Georg Solmssen

Georg Salomonsoh was born on 7 August 1869 in Berlin, German Empire (present-day, Germany) to Adolph Salomonsohn, a banker, and Sara Rinkel (1851–1929).^[3][4][2]

Through his father Solmssen was the great-grandson of Rabbi Salomon Abraham Gedalia (1776–1844) and the great-great-grandson of Rabbi Abraham Gedalia, the Chief Rabbi of Denmark.^[5][6] Solmssen was the paternal nephew of the banker Arthur Salomonsohn [de], cousin of the classical archaeologist and art historian Maria Weigert Brendel and the first cousin, twice removed^[a] of the American writer Arthur R.G. Solmssen.^[2][4] Solmssen was one of four siblings.^[5]

He studied German law. Solmssen worked from 1900 for German bank Disconto-Gesellschaft in Berlin.^[7] He was a member of the supervisory board of German company Lufthansa AG and German company Vereinigte Stahlwerke.

In 1933, Solmssen was for a short time the speaker of the management board for German bank Deutsche Bank, which took over Disconto-Gesellschaft in 1929. He lived in the 1920s on the island of Schwanenwerder. When the Nazis came to power, Solmssen left Germany and emigrated to Switzerland.^[8]

In 1900, Solmssen converted from Judaism to Protestant Christianity and changed his surname from Salomonsohn to Solmssen.^[2]

In 1907, Solmssen married Giulietta 'Etta' Aselmeyer (1884–1971), with whom he had 3 children.^[4][2]

Solmssen died on 10 January 1957 in Lugano, Switzerland aged 87.^[3]

• Berlin-Brandenburgischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (ed.): Acta Borussica. Neue Folge, Reihe 1: Die Protokolle des Preußischen Staatsministeriums 1817–1934/38. Band 12, 2: Reinhold Zilch, Bärbel Holtz: April 4, 1925 until May 10, 1938. Olms-Weidmann, Hildesheim u. a. 2004, ISBN 3-487-12704-0, p. 702.
• Gerald D. Feldman: Jewish bankers and the crises of the Weimar Republic (= Leo Baeck Memorial Lecture. 39, ZDB-ID 415081-8). Leo Baeck Institute, New York NY 1995.
• Harold James, Martin L. Müller (Hrsg.): Georg Solmssen – ein deutscher Bankier. Briefe aus einem halben Jahrhundert 1900–1956 (= Schriftenreihe zur Zeitschrift für Unternehmensgeschichte. 25). Herausgegeben im Auftrag der Historischen Gesellschaft der Deutschen Bank e.V. C. H. Beck, Munich 2012, ISBN 978-3-406-62795-8.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Georg Solmssen.

• Literature by and about Georg Solmssen in the German National Library catalogue