Henri Deterding

In 1920, Deterding was made an honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire, for services to Anglo-Dutch relations and for his work in supplying the Allies with petroleum during the First World War.

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.

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] 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 Marcus Samuel.

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.

[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.

[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.