Moritz Hochschild

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Dr. Moritz (Don Mauricio) Hochschild (1881 in Biblis, Germany - 1965 in Paris) was one of the most famous men in the mining industry in the first half of the twentieth century and was, along with Simón Iturri Patiño and Carlos Victor Aramayo, one of the three South American tin barons.

Hochschild was a German agnostic Jew whose family had already been active in the mining industry for over a generation. After Hochschild graduated from school, he studied mining and engineering at the Freiberg University of Mining and Technology. In 1905, he began his career in the field at the large industrial conglomerate Metallgesellschaft. Later he went to Spain and Austria and then finally moved to South America to work independently. After several years in Chile, he returned to Germany and stayed there until the end of the first World War. In 1919, Hochschild returned once again to South America with his wife, Käthe Rosenbaum, whom he had married the previous year. His son, Gerardo Hochschild, was born in 1920, and his wife died four years later.

During the following two decades, Hochschild built up an economic empire in Bolivia around the mining and trade of tin ore. His empire stretched from Peru in the north to Chile in the south. During this period of growth, more of his family followed him to South America to work for him, including his cousin Philipp Hochschild and Philipp's wife Germaine. Moritz (or Don Mauricio, as he was known in South America) and Germaine had an affair, and they married after Germaine divorced Philipp.

The 1930s saw the peak of the Moritz Hochschild Group's economical and political influence. In both 1939 and 1944, Hochschild was arrested by the Bolivian government and sentenced to death. Just two weeks after his release following his 1944 arrest, he was captured and held by kidnappers for two weeks. After he was freed he left South America, never to return.

In 1951, the Hochschilds donated the majority of their fortune to the Hochschild Trust and Foundation. In the following year, the Moritz Hochschild Group was nationalized during the Bolivian National Revolution; however, they were compensated with an allotment of 30% of the company's prior assets. The company, Hochschild Mining, grew further and expanded worldwide. Moritz Hochschild died in 1965 in Paris as an international tycoon of industry and commerce.