nazis on 30 Jan. 1933 resulted in Ludwig Moritz Mainz being labeled a "Jew.” Committed to the Jewish faith since his childhood, he had been a member of the Hamburg German-Israelitic Community for many years. Although the family lived according to orthodox rules, he had not expected the defamation and exclusion that was beginning at the time. Like other Jewish members of the stock exchange at the Hamburg Chamber of Commerce, he "voluntarily” resigned at the beginning of Apr. 1933 as part of the "transformation,” i.e., the Nazi "forcible coordination” ("Gleichschaltung”) of the stock exchange board. Only two Jewish members remained on the body for the year 1933 in the area of the Association of the Stock Exchange. The General Assembly of the Association of Members of the Stock Exchange in Hamburg, which took place shortly afterward, however, made a strong "national commitment” to the Nazi state, in which Jews were to have no place anymore.

In this early phase, Ludwig Moritz Mainz and his sons initially had different views on the development of Germany under the Nazi regime. Ludwig announced his intention to continue the John M. Meyer banking business in Germany. Nonetheless he pushed for the speedy sale of the business premises at Glockengiesserwall 17. On 14 Nov. 1933, the property was sold for a sum of 230,000 RM to Deutsche Herold Volks- und Lebensversicherung AG, an insurance and life insurance company, of which Ludwig was entitled to just under 140,000 RM.

Helmuth Mainz, on the other hand, made the decision to establish a new living in the Netherlands. The apartment at Sierichstrasse 52 was dissolved; the furniture was stored. Although Helmuth registered his residence with his parents at Hochallee 11, he traveled to Amsterdam in mid-Dec. 1933 and opened his own banking business, Helmuth Mainz & Co., at Keizersgracht 648 on 5 Mar. 1934. Ludwig Moritz Mainz supported his son together with his family and his parents-in-law Hugo and Berta Bacharach financially during the first months abroad. However, this moved him into the sights of the foreign currency office. After an audit in Apr. 1934, criminal proceedings were initiated against him on 10 July for foreign currency offenses. With the assistance of the lawyer Conrad Baasch, the proceedings were suspended on 27 Nov. 1934, as Helmuth was considered a resident person until his regular deregistration with the authorities at the end of May 1934.

After this incident, Ludwig Moritz and Helene Mainz decided in the fall of 1934 to emigrate to Amsterdam as well. Ludwig entered the Helmuth Mainz & Co. banking business, but earned much less than in Hamburg. His lost income was estimated at 25,000 RM per year in the restitution proceedings. "However, [his strength] was not sufficient to start up [a new business of his own] under new conditions. Only after payment of a Reich flight tax (Reichsfluchtsteuer) of around 70,000 RM, was he apparently able to dispose of part of his remaining assets again. From this, he financially assisted on a regular basis his sister Amalie Hirsch, who needed support by then.

Already on 1 July 1934, the son Franz had joined the John M. Meyer banking house, by then operating as a general partnership, as a co-partner. Apart from the two owners, the company had three additional employees. Franz was given the company on 7 Jan. 1935, albeit with reduced capital, as Ludwig and Helmuth had withdrawn part of their deposits, but equipped with considerable goodwill and "an ‘Aryan’ clientele apparently loyal initially.”

However, from a stay in Amsterdam in Mar. 1936, Franz, too, did not return to Hamburg either. Fearing persecution, he left behind, as other bankers had done before, "a large part of their private and commercial property in Germany.” Previously, he had sold his parents’ house at Hochallee 11, estimated at a value of 32,000 RM, for 25,000 RM on 7 Feb. 1936. He later instructed a lawyer to liquidate the bank. In June 1936, all assets had already been deposited in a blocked account and the remaining assets of Ludwig Moritz Mainz were confiscated as well. The withdrawal of the John M. Meyer Company from the Association of Members of the Hamburg Stock Exchange took place on 21 Aug. 1936, and the bank ceased to exist on 4 Dec. 1936.

