Harry Fuld

Harry Fuld (born 3 February 1879 in Frankfurt am Main; died 26 January 1932 in Zurich) was a German Jewish entrepreneur whose art collection was looted by Nazis after his death. Fuld founded a company for renting in-house telephones, which developed into one of the leading groups in the telecommunications industry in Europe. After Adolf Hitler and the NSDAP came to power at the beginning of 1933, the Nazi regime expropriated Fuld's heirs because the family business was considered "Jewish".

Life

Fuld was the only son of a wealthy Frankfurt art and antiques dealer and was supposed to join the family's own art and antiques shop, J. and S. Goldschmidt.[1] After a bank apprenticeship in Frankfurt and traineeships in London, Paris and Brussels, there was no room for him in the family business. He then began to rent home telephones based on the American model. After clarification of the legal situation, these systems were officially approved from 1900 onwards.

Together with the German master watchmaker and technician Carl Lehner (1871–1969), Fuld founded the German private telephone company H. Fuld & Co. in Frankfurt am Main in 1899. This became H. Fuld & Co. Telephon- und Telegraphenwerke in 1928/1929 AG and after Fuld's death to National Telephon- und Telegraphenwerke GmbH.[2]

Around 1925, a large part of the private telephone systems inside and outside Germany were manufactured and maintained by his company. In 1928, Fuld's rapidly expanding company had developed into a group with over 100 companies and an extensive network of branches. By 1930, Fulds Gesellschaft was one of the leading companies in the European telecommunications industry.

Nazi persecution

Harry Fuld collected modern art and built up an extensive collection. After Fuld's death in 1932, his sons Harry and Peter Harry Fuld and his widow inherited the company and the art collection. When the Nazis came to power in 1933, the Fuld's were persecuted because Jewish.[3] The Fuld children fled Nazi Germany in 1937, and the art collection was confiscated by the Nazis,[4][5] including the painting Le Mur Rose by Henri Matisse, which Harry Fuld senior had bought in 1917.

Le Mur Rose by Matisse

Le Mur Rose came into the possession of Nazi SS officer Kurt Gerstein in 1943.[6] Gerstein, who was responsible for transporting the Zyklon B poison used in concentration camp gas chambers, committed suicide in 1948. Gerstein's widow led investigators to a cache of stolen items which included Le Mur Rose. In 1951 the Matisse was moved to a Paris museum along with hundreds of other objects stolen by the Nazis,[7] and ended up at the Centre Pompidou.[8] It was restituted to the heirs of Fuld in 2008.[9]

Giovanni di Paolo panels

Panels depicting two scenes of the life of St. Clare of Assisi,The Clothing of St. Clare By St. Francis, and St. Clare Rescuing the Shipwrecked, were restituted from Berlin's Gemäldegalerie (Old Master Gallery) to the Fuld heirs.[5]

Tintoretto

A Tintoretto "Christ carrying the Cross" from the Mayer-Fuld collection was acquired by the Nazi Karl Haberstock from the Achenbach auction house (Berlin) in July 1940 and sold to the Düsseldorf municipal art collections[10]

500 artworks in the Lostart database

More than 500 objects from the Mayer-Fuld collection are listed in Germany's lost-art database.[5]

Expropriation of the company

The Nazis expropriated the telephone company from Fuld's widow, Lucie Mayer-Fuld, and his two sons. Mayer-Fuld fled to France and the sons to England.[11] After an anti-Jewish boycott and "Aryanization", that is, transfer to non-Jews, the company became Telefonbau und Normalzeit GmbH (T & N) in 1937.[12]

Literature
  • Leo Parth: Harry Fuld. Eine Lebensskizze. (Privatdruck der Firma H. Fuld & Co., Frankfurt am Main) o. V. (Stalling), o. O. (Oldenburg) o. J. (1933).
  • Franz Lerner (1961), "Fuld, Harry Herz Salomon", Neue Deutsche Biographie (in German), vol. 5, Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, pp. 725–726; (full text online)
  • "Ungeheures telefonisches Verkehrsbeduerfnis". Telenorma, vom jungen Harry Fuld als Gesellschaft für Haustelefonanlagen gegründet. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Nr. 235 vom 10. Oktober 1991, S. 46.
  • Caroline Flick: "Raubkunst exemplarisch. Harry Fuld, Hans W. Lange, Kurt Gerstein und Herni Matisses 'Le Mur Rose'". In: Jahrbuch für westfälische Kirchengeschichte, Band 105 (2009), S. 419–486.

