Löwenthal, Nord & Co. OHG

Löwenthal, Nord & Co. was a rural-produce and grain wholesale firm founded in 1855, based in the town of Schwerin with branches in Mecklenburg and Schleswig-Holstein, whose founders were of Jewish descent. When the National Socialists came to power it was, according to the account in the restitution application of the Nord family, among the largest grain companies in northern Germany ^[3][16]. In 1933 the non-Jewish partner Paul Ohlerich approached Mecklenburg's Minister-President Walter Granzow, and the firm was then "Aryanized". The Jewish partners were first reduced to limited partners and in 1939 pushed out without compensation, while the firm continued as "Ohlerich & Sohn" ^[1][16].

Foundation and rise

The firm was founded on 1 July 1855 by the merchants Joseph Löwenthal and Semmy Nord as an open trading partnership ("Joseph Löwenthal & Co.") in Bützow ^[2][5][16], although the restitution application names Schwerin as the place of foundation ^[3][16] and the application of the Berlin lawyer Bertold Jacob of 15 June 1938 wrongly gives the year 1865 ^[1][16]; the text follows the archive records here. Joseph (Jachel) Löwenthal, who was born in Sternberg in 1821, was a son of the Sternberg ancestor David Israel Löwenthal, whose forebears came from Bützow. Semmy Nord, on the other hand, came from a Hamburg merchant family that had immigrated from Amsterdam, and how the two came together is unknown. The business tie was, however, reinforced by marriage, for in 1856 Joseph Löwenthal married Semmy Nord's sister Regina, and Semmy Nord married Helene Löwenthal of Sternberg, a niece of Joseph ^[2][16].

In 1860 the firm moved to Schwerin and bought the warehouse on Paulstraße, which it enlarged several times in the following years ^[1][16]. From Whitsun 1876 Joseph's son Gustav, from his marriage to Regina Nord, was trained as his successor. After Joseph Löwenthal had died in 1884, Semmy Nord and his heirs continued the firm, and Gustav became a partner and later a Kommerzienrat (honorary title for merchants) ^[2][3][16]. In 1884 the firm had three apprentices, six to eight workers and an annual turnover of almost one million marks ^[1][16].

In the 20th century the firm traded internationally. Mecklenburg grain was bought up, shipped down the Elbe from Magdeburg to Hamburg and exported mainly to Belgium, England, France, Holland and Scandinavia, the import and export port being almost exclusively Wismar ^[7][16]. Other routes ran over the Stör, Elde and Elbe, with the loading place in Schwerin at the Spieltordamm, and the business also included fertilizer, feed, seed and wool. On 1 July 1905 the firm celebrated its 50th anniversary with a party for its staff, some of whom had worked there for up to four decades ^[2][16]. In April 1906 Grand Duke Friedrich Franz IV named Semmy Nord Mecklenburg Geheimer Kommerzienrat, which was a rare honour ^[3][2][16].

Partners and branches

Year	Event	Source
1891	Paul Ohlerich (non-Jewish, from a seafaring family of Warnemünde, apprenticed in Rostock, worked in Lübeck) joins as travelling salesman	[2][4][16]
1895	Ohlerich becomes authorised signatory and partner (the restitution application gives about 1912)	[1][2][3][16]
1903	Max Nord, son of Semmy Nord, becomes partner; later member of the Reich Economic Council and of the Mecklenburg Chamber of Commerce, founder and chairman of the supervisory board of the Mecklenburgische Getreide-Kredit-Bank	[1][3][6][16]
1907	First branch in Sternberg; registered on 13 July 1907 with the partners Semmy Nord, Gustav Löwenthal, Max Nord, Paul Ohlerich, Therese Löwenthal née van Damm and Mary Löwenthal	[5][16]
1915	Semmy Nord and Therese Löwenthal die; new partners: Helene Nord née Löwenthal and Walter Nord	[5][16]
1917	From 1 July the Sternberg branch is named "Löwenthal, Nord & Co."	[5][16]
1919 to 1920s	Further branches in Lübeck, Bützow, Goldberg, later Rostock and Reinfeld; owner of the Schweriner Mühlenwerks GmbH and the Mühlen & Handelsgesellschaft mbH in Wittenburg	[1][3][4][16]
1926	Otto Löwenthal, Gustav's son, becomes partner	[1][16]
1927	Capital 75 % with the Jewish partners, 25 % with Ohlerich	[1][16]
1930	Helene Nord dies; Otto Löwenthal joins the partnership	[5][16]
1932	Max Nord dies on 25 July; heirs: his widow Wera Nord née Hinrichsen, Dr. Erich Jonas (husband of Anni Löwenthal) and Dr. Rudolf (Rolf) Löwenthal. At the start of 1932 the firm has about 120 employees, branches in Sternberg, Lübeck, Reinfeld, Bützow and Goldberg and mills in Schwerin and Wittenburg	[1][2][16]

Surviving warehouses and silos recall the firm, among them those at Bützow harbour (1904), in Lübeck at Bäckergrube 59, in Rostock at Grubenstraße 7, at the railway stations of Sternberg (around 1907), Goldberg and Reinfeld, and in the form of three warehouses in Schwerin's Severinstraße ^[8][16]. The silos at Bützow (1935/36), Wismar at the Old Harbour (1937/38) and Schwerin at the Ziegelsee harbour (1939/40), on the other hand, were built only after the "Aryanization" under the name Ohlerich & Sohn, partly still with the participation of the Jewish partners ^[4][16].

