Oppenheimer, Sir Ernest

Oppenheimer, Sir Ernest (1880-1957), German industrialist and financier, and one of the most successful leaders in the mining industry in South Africa and Rhodesia, as well as the founder of the Anglo-American Corporation (AAC). He was born at Friedberg, Hesse, Germany, and at 16 joined Dunkelsbuhlers and Company, London, diamond brokers. In 1902 he was sent to Kimberley, South Africa, as Dunkelsbuhlers' representative and became an acknowledged expert on diamonds. In 1910 when diamonds were discovered in German South West Africa, Oppenheimer produced an early report on the long-term prospects of the region. He served as mayor of Kimberley from 1912 to 1915, but moved to Johannesburg at the beginning of World War I. In 1917 he obtained the backing of the American banker John Pierpont Morgan, Jr. and formed the AAC to exploit the Witwatersrand goldfield. Following South Africa's occupation of German South West Africa in 1915, Oppenheimer gained control of the German mining interests there and in 1919 formed the Consolidated Diamond Mines of South West Africa (modern Namibia). He obtained a controlling interest in De Beers Consolidated Mines and became chairman in 1929. He reorganized the diamond industry and soon brought the whole of it under his control. In 1930 he formed the Diamond Corporation Ltd. He expanded AAC's operations into Northern Rhodesia (modern Zambia) and Southern Rhodesia (modern Zimbabwe), forming the Rhodesian AAC in 1929 to participate in mining in Southern Rhodesia and the exploitation of the copperbelt in Northern Rhodesia. By 1940 he dominated the diamond industry and was the most important industrial magnate in South Africa. His empire had a monopoly on diamond production, controlled much of South Africa's gold mining, and had connections with seven companies mining copper in Northern Rhodesia, as well as mining interests in South West Africa, Tanzania, and Zaïre. He was knighted in 1921 and from 1924 to 1938 was the member for Kimberley in the Union of South Africa Parliament. Increasingly, in the latter part of his life, he delegated much of the business to his son Harry Oppenheimer who succeeded him as chairman of the AAC on his death in 1957.