Bernstein, ArnoldArnold Bernstein was a successful shipping magnate in Hamburg before immigrating to the United States under pressure from the Nazi Regime. Despite losing his company the Arnold Bernstein Schiffahrtsgesellschaft and most of his assets, Bernstein re-established himself in the United States, founding a new shipping company, Arnold Bernstein Steamship Corporation.
Boyle, GertrudeIn 1970, when Gert Boyle became the president of Columbia Sportswear, the company was a small, struggling organization with low profit margins. Five years later, Columbia went international and was expanding at an impressive rate.
Bronner, EmanuelEmanuel Bronner was a pioneer of natural cosmetics. Coming from a traditional German soap maker family, he founded Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps in 1948. While the business remained small in terms of turnover and profits, its liquid peppermint soap was one of the first all-natural products available on the post-World War II American market.
Expulsion – Plunder – Flight: Businessmen and Emigration from Nazi GermanyA defining feature of political and social developments under National Socialist rule between 1933 and 1945 was the forced emigration of tens of thousands of Germans. After being deprived of their rights and dispossessed, they tried to escape persecution and annihilation by fleeing from the Third Reich. While the origins and circumstances of emigration from the Reich after 1933 are among the most intensively researched questions in German history, the fate of businessmen in the context of this emigration has received relatively little attention.
German-Jewish Immigrant Entrepreneurship in the United States From the Beginning of the Nineteenth Century to the Post-World War II EraSample teaching plan for a multi-theme unit in an upper-level undergraduate course in American history, German history, Jewish history, ethnic studies, the history of migration, or immigrant entrepreneurship
Guggenheim, FelixFelix Guggenheim emigrated to the United States in 1940. An influential publisher in Germany, Guggenheim was able to utilize his former contacts to establish a successful business as a literary agent and legal advisor for clients in the U.S. and in Germany after the end of World War II.
Jeidels, OttoOtto Jeidels’ life and his pursuit of “realism,” as he himself wrote, illustrate the precarious position of both Jews, even assimilated ones, and even the international financial system during the first half of the 20th century.
Laemmle, CarlCarl Laemmle was the founder of Universal Pictures Company and one of the founding fathers of Hollywood and the studio system
Schülein, HermannAmong the German refugees of the 1930s there was scarcely an émigré in the USA who was a more successful businessman and brewer than Hermann Schülein. Schülein belonged to a small (and for the German-Jewish mass emigration entirely unrepresentative) group of business executives who managed to continue in their line of work in the alien circumstances of the “New World” and, remarkably, to build on the success they had known in Germany.
Vernon, LillianBorn into a wealthy Jewish family in Germany, Lillian came to the U.S. as a child after escaping from the Nazi regime of the 1930s. With an entrepreneurial spirit inherited from a family of businessmen, the “Queen of Catalogs” built her mail-order empire from scratch.
Weltzien, JuliusJulius Weltzien spent nearly his entire career with one company, Schering AG, one of Germany’s oldest specialty chemical firms. He built up the international and American business of one of Germany’s leading companies only eventually to be exiled from Germany to the United States, albeit as a potentially dangerous alien to his new hosts.