The Sternberg branch

In Sternberg Joseph's elder brother Adolph Löwenthal had run a commission and grain business in Kütiner Straße since before 1862, which ended with his death in 1894 and was struck from the commercial register in 1899 ^[9][5][16]. The firm's own branch was founded only in 1907. On 21 September 1921 the branch asked the town council to sell the plot on the path to the Jewish cemetery so that the warehouse by the railway could be enlarged, and later for church land for a shed for the firm's lorries. On 23 September 1921 the town councillors decided to cede the building plot at the Judenberg to the Spar- und Darlehnskassenverein (savings and loan association) for one mark per square rod, the firm's purchase contract was concluded in December 1921, and the Ministry of the Interior approved the relocation of the path on 22 February 1923 ^[10][16].

1933: boycott and seizure

Many on the political right regarded the firm as Jewish well before 1933, and its success drew envy. During the "Jewish boycott" of 1 April 1933 SA men besieged its headquarters in Schwerin's Gustavstraße, and the "Niederdeutscher Beobachter" listed it among the "boycotted" firms ^[11][16]. The Sternberg branch is said to have been harassed as well ^[12][16].

In 1933 the partner Ohlerich, whose partnership the sources date differently to 1895 or to about 1912, the text following the archive records ^[1][3], approached Minister-President Walter Granzow (NSDAP) ^[16], and Granzow then spoke with Gustav Löwenthal. What was said in these talks between Ohlerich, Granzow and Gustav Löwenthal has not been handed down so far, but Granzow ordered the "Aryanization" of the firm ^[1][16]. By contract of 1 May 1933 the open trading partnership was converted, with retroactive effect from 1 January 1933, into a limited partnership. This turned the Jewish partners into limited partners without a say in management and prevented a liquidation by the Jewish majority partners, which was to be avoided at all costs out of regard for the grain trade in Mecklenburg. On 1 November 1933 the firm was renamed "Ohlerich und Sohn" ^[1][5][16]. Personally liable partners were now Paul Ohlerich and his son Hans-Joachim, while Gustav Löwenthal (245,000 RM), Otto Löwenthal (5,000 RM) and Wera Nord (300,000 RM) were entered as limited partners ^[5][16].

The branches in Lübeck and Reinfeld were split off and, under the former authorised signatories Höllein and Tretow with financial participation of Ohlerich & Sohn, made independent as the open trading partnership "Ohlerich, Höllein & Tretow" ^[3][16]. The Sternberg property was also transferred, for the warehouse plot Brüeler Chaussee 16 (land register Dept. IV No. 56) and the house Am Wall 2 (Dept. III No. 26) appear in the 1930 register of houses with the old firm name struck out and the new one entered ^[13][16]. The directories, on the other hand, lagged behind, so that the Deutsches Reichs-Adressbuch of 1934 still lists the firm under its old name ^[14][16].

In 1935 Ohlerich's three daughters (Margarete Greuel, Annaliese Greuel, Dorothea Jodzen) joined as limited partners "to strengthen the capital of the Aryans" ^[1][16]. Gustav Löwenthal died in Hamburg on 1 January 1935, and Otto Löwenthal and Wera Nord inherited his shares ^[5][16].

1938/39: pushed out without compensation

In the application of 15 June 1938 to the Reich and Prussian Ministry of Economics, Ohlerich, represented by the Berlin lawyer Bertold Jacob, claimed that "the main burden of the work" had been his, that "the Jewish partners" had not been "so skilful" and that he alone had built up the firm from 1905, considering Gustav and Otto Löwenthal unsuited ^[1][16]. The evidence points the other way, for by about 1900, without Ohlerich, the firm already had a large turnover and an international reputation, and Max Nord travelled for it to Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Belgium, France, Greece and Turkey ^[6][16]. Several Jewish partners held office in trade associations and the Reich Economic Council or bore commercial honorary titles, most of the capital had been contributed by Löwenthal and Nord, and for the Sternberg branch Ohlerich played no recognisable role ^[3][6][16]. That Ohlerich himself did good work is shown, however, by his admission as a partner by the founding families.

Formally the Jewish limited partners remained partners until 1939. According to the file they left the contract of 3 October 1938 on 25 May 1939 because they wanted to emigrate ^[1][16]. The commercial register records, as of 31 January 1939, the entry of Ohlerich's three daughters with 60,000 RM each and the departure of the limited partners, namely the heirs of Gustav Löwenthal, Otto Löwenthal and Wera Nord ^[5][16]. They first insisted on payment of their shares but could no longer prevail with the authorities, above all the Mecklenburg Chamber of Industry and Commerce, and were expropriated without compensation ^[1][5][16]. The firm is on the Claims Conference list (no. 29742) ^[5][16].

The fate of the owners

Otto Löwenthal moved to Berlin with his family and was deported to Auschwitz at the beginning of 1943 with his wife Elli née Aron and two small children ^[15][16]. The Sternberg volume names Otto Löwenthal, his wife and two of his children as victims of the Holocaust ^[16], while Wera Nord managed to flee abroad ^[15][16].

After 1945

By application of 3 July 1947 the lawyer and notary Dr. Hinrichsen, as executor for the community of heirs of Max Nord, applied for a restitution procedure concerning the "Aryanization" of the firm ^[1][3][16]. The application contains the account of the firm's history cited above under ^[3][16].