Jane Engelhard - First Marriage

First Marriage

On 1 June 1939, she married Fritz Mannheimer (1890–1939), a German Jewish banker and art collector. The director of Mendelssohn & Co. in Amsterdam, a branch of a fabled private bank headquartered in Berlin and known for floating multi-million-dollar loans to various European governments, including that of Germany, he died eight weeks after the wedding, reportedly of a heart attack, on 9 August 1939. The actual cause of Mannheimer's death remains as speculative as its timing was suspicious. One day after his death, the Amsterdam branch announced that it was insolvent and that it was confiscating Mannheimer's art collection, which had been financed with unlimited bank credit. Shortly thereafter, the entire firm was liquidated by the German government.

The couple had one child, Anne France Mannheimer (now known as Annette de la Renta) (1939-), who was born after Mannheimer's death.