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Home / Jewish law and estates / The Nazis forced Max Warburg to give up M.M. Warburg & Co in 1938; his son Eric needed…
Case file s581 · Jewish law and estates · 1946
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1946
Max Warburg: Max Warburg 1905
Max Warburg. Rudolf Dührkoop. Public domain, Wikimedia Commons.
Died
26 December 1946 (Max Warburg)
Place
New York; bank in Hamburg · Germany
Field
banking · Business and finance on the timeline
Legal tradition
Nazi Aryanisation decrees; post-war settlement between the Warburgs and the new partners
Historical event
Aryanisation of Jewish businesses, 1938
Religion
Max Warburg: Jewish (recorded as Jewish German bankers on Wikipedia)
Member of
Atlantik-Brücke (Wikidata)
Jewish law and estatesPostwarNorth AmericaEuropeGermany

The Nazis forced Max Warburg to give up M.M. Warburg & Co in 1938; his son Eric needed until 1970 to restore the family name

M.M. Warburg & Co was the Warburg family's private bank in Hamburg. Max Warburg led it after 1933. After Hjalmar Schacht left the Economics Ministry in August 1937, Max was dropped from the Reich bond consortium. In spring and summer 1938 the capital passed to non-Jewish limited partners, with Rudolf Brinckmann and Paul Wirtz as liable partners. The handover was formally by agreement, but the Reich Economics Ministry blocked a sale at a fair price. In late summer 1938 Max emigrated to his son Eric in the United States. In 1941 the ministry barred the Warburg name, and the bank became Brinckmann, Wirtz & Co. Max became a US citizen in 1944 and died in New York on 26 December 1946. In 1949 Eric agreed with Brinckmann to return 25 percent of the shares to the family, with an option to reach 50 percent by 1953. He could not use it: he lacked capital, and non-Jewish partners led by Hermann Schilling opposed him. After Schilling left, Eric rejoined as a liable partner in October 1956. After a long dispute with Brinckmann, the bank took the name M.M. Warburg, Brinckmann & Co. Eric died in 1990. In 2025 Max Warburg of the family and Christian Olearius each held 40 percent of the group. The bank had repaid almost €280 million in Cum-Ex tax debts, and Olearius's tax trial was halted in June 2024 on health grounds. A sale process was paused in 2025.

What the law took from it

A forced sale under a law aimed at the owners is undone only as far as the new owners agree; the Warburgs got back a quarter in 1949.

Family version vs. the record

The bank's own history gives 1969 for the return of the Warburg name; the Deutsche Biographie gives 1970:

mmwarburg.dedeutsche-biographie.de
Sources
  1. Internet ArchiveGovernment record
  2. deutsche-biographie.dePress
  3. deutsche-biographie.dePress
  4. dasjuedischehamburg.dePress
  5. mmwarburg.dePress
  6. boersen-zeitung.dePress
  7. lto.dePress

Cite as: celebrity.estate, “The Nazis forced Max Warburg to give up M.M. Warburg & Co in 1938; his son Eric needed until 1970 to restore the family name,” story s581, https://www.celebrity.estate/the-nazis-forced-max-warburg-to-1946, updated 30 October 2026.

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Jewish law and estatesPostwarNorth AmericaEuropeGermany