Gerson von Bleichroeder Family Collection

The story of the Bleichroeder family is generally associated with the S. Bleichroeder bank and its political role in 19th and early 20th century Germany. Founded in 1803 in Berlin by Samuel Bleichroeder (1779-1855), the private bank gained significant political influence in Prussia in the mid-19th century under Bismarck, suffered a severe decline during the depression in the 1920s and 1930s and was annihilated in the process of Aryanization under Hitler. In 1938 the bank ceased to exist in Germany, and a new firm bearing the name Arnhold and S. Bleichroeder came to be established first in London and then in New York. Paralleling the course of their firm, the Bleichroeder family went from the nobility and prestige they had gained under Bismarck to gradual social decline to political persecution during the Holocaust. Being scattered over Europe and the United States after the end of World War II, various members of the family fell into a dispute about the disposition of the Bleichroeder heritage, which, entangled with restitution claims, remained a difficult issue to resolve.

Through close contacts to the Rothschild family, Gerson (von) Bleichroeder (1822-1898), eldest son of Samuel Bleichroeder, was introduced to Otto von Bismarck and became his banker and close consultant, both economically and diplomatically. With Bismarck’s rise to power in the 1860s, the S. Bleichroeder bank assumed an increasingly significant role in Prussian politics, particularly through providing loans for Bismarck’s wars in Europe. In 1872 Gerson was ennobled.

After Gerson's death in 1898, his three sons, Georg (1854-1902), Hans ( -1917) and James (1860-1937) only played a marginal role in the bank as silent partners, while the core business was carried on by Julius von Schwabach and later by his son Paul von Schwabach. After a severe economic decline in the mid-1920s and a series of lawsuits, the Bleichroeder heirs were mostly eliminated from the family business.

Hans von Bleichroeder had two children, Hans jr. von Bleichroeder (1886- 1938) and Werner von Bleichroeder (-1927). Hans’s brother, James von Bleichroeder, was married to Harriet von Bleichroeder (née Alexander) (1869-1946), with whom he had four children: Curt (1889-1958), Edgar (1897-), Ellie (1894-1989) and Harriet von Campe (née Bleichroeder) (1892-1942). Wolfgang von Bleichroeder (1918-1984) is James von Bleichroeder’s son of his second marriage with Maria von Bleichroeder (née Seidt).

During the Holocaust, James von Bleichroeder's sons, Curt and Edgar, who had both served in World War I, fled to Switzerland in 1942, after their petitions on grounds of their military service and political support had been turned down by Nazi officials. Their sister Ellie was deported to Theresienstadt in 1942 and liberated in 1945. Harriet von Campe, was deported to Riga in 1942, where she died.