Felix Somary (21 November 1881, Vienna, Austria-Hungary – 11 July 1956, Zurich, Switzerland) was an Austrian-Swiss banker; he is also noted as a scholar of political economy.
[3] Upon receiving his Matura in 1899 (aged seventeen), he enrolled in the Faculty of Law and Political Science of the University of Vienna, where he studied under Carl Menger (to whom he also served as an assistant) and Eugen von Philippovich.
Whilst there, his classmates included Joseph Schumpeter, Rudolf Hilferding, Otto Bauer, Emil Lederer, and Ludwig von Mises.
[3] Towards the end of his spell in Berlin, Eugen von Philippovich offered Somary the position of Assistant to the President at the Anglo-Austrian Bank, which he accepted; whilst working there, he met Sir Ernest Cassel.
[5] From 1910 to 1914 he taught at the Hochschule für Staatswissenschaftliche Fortbildung in Berlin,[6] and he was also active in promoting commercial ties between Britain, Germany and Austria both in eastern Europe and the Near East.
Their argument was that intensification might provoke the US into entering the war on the side of Britain, and the consequence of this would be to remove the possibility of a neutral source of post-war credit, which would inevitably be needed by the combatant nations once hostilities had ceased.
[9] He predicted the Great Depression, which began in 1929, as early as September 1926 when he gave a lecture warning of the dangers of relying on the US for credit given the protectionist tendencies of that country.
[7] He was in New York City when the stock markets were plummeting and, seeing that fellow bankers were buying recklessly, he sent a wire to Zurich telling his associates there to sell all equity.
[17] He had been consulted regarding the methods that should be deployed in order to establish a sound currency in the European and African war zones, this being seen prior to the allied landings in North Africa and France as an important pre-requisite for achieving economic stability.