Ludwig Moritz Mainz’s two daughters had also left Germany in the meantime. After Otto Eisner had been expelled from the law society in Frankfurt/Main in Apr. 1933, he accepted a position as a legal employee of FIDES Treuhand Vereinigung, an auditing and consulting firm in Switzerland, and moved to Zurich with his wife Dorothea. This decision later saved the couple from persecution. Anita Oettinger also emigrated with her family, to Amsterdam in 1934, where her mother-in-law together with her two sons again built up a tobacco import and export business.

In 1938, the foreign currency criminal proceedings against Ludwig Moritz Mainz and his son Helmuth were reopened in the course of proceedings against the lawyer Conrad Baasch. Neither of them traveled to Germany because they had to fear that "they would have been arrested immediately at the border by the Gestapo, taken to a concentration camp for ‘retraining,’ and then deported again.” On 2 Feb. 1939, the Regional Court (Landgericht) issued an order to seize the amounts of almost 9,000 RM paid at the time from Ludwig Moritz Mainz’ blocked assets held with the M. M. Warburg & Co. bank. Ludwig Moritz Mainz was subsequently expatriated in Sept. 1939 and all his remaining domestic assets were seized.

With the German occupation of the Netherlands in the Second World War starting on 10 May 1940, the living conditions for Ludwig Moritz Mainz and his family changed once again. The persecution measures with prohibitions and exclusions already introduced in Germany were also implemented there. From 29 Apr. 1942, Ludwig and Helene Mainz had to wear a "Jews’ star” ("Judenstern”) on their clothing as a means of identification. At this time, the Mainz and Oettinger families moved closer together in Amsterdam. On 4 July 1942 – Ludwig’s seventy-fifth birthday – an unannounced raid by the Security Police took place to "inventory” the apartment at Chopinstraat 5 and the existing furnishings. As a result, Ludwig suffered a severe heart attack and became a nursing case in the following weeks. Shortly before his death on 17 Aug. 1942, the most valuable objects from the apartment were confiscated.

Helene Mainz, her son Helmuth with family, her daughter Anita with family and mother-in-law were successively taken to the Dutch Westerbork transit camp from Sept. 1942 onward and from there, they were deported to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Helene Mainz died on 29 Feb. 1944, and Helmuth, together with his wife and two daughters, was one of the "exchange prisoners” with admission certificates for Palestine, being able to leave the country on 30 June 1944. After the end of the war, the family returned to the Netherlands, where Helmuth committed suicide on 15 Mar. 1954. While Hans Oettinger died in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp on 17 Nov. 1944, Anita Oettinger and her son survived and went back to Amsterdam in early summer 1945. Both emigrated from there to the USA in Feb. 1948. Anita died on 25 Jan. 1991 in New York. Her son Franz, who had already emigrated to the USA in 1939, changed his name to Frank Mayne, married the emigrant Geraldine (Gerda) David (born on 7 Sept. 1909 in Berlin), and passed away on 7 Dec. 1958.

Helene Mainz has been commemorated by a Stolperstein in front of the family home at Hochallee 11.

© Text courtesy of the Hamburg Chamber of Commerce (eds.) taken from: "Against Forgetting. Victims of totalitarian persecution from the honorary and full-time office of the Hamburg Chamber of Commerce” (Gegen das Vergessen. Opfer totalitärer Verfolgung aus dem Ehren- und Hauptamt der Handelskammer Hamburg). Hamburg 2019

Translator: Erwin Fink
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: July 2020
© Barbara Günther

