Victor Klemperer von Klemenau
Victor Klemperer von Klemenau | |
|---|---|
| Born | Template:Birth date |
| Died | March 13, 1943 (aged 66) |
| Occupation | Banker |
| Known for | Banking career at Dresdner Bank, Nazi persecution due to Jewish ancestry |
Victor Klemperer von Klemenau (June 20, 1876 – March 13, 1943) was a German banker who suffered Nazi persecution because of his Jewish ancestry.
Life
Victor was born to banker Gustav (1852–1926) and Charlotte Engelmann (1857–1934), growing up in a Jewish household alongside his brothers Herbert and Ralph-Leopold. In 1907, he embraced Protestantism when he married Sophie Reichenheim (1888–1976). The couple had four children: Sophie Charlotte, Peter Ralph, Gustav Victor, and Elisabeth-Dorothea.
He pursued legal studies at the universities of Halle, Berlin, and Freiburg, obtaining his doctorate in 1898 with a dissertation titled "The legal nature of profit participation certificates." In 1899, he fulfilled voluntary military service.
Banking
Klemperer began his banking career with training at Dresdner Bank in 1898. He then worked at Alfred Kessler & Co. in New York before joining Ludwig Loewe & Co. AG in Berlin in 1902. Returning to Dresdner Bank in 1904, he was appointed authorized signatory at the Berlin branch. He played a key role in establishing the Leipzig branch in 1908 and assumed its management from 1909. In 1914, he took charge of Dresdner Bank’s Dresden headquarters, overseeing the Saxony region previously managed by his father. During World War I, he served as a captain and received four medals for his service. Klemperer remained at the helm of the Dresden office until May 1934, directing all company activities across Saxon-Central Germany.
He contributed significantly to the expansion of Dresdner Bank’s extensive network throughout Saxony. In acknowledgment of his achievements, TH Dresden honored him with the title of Honorary Senator in 1929.
Nazi era persecution
Following the Nazi seizure of power in 1933, Klemperer endured persecution despite his religious conversion and was compelled to retire in June 1934. By June 1938, he was prohibited from holding any committee positions. Subsequently, he and his wife escaped to Southern Rhodesia, where his brother Ralph had relocated in 1937. Sophie briefly returned to Germany late in 1938 to arrange the sale of their family villa before reuniting with Victor in Bulawayo.
Art collection
Klemperer possessed a vast art collection comprising porcelain, paintings, sculptures, and rare books. In 1938, the Nazis confiscated these items for Adolf Hitler’s intended Führermuseum in Linz. In November 1942, Hitler ordered their transfer to Saxony. Prior to the conclusion of World War II, 13 manuscripts, 549 incunabula, and 510 bibliophile prints were relocated to the Saxon State Library. After May 1945, only twelve incunabula were returned. Partial restitutions from the Soviet Union occurred in 1958, increasing returned works to 295; these were eventually restored to Klemperer’s heirs in 1991.
Restitution claims
On June 17, 2011, a Belgian commission denied the restitution request by Klemperer’s heirs for Oskar Kokoschka's Portrait of Ludwig Adler (1913). The artwork had been displayed under Klemperer’s ownership in 1937 and sold in 1938 before passing through various hands until its acquisition by Ghent's Museum voor Schone Kunsten in 1987.
In 2012, Jacksonville’s Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens returned two porcelain items connected to Klemperer’s father Gustav after determining they were looted by Nazis during World War II.
The German Lost Art Foundation catalogs more than one hundred artworks claimed by Klemperer’s descendants along with hundreds more related to the family legacy.
Family
His nephew, the son of Herbert, was Klemens von Klemperer, a scholar specializing in modern European history and a faculty member at Smith College in Massachusetts.
Works
- Victor Klemperer: Die rechtliche Natur der Genussscheine. Doctoral thesis, Halle-Wittenberg, 1898
- Erich von Rath, Konrad Haebler: Frühdrucke aus der Bücherei Victor von Klemperer. Dresden, 1927
Literature
- Andreas Graul: Gustav und Victor von Klemperer. Eine biographische Skizze. Leipziger Universitätsverlag, Leipzig, 2005
- Klemperer, Victor Edler von Klemenau, in: Joseph Walk (editor): Kurzbiographien zur Geschichte der Juden 1918–1945. Saur, Munich, 1988