Alexander Lewin

Alexander Lewin (18 August 1879 in Vienna – 1942 in Switzerland) was a German Jewish entrepreneur and art collector who was persecuted and plundered by the Nazis.

His father Hermann Lewin and his uncle Apelius Cohn founded their first hat factory in Berlin in 1859, to which a branch in Guben was added in 1876.

Lewin also served as honorary consul for Portugal and member of the foreign trade committee of the Reich Association of German Industry.

Despite being unanimously re-elected, on 6 March 1933, chairman of the Cottbus Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Lewin had to give up this post a month later due to pressure from the Nazis.

[4][5] In March 1939, all of his assets in Germany were blocked, and on 4 August 1941 the Reich Minister of the Interior revoked his German citizenship and his property was confiscated.