Karl Kimmich

Early life

He was the son of the painter, art teacher and author Karl Kimmich senior and his wife Christine, née Autenrieth and had a younger brother, Max W. Kimmich, who was thirteen years his junior. The latter later married the youngest sister of Joseph Goebbels.

Education

After his Abitur, Kimmich became an apprentice at a private bank in Ulm before studying political economics, in which he promoted in 1906. After his promotion, he worked for the Schaffhausenscher Bankverein, a then Berlin bank. This lasted until 1915, when he went to the Cologne head office of this bank where he became over the years one of the best adepts of the Rhine-Ruhr area. In 1919, he was made assistant member and two years later regular member of the supervisory board, but had to give up this position in 1929, when the Bankverein was merged with the Deutsche Bank.