Julius Cassirer

Julius Cassirer (February 2, 1841, in Schwientochlowitz – June 18, 1924, in Berlin) was a German Jewish industrialist and art collector and principal shareholder of Kabelwerke Dr. Cassirer & Co. in Berlin. An artwork from his collection is the object of one of the longest-running Holocaust-linked art restitution cases in history.

Family Julius Cassirer was the second oldest son of ten children of Marcus Cassirer (1809–1879) and his wife Jeannette, née Steinitz (1813–1889). He was born in 1841 in Schwientochlowitz, today Świętochłowice. He married Julie (Julcher) Cassirer (1844–1924), the daughter of his uncle Siegfried Cassirer (1812–1897), and had three children with her: the writer and musician Fritz Leopold Cassirer, the publisher Bruno Cassirer, and Elise Cassirer.

Professional life From 1866, Julius, together with his brother Louis, was authorized signatory of the Marcus Cassirer & Co. Liqueur Factory in Breslau. His father retired as a partner of the liqueur factory now managed by his sons, he died on October 20, 1879, in Breslau and left his property equally to his nine children still living.

Julius went to Görlitz, where he ran the Cassirer and Sons company together with his brother Isidor Cassirer until the 1870s. In the early 1880s, Louis and Julius Cassirer moved to Berlin, becoming lumber merchants and suppliers with the Gebr. Cassirer Bau- und Naturholzhandlung. Gradually, the brothers Eduard, Salo and Isidor, and Max also came to Berlin and settled in Charlottenburg, which was still independent at the time. Together with his nephews Alfred and Hugo, who had worked in the cable factory of his uncle Otto Bondy in Vienna after receiving his doctorate in chemistry, Julius Cassirer founded the cable factory Dr. Cassirer und Co. in the backyard of Schönhauser Allee 62 in 1896, in which Louis Cassirer later also became a partner.

Literature

Sigrid Bauschinger: Die Cassirers. Unternehmer, Kunsthändler, Philosophen. C.H.Beck, München 2015. .