Manfred Berliner

Manfred Berliner (b. 1853 in Hannover, d. 1931) was a German business teacher.

Life

He was the fifth child of textile merchant Samuel Berliner and brother of Emil Berliner (inventor of the gramophone), Joseph Berliner, and Jacob Berliner.

After a merchant apprenticeship, military service in the Franco-Prussian war, and work in bookkeeping, he initially managed membership of the Commercial Association. He then became a business teacher and in 1878 founded his "Business Teaching Institute" (Handels-Lehr-Institut) in Hannover, which later became "Berliner's Advanced Business School." The school taught mathematics, bookkeeping, trade and exchange, correspondence, and stenography. In 1903, the school was officially accredited as a vocational school.

He was also involved in the management of a Jewish school in Ahlem, founded by Hannover Banker Alexander Moritz Simon (d. 1905).

With his wife Hanna (née Dessau), he had five children including Siegfried (b. 1884), Cora (who died in the Holocaust), and Bernhard, an analyst at the Berlin Psychoanalytic Institute who later immigrated to the USA. Siegfried took over direction of Berliner's school in 1813, but was appointed a professor of business administration at the Imperial University of Tokyo.

Manfred Berliner died in 1931 and is buried at the Jewish Cemetery "An der Strangriede" in Hannover. In his lifetime he came to own 80 properties in Germany which are still held in trust to benefit his heirs. The properties were subject to extensive litigation following the Nazi regime.

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