Franz and Eduard Sacher

Franz Sacher (1816 - 1907) was an Austrian-Jewish confectioner, best known as the inventor of the world-famous chocolate cake, the Sachertorte.

In 1832 Austria's minister of foreign affairs, Prince Metternich, ordered his court's kitchen to create a special dessert for a dinner to be attended by high-ranking guests. Dass er mir aber keine Schand' macht, heut' Abend! ("Let there be no shame on me tonight!"), he is reported to have declared. Unfortunately, on the day of the dinner the chief cook of Metternich's household was taken ill, and the task of preparing the dessert had to be passed to Franz Sacher, then in his second-year of apprenticeship at the palace. The result was the magnificent chocolate cake devised on the spot by the 16-year-old trainee.

Franz Sacher was born in Vienna and died in Baden bei Wien. In 1876 his son, Eduard, opened the Hotel Sacher, near the State Opera House in Vienna, and the Sachertorte, the (still secret) recipe of which he had inherited, played no small part in spreading the fame of the hotel.

Franz Sacher ((Bécs, 1816 – Baden, 1907) osztrák cukrász, a híres Sacher-torta feltalálója.

Bécsben született 1816-ban. Metternich herceg bécsi palotájában volt szakácsinas. Konyhafőnöke betegsége idején, 16 évesen alkotta a meg a róla elnevezett és azóta védetté vált Sacher-tortát. Pár évvel később a mesterlevelét megszerezte és az Esterházy család szolgálatába állt. A magyar arisztokrata család zselízi birtokán (ma: Zeliezovce Szlovákia) született meg fia Eduard Sacher,

a szállodaalapító, aki később a császárvárosban, az operaház mellett 1876-ban nyitotta meg szállodájával együtt előkelő cukrászdáját. A Sacher család gróf Széchenyi István hívására előbb az akkori magyar fővárosba, Pozsonyba (ma: Bratislava) ment, ahol a csalédfő tiszti vendéglőnek számító „Úri Kaszinó" konyháját vezette. A Pozsonyban kikötő dunai gőzösöket is ő látt a el élelemmel, mint a mai „cateringesek” korai előfutára. Később a Pesti Vigadó konyhafőnöke lett, és az Dunagőzhajózási Társaság éttermeinek vezetését vette át. Az 1848-as forradalmat követően végleg hazatért Bécsbe. 1881-ben családjával a Bécs melletti alsó-ausztriai Badenbe költözött, ahol 1907-ben bekövetkezett haláláig élt.

Benny Goodman - King of Swing

Benjamin David Goodman (May 30, 1909 – June 13, 1986) was an American jazz musician, clarinetist and bandleader, known as "King of Swing", "Patriarch of the Clarinet", "The Professor", and "Swing's Senior Statesman".

In the mid-1930s, Goodman led one of the most popular musical groups in America. His January 16, 1938 concert at Carnegie Hall in New York City is described by critic Bruce Eder as "the single most important jazz or popular music concert in history: jazz's 'coming out' party to the world of 'respectable' music."

Goodman's bands launched the careers of many major names in jazz, and during an era of segregation, he also led one of the first racially-integrated musical groups. Goodman continued to perform to nearly the end of his life, including exploring his interest in classical music.

Goodman was born in Chicago, Illinois, the ninth of twelve children of poor Jewish immigrants from the Russian Empire, who lived in the Maxwell Street neighborhood. His father was David Goodman, a tailor from Warsaw; his mother was Dora Rezinski (from Kaunas). His parents met in Baltimore, Maryland, and moved to Chicago before Benny was born.^[1]

When Benny was 10, his father enrolled him and two of his older brothers in music lessons at the Kehelah Jacob Synagogue. The next year he joined the boys club band at Jane Addams' Hull House, where he received lessons from director James Sylvester. He also received two years of instruction from the classically trained clarinetist Franz Schoepp. His early influences were New Orleans jazz clarinetists working in Chicago, notably Johnny Dodds, Leon Roppolo, and Jimmy Noone. Goodman learned quickly, becoming a strong player at an early age: he was soon playing professionally in various bands.

