Felix M. Warburg

Felix M. Warburg

Warburg circa 1920
Born Felix Moritz Warburg
(1871-01-14)14 January 1871
Hamburg, Germany
Died 20 September 1937(1937-09-20) (aged 66)
New York City, New York
Nationality American
Occupation Banker
Employer M. M. Warburg
Warburg mansion in New York, today the Jewish Museum

Felix Moritz Warburg (14 January 1871 – 20 September 1937) was a German-born American banker. He was a member of the Warburg banking family of Hamburg, Germany.[1]

Biography

He was a grandson of Moses Marcus Warburg, one of the founders of the bank, M. M. Warburg (in 1798). Felix Warburg was a partner in Kuhn, Loeb & Co.. He married Frieda Schiff (see Warburg Family page) (3 February 1876 – 14 September 1958), daughter of Jacob Henry Schiff and Therese Loeb Schiff, on 19 March 1895, in New York. They had four sons, Frederick Marcus, Gerald Felix, Paul Felix and Edward Mortimer Morris and one daughter, Carola. All were active in community service.[2]

Warburg was an important leader of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, established to help the Jews in Europe in the period leading up to, and especially during, the Great Depression. Warburg actively raised funds in the United States on behalf of European Jews who faced hunger following World War I. As early as 1919, he was quoted in the New York Times discussing the dire situation of Jewish war sufferers.[3]

Warburg served as the founder and first president of the American Friends of the Hebrew University, which supports the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Jerusalem, Israel, in 1925.[4]

Warburg and the Joint Distribution Committee were also instrumental in the 1930s after the global Great Depression following the crash of the New York stock exchange in 1929.

He died on 20 September 1937 in New York City.[1] He was buried in Salem Fields Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York City.

John L. Spivak claimed General Smedley Butler had named him before Congress as part of the Business Plot.[5][6]

Legacy

As a result of his philanthropic activities, a new Jewish village established in Mandate Palestine in 1939, Kfar Warburg, was named after him. He was a trustee of the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York.[7]

The Felix M. Warburg House, in New York's Upper East side was donated by his widow and today houses the Jewish Museum.

References

  1. 1 2 "F. M. Warburg Dies At 66 In Home Here. Senior Partner in Kuhn, Loeb Is Victim of Heart Attack. Ill Only Three Days". New York Times. October 21, 1937. Retrieved 2015-02-23. Felix M. Warburg, financier, and champion of many philanthropic causes, died yesterday of a heart attack at the age of 66. He was stricken at 4 A. M. last Monday in his home at 1,109 Fifth Avenue, but his illness at first was not regarded as serious.
  2. ↑ "Frieda Schiff"
  3. ↑ "Tells sad plight of Jews" New York Times, 12 November 1919
  4. ↑ "A VISUAL HISTORY OF AFHU". American Friends of the Hebrew University. Retrieved August 29, 2016.
  5. ↑ Archer, p. x (Foreword)
  6. ↑ Schmidt, p. 229
  7. ↑ Warburg

Further reading

Media related to Felix M. Warburg at Wikimedia Commons

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