Theodore Garbade

As a young man he moved from the German Zigarrenmacherdorf ("cigar-making village") of Hastedt,[1] Bremen to Cuba where he worked as a leaf buyer for Hermann Dietrich Upmann and his tobacco company.

[5] Garbade played a significant role in the settlement between Cuba and the United States after President Wilson succeeded in passing the Revenue Act of 1913.

[6] A German citizen in the United States in 1916, he was considered prisoner of war, and put under house arrest in his mansion in Mount Kisko, New York.

An owner of plantations and other properties in Cuba, he lost a great part of his fortune by confiscation in 1960 after the Cuban Revolution.

Theodore Garbade is buried with his last wife Hildegard von Ohlen (1903–1962)[8] at the Flims Waldhaus cemetery, Switzerland.