Otto Christian Ludwig Lagerfeld (20 September 1881 – 4 July 1967) was a German businessman, who in 1919 founded the German company Lagerfeld & Co, which imported evaporated milk.
He was the son of a wine merchant from Hamburg, Tönnies Johann Otto Lagerfeld (1845–1931) and his wife Maria Wilhelmine Franziska Lagerfeld (née Wiegels) (1848–1936).
[1] He was married to Theresia Feigl (1896–1922) in 1922; they had a daughter Theodora Dorothea "Thea" Lagerfeld (1922- circa 2007).
In 1930 he remarried to Elisabeth Josefa Emilie Bahlmann (1897–1978), daughter of the Catholic Centre Party local politician Heinrich Maria Karl Bahlmann, and they were the parents of Martha Christiane "Christel" Lagerfeld (1931–2015) and of fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld (1933–2019).
[4][6] His family was mainly shielded from the deprivations of World War II due to his membership in the Nazi party and his business interests in Germany through the firm Glücksklee-Milch GmbH.