Quellen: 2; 5; BArch Berlin-Lichterfelde R 13-XVIII Nr. 135 (Wirtschaftsgruppe Privates Bankgewerbe, Firma John M. Meyer); BArch Berlin-Lichterfelde R 13-XVIII Nr. 164 (Wirtschaftsgruppe Privates Bankgewerbe, Firma John M. Meyer); Evangelisches Kirchenbuchamt Hannover, Kirchgemeinde Stadt Frankfurt, Trauungsbuch, S. 493; Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv Wiesbaden 903_10255 (Standesbücher Frankfurt am Main, Sterberegister 1861 Nr. 448); Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv Wiesbaden 903_10269 (Standesbücher Frankfurt am Main, Sterberegister 1870 Nr. 308); Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv Wiesbaden 903_10488 (Standesamt Frankfurt am Main, Sterberegister 1895 Nr. 3052); Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv Wiesbaden 903_10891 (Standesamt Frankfurt IV, Sterberegister 1924 Nr. 785); Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv Wiesbaden 903_8802 (Standesbücher, Geburtenbuch 1853 Nr. 59); Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv Wiesbaden 903_8829 (Standesbücher Stadt Frankfurt am Main, Trauungsbuch 1862 Nr. 246); Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv Wiesbaden 903_9418 (Standesamt Niederrad und Oberrad, Heiratsregister 1882 Nr. 803); Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv Wiesbaden 903_9433 (Standesamt Bornheim, Heiratsregister 1884 Nr. 647); Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv Wiesbaden 924_1180 (Standesamt Bad Nauheim, Heiratsregister 1921 Nr. 53); Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv Wiesbaden 925_2934 (Standesamt Wiesbaden, Sterberegister 1942 Nr. 1842); HK-Archiv 53.D.2.2.9. (Ernennung der Mitglieder der Allgemeinen Abteilung des Börsenvorstandes (Börsenkommission) 1926–1934); HK-Archiv 53.D.3.2.10 (Ernennung des Vorstandes der Wertpapierbörse 1927–1933); Landesarchiv Berlin, Heiratsregister Standesamt Berlin XII a 259/1894, lfd. Nr. 322; StAHH 213-11_05870/39 (Landgericht Hamburg, Strafsache Ludwig Mainz, Wiederaufnahmeverfahren); StAHH 213-13_11489 (Landgericht Hamburg, Wiedergutmachung, Jewish Trust Claim für Ludwig Moritz Mainz); StAHH 213-13_2350 (Landgericht Hamburg, Wiedergutmachung, Ludwig Mainz Nachlass); StAHH 231-3_A 12 Band 22 (Firmenregister F 27736); StAHH 231-3_A 12 Band 31 (Firmenregister F 31435); StAHH 231-3_A 13 Band 17 (Gesellschaftsregister I, G 29160); StAHH 231-3_A 7 Band 46 (Prokuren-Protokoll P 11298); StAHH 231-7_A 1 Band 10 (Handelsregister A 2664); StAHH 231-7_A 1 Band 46 (Handelsregister A 11240); StAHH 314-15_F 1612 (Oberfinanzpräsident, Helmuth Mainz); StAHH 314-15_F 1616 (Oberfinanzpräsident, Ludwig Moritz Mainz); StAHH 314-15_FVg 7489 (Oberfinanzpräsident, Franz Ludwig Mainz); StAHH 332-5_13272 (Standesamt Hamburg 03, Geburtsregister 1900 Nr. 630); StAHH 332-5_8025 (Standesamt Hamburg 03, Sterberegister 1915 Nr. 137); StAHH 332-5_8026 (Standesamt Hamburg 03, Sterberegister 1915 Nr. 873); StAHH 332-5_9110 (Standesamt Hamburg 03, Geburtsregister 1895 Nr. 1369); StAHH 332-5_9122 (Standesamt Hamburg 03, Geburtsregister 1896 Nr. 1885); StAHH 351-11_23224 (Amt für Wiedergutmachung, Hans Norbert Julius Oettinger); StAHH 351-11_23417 (Amt für Wiedergutmachung, Helmuth Mainz); StAHH 351-11_26935 (Amt für Wiedergutmachung, Frank Mayne (Franz Mainz)); StAHH 351-11_39030 (Amt für Wiedergutmachung, Geraldine Mayne für Frank Ludwig Mainz); Adressbuch von Frankfurt a. M.; Hamburger Adressbuch; Köhler, Ingo: Die "Arisierung" der Privatbanken im Dritten Reich. Verdrängung, Ausschaltung und die Frage der Wiedergutmachung, (Schriftenreihe zur Zeitschrift für Unternehmensgeschichte 14) 2. Aufl. München 2008, S. 408; Offizielles Hamburger Börsen-Adressbuch.
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