Career and Lifestyle
According to an obituary of the banker published in the 21 August 1939 edition of Time magazine:
- "During the War, barely out of college, he got a job in the German Government bureau directing the flow of raw materials through Germany. In no time, he headed it. At 27 he persuaded Belgian industrialists to accept the paper currency issued in occupied territory. After the War he managed Germany's central monetary office, where his first job was to organize the Amsterdam branch of the famous, 125-year-old Mendelssohn & Co. Bank." The article continued, "Mysterious (few people even knew his name), powerful, grasping, he began to formulate the financial policies of nations and to get fat. At one time he worked simultaneously for the German, Austrian, Czech, Polish, Hungarian, Yugoslav and Romanian Central Banks. Twice he turned down the presidency of the German Reichsbank, the second time proposed Hjalmar Schacht in his place. Schacht got the job. He began to buy antiques, among them the valuable Eucharistic Dove stolen from Salzburg's Cathedral. He was too skeptical to have any truck with Ivar Kreuger or any private financier. His was the last Jewish-owned bank allowed to do business in Germany."
The Time magazine profile, while acknowledging Mannheimer's power and position, was also remarkably negative, describing him as "fat-lipped, mean, noxious, cigar-chomping" man who gave one of his mistresses a gold bathtub and who, "after 20 years in The Netherlands, could not speak enough Dutch to boss his chauffeur." Another source recalled that while most Amsterdam bankers were discreet enough to use taxis for daily transportation, the flamboyant Mannheimer used a Rolls-Royce limousine. He also raised eyebrows by maintaining two lavish homes: a 1913 redbrick mansion at Hobbemastraat 20 in Amsterdam, which house was derogatorily nicknamed Villa Protsky, and Villa Monte Cristo near Vaucresson, France. His offices were located in a palatial 17th-century mansion in Amsterdam, at Herengracht 412.
Read more about this topic: Fritz Mannheimer
Famous quotes containing the words career and, career and/or lifestyle:
“Like the old soldier of the ballad, I now close my military career and just fade away, an old soldier who tried to do his duty as God gave him the light to see that duty. Goodbye.”
—Douglas MacArthur (1880–1964)
“In time your relatives will come to accept the idea that a career is as important to you as your family. Of course, in time the polar ice cap will melt.”
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