A brief history of the club

Foundation

The founding meeting of the Übersee-Club took place on 27 June 1922 in the Great Hall of the ‘Patriotic Building’ in Hamburg city centre. This was the period following the First World War. The German economy was in ruins. Germany was struggling to get back on its feet following the territorial cessions and reparations payments to the Allied Powers stipulated in the Treaty of Versailles.

On the site where Hamburg’s town hall had stood for many centuries, a “community of merchants, industrialists, bankers and academics” was to be established “with the long-term aim of rebuilding German economic interests abroad”.

Drawing on the ideas of the banker Max M. Warburg, sections of the Hanseatic middle classes, in the heated atmosphere following the First World War, refocused on what really mattered: objectivity, pragmatism, down-to-earthness, business, and the question of how Hamburg’s international economic relations could be revived following the lost war. To this end, Warburg argued, it was essential “that merchants from a wide variety of countries should have some kind of hub in a commercial city where economic lectures and conferences could be held”.

The club’s primary objective is, as an alliance of business and academia, to work successfully towards ensuring that the business and political sectors act in unison to rebuild the international economy. Its second founding objective is to further develop Hamburg’s traditional links with global markets.

The temporary end

Then, in the early 1930s, it all came to an end. Following the Nazis’ seizure of power in early 1933, a decision was taken in December of that year to dissolve the club, and this was carried out in May 1934. At the time, the club was facing insurmountable financial problems and ceased its activities – partly against the backdrop of the rise of National Socialism, under which a cosmopolitan club life would not have been possible.

Start-up

After the war came a new beginning: the Übersee-Club was re-established by Hamburg merchants in June 1948 – coinciding with the currency reform and with the same objectives as in 1922.