Julius Petschek (14 March 1856 – 22 January 1932) was an industrialist of Jewish origin in former

Czechoslovakia , rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי, , common_name = Czechoslovakia , life_span = 1918–19391945–1992 , p1 = Austria-Hungary , image_p1 ...

(now

Czech Republic The Czech Republic, or simply Czechia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Historically known as Bohemia, it is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the southeast. The ...

). Together with his brother Ignaz, he was one of the wealthiest persons of

interwar Czechoslovakia In the history of the 20th century, the interwar period lasted from 11 November 1918 to 1 September 1939 (20 years, 9 months, 21 days), the end of the First World War to the beginning of the Second World War. The interwar period was relativel ...

. Petschek was born in

Kolín Kolín (; german: Kolin, Neu Kolin, Collin) is a town in the Central Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 32,000 inhabitants. The town centre is well preserved and is protected by law as an urban monument reservation. Administra ...

. He and his brothers Isidor (1854–1919) and Ignaz (1857–1934) played an important role in the coal industry of the young

Czechoslovakia , rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי, , common_name = Czechoslovakia , life_span = 1918–19391945–1992 , p1 = Austria-Hungary , image_p1 ...

.Petschek family
on yivo encyclopedia Their concern controlled also 30% of the German and in total almost 50% of the European brown coal

mining Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the Earth, usually from an ore body, lode, vein, seam, reef, or placer deposit. The exploitation of these deposits for raw material is based on the economic via ...

industry in the years after World War I.Profit.cz: Uhelný magnát jsem já!
/ref> In 1920 Ignaz founded the Petschek Brothers Bank (Bankhaus Petschek & Co.) in

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...

that was directed by 6 family members including Julius. After he died in 1932 his son Walter and Isador's son Hans ran the company until 1938 when they moved to New York as a consequence of the

Munich Agreement The Munich Agreement ( cs, Mnichovská dohoda; sk, Mníchovská dohoda; german: Münchner Abkommen) was an agreement concluded at Munich on 30 September 1938, by Nazi Germany, Germany, the United Kingdom, French Third Republic, France, and Fa ...

. Julius is known for commissioning the bank's

Petschek Palace The Petschek Palace (in Czech Petschkův palác or Pečkárna) is a neoclassicist building in Prague. It was built between 1923 and 1929 by the architect Max Spielmann upon a request from the merchant banker Julius Petschek and was originally ca ...

in Prague that was used by the

Gestapo The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one organi ...

in World War II. Julius Petschek died in

and is buried at the New Jewish Cemetery.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Petschek, Julius 1856 births 1932 deaths People from Kolín 20th-century Czech businesspeople Czech Jews Czech bankers Czechoslovak businesspeople