When Goodman was 16, he joined one of Chicago's top bands, the Ben Pollack Orchestra, with which he made his first recordings in 1926. He made his first record on Vocalion under his own name two years later. Goodman recorded with the regular Pollack band and smaller groups drawn from the orchestra through 1929. The side sessions produced scores of sides recorded for the various dime-store record labels under an array of group names, including Mills' Musical Clowns, Goody's Good Timers, The Hotsy Totsy Gang, Jimmy Backen's Toe Ticklers, Dixie Daisies, and Kentucky Grasshoppers.

Goodman left for New York City and became a successful session musician during the late 1920s and early 1930s (mostly with Ben Pollack's band between 1926 and 1929). He played with the nationally known bands of Ben Selvin, Red Nichols, Isham Jones (although he is not on any of Jones's records), and Ted Lewis. He recorded sides for Brunswick under the name Bennie Goodman's Boys, a band that featured Glenn Miller. In 1928, Benny Goodman and Glenn Miller wrote the instrumental "Room 1411", which was released as a Brunswick 78. He also recorded musical soundtracks for movie shorts; fans believe that Benny Goodman's clarinet can be heard on the soundtrack of One A. M., a Charlie Chaplin comedy re-released to theaters in 1934.

During this period as a successful session musician, John Hammond arranged for a series of jazz sides recorded for and issued on Columbia starting in 1933 and continuing until his signing with Victor in 1935, during his success on radio. There were also a number of commercial studio sides recorded for Melotone between late 1930 and mid-1931 under Goodman's name. The all-star Columbia sides featured Jack Teagarden, Joe Sullivan, Dick McDonough, Arthur Schutt, Gene Krupa, Teddy Wilson, Coleman Hawkins (for 1 session), and vocalists Jack Teagarden and Mildred Bailey, and the first two recorded vocals by a young Billie Holiday.

In 1934 Goodman auditioned for NBC's Let's Dance, a well-regarded three-hour weekly radio program that featured various styles of dance music. His familiar theme song by that title was based on Invitation to the Dance by Carl Maria von Weber. Since he needed new arrangements every week for the show, his agent, John Hammond, suggested that he purchase "hot" (swing) arrangements from Fletcher Henderson, an African-American musician from Atlanta who had New York's most popular African-American band in the 1920s and early 1930s.

Goodman, a wise businessman, helped Henderson in 1929 when the stock market crashed. He purchased all of Henderson's song books, and hired Henderson's band members to teach his musicians how to play the music.

In early 1935, Goodman and his band were one of three bands (the others were Xavier Cugat and "Kel Murray" {r.n. Murray Kellner}) featured on Let's Dance where they played arrangements by Henderson along with hits such as Get Happy and Jingle Bells from composer and arranger Spud Murphy. Goodman's portion of the program from New York, at 12:30 a.m. Eastern Time, aired too late to attract a large East Coast audience. However, unknown to him, the time slot gave him an avid following on the West Coast (they heard him at 9:30 p.m. Pacific Time). He and his band remained on Let's Dance until May of that year when a strike by employees of the series' sponsor, Nabisco, forced the cancellation of the radio show. An engagement was booked at Manhattan's Roosevelt Grill (filling in for Guy Lombardo), but the crowd there expected 'sweet' music and Goodman's band was unsuccessful.

The band then set out on a tour of America, but was still poorly received. By August 1935, Goodman found himself with a band that was nearly broke, disillusioned and ready to quit.

Goodman continued his meteoric rise throughout the late 1930s with his big band, his trio and quartet, and a sextet. By the mid-1940s, however, big bands lost a lot of their popularity. In 1941, ASCAP had a licensing war with music publishers. In 1942 to 1944 and 1948, the musician's union went on strike against the major record labels in the United States, and singers took the spot in popularity that the big bands once enjoyed. During this strike, the United States War Department approached the union and requested the production of the V-Disc, a set of records containing new and fresh music for soldiers to listen to. Also, by the late 1940s, swing was no longer the dominant mode of jazz musicians.

After forays outside of swing, Goodman started a new band in 1953. According to Donald Clarke, this was not a happy time for Goodman.

