Dr. Moritz Hochschild (1881 in Biblis

Biblis

Biblis is a community in the Bergstraße district in southern Hesse, Germany.- Location :The community lies in the Rhine rift west of the Odenwald between Darmstadt to the north and Mannheim to the south; it also lies north of Bürstadt...

, Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 - 1965 in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

) 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

Simón Iturri Patiño

Don Simón Iturri Patiño was a Bolivian industrialist who was among the world's wealthiest men at the time of his death. With a fortune built from ownership of a majority of the tin industry in Bolivia, Patiño was nicknamed "The Andean Rockefeller"...

 and Carlos Victor Aramayo

Carlos Victor Aramayo

Carlos Victor Aramayo was a South American industrialist and one of Bolivia's three principal tin magnates alongside Simón I. Patiño and Mauricio Hochschild in the early 20th century...

, one of the three Bolivia

Bolivia

Bolivia officially known as Plurinational State of Bolivia , is a landlocked country in central South America. It is the poorest country in South America...

n tin

Tin

Tin is a chemical element with the symbol Sn and atomic number 50. It is a main group metal in group 14 of the periodic table. Tin shows chemical similarity to both neighboring group 14 elements, germanium and lead and has two possible oxidation states, +2 and the slightly more stable +4...

 barons.

Career

Hochschild was a German agnostic

Agnosticism

Agnosticism is the view that the truth value of certain claims—especially claims about the existence or non-existence of any deity, but also other religious and metaphysical claims—is unknown or unknowable....

 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

Freiberg University of Mining and Technology

The Technische Universität Bergakademie Freiberg is a small German University of Technology with about 5000 students in the city of Freiberg, Saxony...

. In 1905, he began his career in the field at the large industrial conglomerate Metallgesellschaft

Metallgesellschaft

Metallgesellschaft AG was formerly one of Germany's largest industrial conglomerates based in Frankfurt. It had over 20,000 employees and revenues in excess of 10 billion US dollars...

. Later he went to Spain

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

 and Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

 and then finally moved to South America to work independently. After several years in Chile

Chile

Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...

, he returned to Germany and stayed there until the end of the first World War

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

. 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

Bolivia

Bolivia officially known as Plurinational State of Bolivia , is a landlocked country in central South America. It is the poorest country in South America...

 around the mining and trade of tin ore. His empire stretched from Peru

Peru

Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....

 in the north to Chile

Chile

Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...

 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 Bolivia, 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

Nationalization

Nationalisation, also spelled nationalization, is the process of taking an industry or assets into government ownership by a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to private assets, but may also mean assets owned by lower levels of government, such as municipalities, being...

 during the Bolivian National Revolution; however, they were compensated with an allotment of 30% of the company's prior assets. The company, Hochschild Mining

Hochschild Mining

Hochschild Mining plc is a leading British-based silver and gold mining business operating in North, Central and South America. It is headquartered in London and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index. The main shareholder is the peruvian businessman Eduardo Hochschild.-History:The company was...

, grew further and expanded worldwide. In 1961 Hochschild inaugurated Mantos Blancos copper mine in Antofagasta, Chile, which became his most successful mining operation, although its best results were to come after his death. Moritz Hochschild died in 1965 in Paris as an international tycoon of mining, industry and commerce.