Henri Deterding

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Henri Deterding

Henri Wilhelm August Deterding,

Royal Dutch/Shell oil company. He succeeded the founder of Royal Dutch, Jean Baptiste August Kessler, when he died, and made Royal Dutch Shell a competitor to John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil and one of the world's largest petroleum
companies.

In 1920, Deterding was made an honorary

Anglo-Dutch relations and for his work in supplying the Allies with petroleum during the First World War. Deterding was a bitter enemy of the Soviet Union and helped thousands of White Russian exiles.[1]

Early life

Born in Amsterdam in 1866, the fourth child in a family of five, Deterding was the son of Philip Jacob Deterding, a merchant navy master mariner, and Catherina Adolphina Geertruida (née Kayser).[2]

However, Henri was educated up to the age of sixteen at the Higher Citizens' School in Amsterdam.[3]

Career

After leaving school, Deterding took a clerical position in the Twentsche Bank, where he developed a remarkable aptitude for handling figures. To avoid the slow promotion of a banking career, he entered an examination for positions in the Netherlands Trading Society of the Dutch East Indies, gained first place, and was appointed to the company's Eastern staff. After some years with the firm, he began to work in the oil industry, which was then in its infancy.[3][4]

In May 1896, at the age of thirty, Deterding took a job with the Royal Dutch Oil Company, working with the managing director, J. B. A. Kessler. At the time, Royal Dutch was not a major company, still struggling to make good, and Deterding was instrumental in piloting it through many difficulties. Kessler died in March, 1900, leaving instructions, put in writing shortly before his death, that he wished Deterding to take over from him as general manager.[3]

Message to Marcus Samuel from Deterding on the Royal Dutch Shell merger in 1907

Soon gaining the nickname of "the Napoleon of Oil", Deterding was responsible for developing the tanker fleet that enabled Royal Dutch to compete with the Shell company of

oil reserves on credit; the next year, he was forced to resign from the position of general manager,[5] but remained a member of the company's board.[3]

Personal life

In 1894, Deterding married firstly Catharina Neubronner, a Dutch woman, with whom he had two sons and a daughter.[6] In 1924 he married secondly Lydia Pavlovna Koudoyaroff (1904–1980), a daughter of the White Russian General Paul Koudoyaroff (Павел Кондауров). She had been the mistress of his rival Calouste Gulbenkian, and bore Deterding two daughters, including the socialite Olga Deterding. After that marriage ended in divorce in 1933, at the age of seventy Deterding married, lastly, Charlotte Mina Knack, a German who had been a secretary in the company and came from a prestigious coffee-trading family in Hamburg. They had two children together, Louisa and Henriette. Henriette married renowned pianist and industrialist Kurt Leimer.

During his second marriage, Deterding's English country house was Buckhurst Park, Winkfield, Berkshire, where Mrs Deterding continued to live with her two daughters after the 1936 divorce.[1]

The British newspaper the Daily Mail mistakenly published Deterding's obituary on 27 June 1924, and the news was copied by The New York Times under the heading "Henry Deterding dies at film show; Director General of the Royal Dutch Company Succumbs Suddenly in The Hague".[7] However, on that day the Dutch envoy in London, René de Marees van Swinderen, wrote in a letter to the Dutch foreign minister, Herman Adriaan van Karnebeek:

"P.S. I could not resist sending also herewith the obituary in the Daily Mail dedicated to Deterding, who happily is very much alive."[8]

Deterding was a steadfast enemy of the Soviet Union, largely because of the nationalization of his properties in Azerbaijan. He was accused of conspiring against Soviet oil-interests and even of printing counterfeit Soviet money. He became a target for Soviet press attacks.[9]

In 1936, Deterding bought the manor of Dobbin, near Krakow am See, in Mecklenburg, Germany, and moved there, becoming a neighbor of his friend the then-director of Deutsche Bank, Emil Georg von Stauß. He also had a property in Suvretta, St. Moritz, Switzerland, where he died on 4 February 1939. His body was returned to Dobbin to be buried there,[10] but, in 1968, it was moved again, to a grave in Liechtenstein, where his daughter Henriette resided with her husband and Deterding's grandchildren.[11]

Deterding's funeral was hosted by the Nazi government to honour one of the

NSDAP's most generous financiers, ardent anti-bolshevik and supporter of the Nazi-regime.[11]

See also

References

  1. ^
    San Antonio Express
    , 5 February 1939.
  2. ISBN 978-0-19-861412-8. (Subscription or UK public library membership
    required.)
  3. ^ a b c d The Times: Sir Henri Deterding Obituary dated 6 February 1939
  4. ISBN 9780671799328
    .
  5. ^ History of the Royal Dutch by Frederik Carel Gerretson
  6. ISBN 978-0-9513762-8-7
    .
  7. ^ New York Times, 28 June 1924, pg. 15. "Henry Deterding dies at film show; Director General of the Royal Dutch Company Succumbs Suddenly in The Hague", accessed 27 June 2010.
  8. ^ In Dutch, "P.S. Ik kon de verleiding niet weerstaan om hierbij in te sluiten de necrologie door de Daily Mail heden gewijd aan den gelukkig springlevenden Deterding." sourced from Documenten betreffende de buitenlandse politiek van Nederland 1919–1945, Part V 1923–1924 (Rijks Geschiedkundige Publicatiën Grote Serie 192, 's-Gravenhage 1985), Document no. 284, page 552.
  9. ISBN 978-1137315397
    .
  10. ^ Royal Dutch Shell Nazi Secrets at royaldutchshellplc.com
  11. ^ a b Angelika Schmiegelow-Powell, "Güstrow im Umbruch", Temmen, 2003;
    ISBN 3-86108-392-2

Further reading

External links
Business positions
Preceded by Managing Director of
Royal Dutch Petroleum Company

1901–1902 		Succeeded by
himself
from 1902 there were co-existing MDs
the General MD was created in 1902
as the senior executive
Preceded by
himself as the sole Managing Director
 General Managing Director of
Royal Dutch Petroleum Company

1902–1936 		Succeeded by
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