Louis Nathaniel de Rothschild

Who was Louis Nathaniel de Rothschild?

Louis Nathaniel de Rothschild was an Austrian baron from the famous Rothschild family. He was born in Vienna on 5 March 1882 and died of heart failure while swimming in Montego Bay, Jamaica on 15 January 1955.

He was the son of Albert Salomon von Rothschild. He owned a spectacular palace in Vienna, the Palais Rothschild, that housed an exquisite art collection and antiques.

After the Anschluß of Austria to Nazi Germany in March 1938, he was arrested at the airport at Aspern and taken into custody by the Nazis because he was a Jew. While imprisoned he was visited by Heinrich Himmler. Rothschild apparently impressed the SS leader, who subsequently ordered that Rothschild's prison conditions be improved with better furniture and sanitation facilities. Despite appeals from Queen Mary of the United Kingdom and possibly the Duke of Windsor, Rothschild was held in Vienna's Hotel Metropole while the German government attempted to expropriate his business concerns. He was imprisoned at least through July 1938, and his property placed under control of a German "commissioner".