“

In 1953 Goodman re-formed his classic band for an expensive tour with Louis Armstrong’s All Stars that turned into a famous disaster. He managed to insult Armstrong at the beginning; then he was appalled at the vaudeville aspects of Louis’s act [...] a contradiction of everything Goodman stood for.

”

Goodman was regarded by some as a demanding taskmaster, by others an arrogant and eccentric martinet. Many musicians spoke of "The Ray", Goodman's trademark glare that he bestowed on a musician who failed to perform to his demanding standards. Guitarist Allan Reuss incurred the maestro's displeasure on one occasion, and Goodman relegated him to the rear of the bandstand, where his contribution would be totally drowned out by the other musicians. Vocalists Anita O'Day and Helen Forrest spoke bitterly of their experiences singing with Goodman. "The twenty or so months I spent with Benny felt like twenty years," said Forrest. "When I look back, they seem like a life sentence." At the same time, there are reports that he privately funded several college educations and was sometimes very generous, though always secretly. When a friend once asked him why, he reportedly said, "Well, if they knew about it, everyone would come to me with their hand out."

Some suggest that Elvis Presley had the same success with rock and roll that Goodman achieved with jazz and swing: both helped bring black music to a young, white audience. Some suggest that without Goodman there would not have been a "Swing Era". It is true that many of Goodman's arrangements had been played for years before by Fletcher Henderson's orchestra. While Goodman publicly acknowledged his debt to Henderson, many young white swing fans had never heard Henderson's band. While most consider Goodman a jazz innovator, others maintain his main strength was his perfectionism and drive. Goodman was a virtuoso clarinetist and amongst the most technically proficient jazz clarinetists of all time.

After winning numerous polls over the years as best jazz clarinetist, Goodman was inducted into the Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fame in 1957.

Goodman continued to play on records and in small groups. One exception to this pattern was a collaboration with George Benson in the 1970s. The two met when they taped a PBS salute to John Hammond and re-created some of the famous Goodman-Charlie Christian duets. Benson later appeared on several tracks of a Goodman album released as "Seven Come Eleven." In general Goodman continued to play in the swing style he was most known for. He did, however, practice and perform classical clarinet pieces and commissioned compositions for clarinet. Periodically he would organize a new band and play a jazz festival or go on an international tour.

Despite increasing health problems, he continued to play until his death from a heart attack in New York City in 1986 at the age of 77, in his home at Manhattan House, 200 East 66th Street. A longtime resident of Pound Ridge, New York, Benny Goodman is interred in the Long Ridge Cemetery, Stamford, Connecticut. The same year, Goodman was honored with the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Benny Goodman's musical papers were donated to Yale University after his death.

He is a member of the National Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame in the radio division.

Benny Goodman (Chicago, 1909. május 30. – New York, 1986. június 13.); amerikai klarinétművész, zenekarvezető, "a swing királya".

Tíz éves korában a chicagói Kehelah Jacob Zsinagógában kezdett klasszikus klarinétjátékot tanulni. 1921-ben lépett fel először. 1925-ben került Ben Pollack együtteséhez, először Chicagóban, aztán New Yorkban léptek fel. 1929-től önálló zenészként rádióknál és hangstúdiókban dolgozott, többek között Gershwin-felvételeken.

1934-ben létrehozta első big bandjét. Fletcher Henderson komponált és hangszerelt a zenekarnak. 1935-ben négy lemezt készített Teddy Wilsonnal, - aki az első ún. "afro-amerikai" zenész volt fehér zenészek között -, és Gene Krupával (Benny Goodman Trio).Az 1935 nyarán lebonyolított turnéja nagy sikert aratott. Ezzel kezdődött meg a dzsessz-zene szving-korszaka. 1936-ban triója kvartetté bővült Lionel Hampton, a második szinesbőrű zenész belépésével. Ezzel, az akkor forradalminak (és sokakat megbotránkoztató, heves sajtóvitákat kavaró) összeállítással Benny Goodman nagyon sokat tett az amerikai feketék egyensjogosításáért.

Elkészültek az együttes első filmjei is: The Big Broadcast of 1937, Hollywood Hotel. 1938-ban a Carnegie Hallban játszott, és Duke Ellington vendégművészeként is szerepelt.

