Bernhard Salomon
1855 - 1942

Bernhard Salomon was born on 6th of May 1855 in Aachen. Both of his parents, David Salomon (3rd of July 1816 to 18th of January 1904) and his wife Amalia, née Heymann (17th of November 1814 to 29th of August 1904), were Jewish. The couple was married since 13th of May 1850. Bernhard Salomon had three siblings: Auguste Emeline, born 21st of April 1851 and Esther Pauline, born 29th of August 1852. She passed away on 27th of December 1910. A younger brother, Carl Leo, died in March 1858 aged 16 months.

On 11th of September 1905 Bernhard Salomon married in Frankfurt am Main Meta Luise, née Eichengrün, descending from a Jewish family. From this marriage the son Geert (1906-1985) arose. Since 1905 the family lived in a company villa in Westendstreet 25 in Frankfurt, which Bernhard Salomon was able to buy in the year 1913. They were forced to leave their house in 1940. The last address was Liebigstreet 53 in Frankfurt.

Meta Salomon, born on 6th of October 1869, had previously been married with the lawyer and legal advisor Wilhelm Silvius Rocholl (born 1863), who died in 1900 aged 37 years. From this marriage the daughter Margot (1898-1975) and the son Herbert (1895-1916) arose. Because she allegedly refused to wear the Yellow Star, Meta Salomon was arrested in March 1942 after she had been denounced by an acquaintance. At first she was brought to the female prison in Frankfurt-Preungesheim and three months later to the police prison. In July 1942 she was deported to the female concentration camp Ravensbrück (imprisonment reason: “Jew, political”), where she died on 17th of September 1942.

Bernhard Salomon passed his final secondary school leaving examination (Abitur) in July 1872 at the Realgymnasium in Aachen. After a period of commercial and technical training from September 1872 to September 1874 in Berlin and Aachen, studies of mechanical engineering at the technical university Aachen followed, which he finished for the time being in summer 1879 with the first Prussian state examination. Subsequently he worked until March 1883 as government site agent employed by the Imperial Railways in Alsace-Lorraine, then part of the German Empire.

From the summer semester 1883 onwards he prepared himself at the technical university in Aachen for the second state examination. In parallel he also worked at this university as scientific assistant for general mechanical engineering and theoretical mechanics. After passing his second state examination Bernhard Salomon was habilitated as private lecturer and worked until summer 1891 at the Aachen university as lecturer and professor for railway-mechanical engineering and general mechanical engineering.

He abandoned his academic career in summer 1891 and joined the company W. Lahmeyer & Co. in Frankfurt, which merged in the year 1893 with the “Actiengesellschaft für Bau und Betrieb elektrischer Anlagen” (stock company for construction and operation of electrical facilities) and henceforth operated under the name “Elektrizitäts-AG vormals [formerly] W. Lahmeyer & Co. (EAG)”. The EAG covered all aspects of the electricity industry, amongst other things also by the design, construction and operation of electricity stations and hydroelectric power plants. Already two years after joining the company Bernhard Salomon became chairman of EAG’s board and finally chief executive/president in 1898. In this position he emerged as one of the most influential businessmen in the power generating industry within the German-speaking region.

His entrepreneurial work was recognized by a multitude of awards and distinctions. Amongst others the technical university Darmstadt awarded him in May 1925 the honorary doctorate with the title “Dr. Ing.”. On the occasion of his 75th birthday celebrated on 6th of May 1930 the city of Frankfurt am Main bestowed the city’s Badge of Honor on him “in recognition of his distinguished merits in the realm of the German electricity industry, especially for the promotion of Frankfurt’s economic life”.

Bernhard Salomon retired in 1933 at the age of 78, but kept supervisory board mandates at company Lahmeyer & Co. and some of its subsidiary companies. In a statement attached to the annual report for the business year 1932/33 the supervisory board wrote on the occasion of Salomon’s retirement: “Mister president Prof. Dr. B. Salomon has asked with regard to his advanced age being allowed to leave the board of directors of our corporation after this year’s general meeting. For over forty years Prof. Dr. Salomon has managed its business in leading position within our corporation’s board of directors and by tireless energetic work, outstanding skills and acquittal provided great services not only to us and our subsidiary companies but also accomplished trailblazers in Germany’s electricity industry. To sustain his valuable cooperation also in future we propose his election into the supervisory board.”

Bernhard Salomon joined the Frankfurt section in the year 1900. Because he is listed in the 1925 register of members with entry year 1900, Bernhard Salomon remained loyal to the Frankfurt section despite WWI and hyperinflation. Caused by lacking sources we currently have no information about activities within the section or alpine ventures. Up to now there is also no evidence about an exit or an exclusion from the Frankfurt section. Because he was a section member since the turn of the century, he could have continued to remain within the section according to the amendment of the statutes enacted early in the year 1934.

In two letters from the year 1936 Bernhard Salomon was requested by a chairman of the supervisory board for several Lahmeyer & Co. subsidiary companies to immediately resign all supervisory board positions “for reasons of race”. Apparently Bernhard Salomon complied with this request; his resignation from the companies he represented happened within the very same year.

According to a contract from the year 1927 the company Lahmeyer & Co. had committed to pay a yearly pension amounting to 80,000 Reichsmark (RM) in case Bernhard Salomon left the company. In the year 1937, Bernhard Salomon was retired since four years, the company Lahmeyer & Co. demanded from him to declare his agreement to a reduction of his pension payment to now only 36,000 RM per year. He refused this, whereupon company Lahmeyer & Co. filed a law suit, which ended with a settlement, according to which the pension of their former CEO was reduced to 50,000 RM. In April 1941 company Lahmeyer & Co. filed at the Reich economic court Berlin for an alternative arrangement of Bernhard Salomon’s proprietary entitlements, with the result that the arbitration board of the Reich administration court with ruling of 20th of October 1941 declared the proprietary entitlements of Salomon and his wife Meta as lapsed, and company Lahmeyer & Co. hereupon stopped all payments to Bernhard Salomon. Afterwards his financial situation was extremely precarious.

In a short message to a kinswoman he wrote on 20th of June 1942: “Perhaps I approach you with an impossible request, but I am in a desperate situation – most likely it also will be the last request. Would you be able to visit me this morning for 15 minutes? I would be much obliged to you.”

We do not know what his last request was; 6 days after writing these lines and three months after the arrest of his wife Meta by the secret police (Gestapo), Bernhard Salomon died on 26th of June 1942 aged 87 years in Frankfurt am Main.