Beerdigung berthold beitz biography

Berthold Beitz has passed on at 99. A giant in business as he was a person, Beitz excelled in every aspect of his life. But he will be most fondly remembered for his acts of courage during the Nazi period when he saved the lives of Jews hiding from almost certain death at the hands of the occupying German army.

The Bank Trainee

Born the son of an army officer and bank clerk in Pomerania in 1913 (now Ciemino, Poland), his main childhood memory from almost one-hundred years ago was his parents teaching him to respect and appreciate others. Berthold wanted to study medicine, but instead he chose to join the local bank as a trainee.

The young man soon left the rural-backwaters of Pomerania to move to Hamburg where he joined the German branch of Royal Dutch Shell. Then Germany invaded Poland – the Second World War had begun.

In 1941, Beitz was appointed commercial executive of Carparthian Oil in Boryslav, Galicia