See also

References
  1. "Von der Geschichte zur Erinnerung". Liebieghaus (in German). Archived from the original on 2021-04-30. Retrieved 2021-04-30. Fuld selbst kam aus einer Familie von Antiquitätenhändlern: Sein Onkel Julius Goldschmidt (1858–1932) und sein Vater Sally Fuld (1836-1882) waren Mitinhaber der renommierten, Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts gegründeten Frankfurter Antiquitäten- und Kunsthandlung J. & S. Goldschmidt, die später Dependancen in Berlin, Paris und New York hatte. 1899 hatte Fuld gemeinsam mit dem Unternehmer Carl Lehner in Frankfurt die Deutsche-Privat-Telefongesellschaft H. Fuld & Co. gegründet, ein Installationsgeschäft für Telefonanlangen, das schnell expandierte. Er gehörte zu den wichtigsten und renommiertesten Mäzenen des Städel Museums und des Liebieghauses.
  2. Biographie, Deutsche. "Fuld, Harry - Deutsche Biographie". www.deutsche-biographie.de (in German). Retrieved 2021-04-30.
  3. "Lost Art Internet Database - Jüdische Sammler und Kunsthändler (Opfer nationalsozialistischer Verfolgung und Enteignung) - Fuld,Peter Harry". www.lostart.de. Retrieved 2021-04-30.
  4. "Eine Heilige mit Schatten - A Saint with shadows hovering". www.lootedart.com. Retrieved 2021-04-30.
  5. "Germany Returns Two Nazi-Confiscated Old Masters to the Heirs of a Renowned Jewish Art Collector". www.lootedart.com. Retrieved 2021-04-30.
  6. Baume, Maïa de la (2008-11-24). "Stolen Matisse Painting to Be Returned". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 2018-01-06. Retrieved 2021-04-30. A Matisse painting, above, stolen by the Nazis in 1941 will be returned to the heirs of its rightful owner on Thursday, in a ceremony to be held at the French Culture Ministry, the newspaper Le Figaro reported. The 1898 painting, called "Le Mur Rose" ("The Pink Wall"), was bought in Paris in 1914 by Harry Fuld, a Jewish entrepreneur who brought it home to Frankfurt. It was discovered in 1948 among the belongings of an SS officer charged with crimes against humanity. The painting, kept at the Georges Pompidou Center since 2000, bore a stamp from French customs in 1914, which allowed experts to identify and recover it.
  7. "Nazi-looted Matisse painting returned to Frankfurt". www.thejc.com. Archived from the original on 2020-06-29. Retrieved 2021-04-30. Le Mur Rose was bought in Paris before the First World War by Frankfurt resident Harry Fuld. He had made a fortune from telecommunications equipment, but his business was appropriated by the Nazis in the 1930s. When his son, Harry Jr, fled from Berlin to Britain in 1936, the family art collection was also looted by the Nazis.
  8. "Restitution en grande pompe d'un tableau volé par les Nazis". LExpress.fr (in French). 2008-11-27. Archived from the original on 2009-10-10. Retrieved 2021-04-30. Le mur rose porte la mention MNR, pour Musées Nationaux Récupération. Cette étiquette signale les oeuvres d'art amenées en Allemagne pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale et volées pour certaines à leurs propriétaires juifs. En 1949, 60 000 d'entre elles avaient été récupérées en Allemange, et 45 000 avaient pu être rendues. Mais qu'allait-il advenir des 15 000 oeuvres restantes? Elles furent examinées par deux commissions qui avaient pour but de déterminer celles qui présentaient le plus d'intérêt afin de les préserver. 2 000 oeuvres furent retenues et remises à la garde des musées nationaux ; les autres furent mis en vente afin de financer l'effort de reconstruction nationale. Les oeuvres retenues sont aujourd'hui réparties dans de nombreux musées français sur tout le territoire, et les plus importantes sont conservées au Louvre, à Orsay et au Musée National d'Art Moderne. Le mur rose se trouvait quant à lui au Centre Pompidou.
  9. "Looted Matisse goes to UK charity". 2008-11-25. Archived from the original on 2008-11-26. Retrieved 2021-04-30. Le Mur Rose was confiscated from the Fuld family in the late 1930s and kept by a Nazi officer responsible for delivering poison gas to Auschwitz. The work has been at France's national museum of modern art since 1949. It will be handed to Magen David Adom UK, a charity that supports medical rescue in Israel, later this week.
  10. "Karl Haberstock. Umstrittener Kunsthändler und Mäzen". www.lootedart.com. Archived from the original on 2010-11-24. Retrieved 2021-04-30. An essay by provenance researcher Anja Heuß on a Tintoretto representing "Christ carrying the Cross" from the Mayer-Fuld collection, purchased by Haberstock from the Achenbach auction house (Berlin) in July 1940 and sold to the Düsseldorf municipal art collections in the same year, and the post-war restitution claim for this painting.
  11. Oster, Marcy (4 September 2019). "Nazi-looted art returned to heirs of German-Jewish art collector". Cleveland Jewish News. Archived from the original on 2019-09-05. Retrieved 2021-04-30. Fuld, who died in 1932, owned a Frankfurt-based company that produced and sold telephones. The Nazis expropriated the company from his wife, Lucie Mayer-Fuld, and his two sons. Mayer-Fuld fled to France and the sons to England.
  12. "Firmengeschichte II| GVIT" (in German). Archived from the original on 2016-03-22. Retrieved 2021-06-03. Dadurch wurden diese gezwungen, sich bis 1935 von allen jüdischen Gesellschaftern und fast 1500 Mitarbeitern jüdischer Herkunft zu trennen. Umfirmierung in Telefonbau und Normalzeit AG Der arisierte und gleichgeschaltete Konzern firmierte ab 1935 als "Telefonbau und Normalzeit Aktiengesellschaft". Zu deren wichtigsten Aktionären zählten Carl Lehner, der allein 28 Prozent der Aktien hielt, sowie dessen Söhne Karl Ludwig und Fritz, ferner Karl und Hermann Leichthammer, Eugen Felsmann, Dr. Ulrich Engel, Dr. Kurt Möllgardt und schließlich Meta Gadesmann, Fulds engste Mitarbeiterin, die ihn auf seiner letzten Geschäftsreise begleitet hatte. Die früheren jüdischen Gesellschafter mussten ihre Aktien zu ungünstigen Bedingungen verkaufen und Deutschland verlassen. Doch die Gestapo behielt auch den arisierten Konzern im Auge. 1937 wurde Meta Gadesmann verhaftet und ins Gefängnis gesteckt, weil man ihr nachwies, dass sie Gelder ins Ausland verschob, um jüdischen Freunden bei der Existenzgründung im Exil zu helfen.
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