Oppenheimer, Ernest

Sir Ernest Oppenheimer (more correctly Ernst Oppenheimer , born May 22, 1880 Friedberg (Hessen) - d. November 25, 1957 Johannesburg ) - founder of the Anglo American gold mining company and managing director of diamond mining company De Beers , a well-known philanthropist.

Ernst Oppenheimer was born in Germany ; was the fifth son in a Jewish family - a cigar dealer. In 1897, the young man enters apprentice at the London firm Dunkelsboleer . In 1902 , after the end of the Boer War , Oppenheimer, as the representative of a company buying precious stones, came to South Africa , to Kimberley , the then center of world diamond mining. After completing his studies, E. Oppenheimer will marry Mary Line Pollack in London.

Returning to Kimberly, Oppenheimer became a member of the city council, and in 1912 - the mayor of the city. After the outbreak of World War I and the accompanying persecution of German citizens in South Africa, Oppenheimer left for London (in 1915 ), where he accepted British citizenship and changed his name to Ernest . Returning to South Africa in 1916 , on September 25, 1917 , with the support of the American bank JP Morgan, he founded the Anglo American Corporation, which remained for a long time the world's largest concern for the extraction of mineral raw materials. In 1920, E. Oppenheimer also became the head of the diamond mining company De Beers , founded by Cecil Rhodes , which was then experiencing financial difficulties. To this day, the presidency of De Beers remains in the family ownership of the name Oppenheimer.

However, the most powerful creation in the Oppenheimer empire was the Central Selling Organization (CSO) , also called the Syndicate by the press, which eventually gained control over 90% of global diamond sales. During the World Crisis, in 1930 , Oppenheimer bought up diamond trading markets and founded the CSO in 1950 . Usually, De Beers sent diamonds mined around the world to London by sea; there they were sorted and distributed in smaller batches to large merchants and cutters.

During World War II, Oppenheimer, fearing a drop in diamond prices, refused the Americans to supply them with industrial diamonds. In response, Oppenheimer was denied entry to the United States, and De Beers operations in that country were curtailed as not complying with antitrust laws.

After the first wife of E. Oppenheimer died in 1934 , and the next year his son Frank drowned while bathing in the Madeira Islands, the entrepreneur experienced a severe mental crisis and converted to Christianity . Soon after, he marries Baroness Caroline Harley.

After the death of E. Oppenheimer in 1957, the Syndicate and De Beers were led by his son Harry Frederick Oppenheimer .