Mint klasszikus muzsikus is hírnevet szerzett: előadta például Mozart Klarinétkvintettjét. 1938-ban a Budapesti Vonósnégyessel is együtt dolgozott. Ő rendelte meg Bartóktól a Kontrasztokat, és 1939 januárjában bemutatta a Carnegie Hallban. Dolgozott Coplanddel, Hindemith-tel, Bernsteinnel, Poulenc-kel, Sztravinszkijjal, és másokkal is.

1986-ban húnyt el Manhattanban, 77 éves korában.

Meyer Lansky

Meyer Lansky (born Meyer Suchowljanski) (July 4, 1902 – January 15, 1983; known as the "Mob's Accountant") was a Jewish-American organized crime figure who, along with his associate Charles "Lucky" Luciano, was instrumental in the development of the "National Crime Syndicate" in the United States.

Lansky developed a gambling empire which stretched from Saratoga, New York to Miami and Las Vegas; it is also said that he oversaw gambling concessions in Cuba. He was appointed by Fulgencio Batista y Zaldívar. Although a member of the Jewish Mafia, Lansky undoubtedly had strong influence with the Italian Mafia and played a large role in the consolidation of the criminal underworld.

Meyer Lansky was born Meyer Suchowljanski into a Jewish family in Grodno (then Russia, now part of Belarus) to Max Suchowljanski and his wife Yetta.

Lansky met Bugsy Siegel when he was a teenager. They also became lifelong friends, and together with Luciano, formed a lasting partnership. Lansky was instrumental in Luciano's rise to power by organizing the 1931 murder of Mafia powerhouse Salvatore Maranzano. As a youngster, Siegel saved Lansky's life several times, a fact which Lansky always appreciated. The two adroitly managed the Bug and Meyer Mob despite its reputation as one of the most violent Prohibition gangs.

Lansky was the brother of Jacob "Jake" Lansky, who in 1959 was the manager of the Nacional Hotel in Havana, Cuba.

By 1936, Lansky had established gambling operations in Florida, New Orleans, and Cuba. In that same year, his partner Luciano was sent to prison. As Alfred McCoy records:

"During the 1930s, Meyer Lansky 'discovered' the Caribbean for Northeastern United States syndicate bosses and invested their illegal profits in an assortment of lucrative gambling ventures.... He was also reportedly responsible for organized crime's decision to declare Miami a 'free city' (i.e., not subject to the usual rules of territorial monopoly)."

Lansky later convinced the Mafia to place Bugsy Siegel in charge of Las Vegas, and became a major investor in Siegel's Flamingo Hotel.

After Al Capone's 1931 conviction for tax evasion and prostitution, Lansky saw that he too was vulnerable to a similar prosecution. To protect himself, he transferred the illegal earnings from his growing casino empire to a Swiss numbered bank account, whose anonymity was assured by the 1934 Swiss Banking Act. Lansky eventually even bought an offshore bank in Switzerland, which he used to launder money through a network of shell and holding companies.

In the 1930s, Meyer Lansky and his gang claimed to have stepped outside their usual criminal activities to break up rallies held by Nazi sympathizers. Lansky recalled a particular rally in Yorkville, a German neighborhood in Manhattan, that he claimed he and 14 other associates disrupted:

"The stage was decorated with a swastika and a picture of Adolf Hitler. The speakers started ranting. There were only fifteen of us, but we went into action. We threw some of them out the windows. Most of the Nazis panicked and ran out. We chased them and beat them up. We wanted to show them that Jews would not always sit back and accept insults."

During World War II, Lansky was also instrumental in helping the Office of Naval Intelligence's Operation Underworld, in which the US government recruited criminals to watch out for German infiltrators and submarine-borne saboteurs.

According to Lucky Luciano's authorized biography, during this time, Lansky helped arrange a deal with the US Government via a high-ranking U.S. Navy official. This deal would secure the release of Lucky Luciano from prison; in exchange the Italian mafia would provide security for the war ships that were being built along the docks in New York Harbor. German submarines were sinking allied shipping outside the coast on a daily basis and there was great fear of attack or sabotage by Nazi sympathizers.

During the 1940s, Lansky associate Bugsy Siegel persuaded the crime bosses to invest in a lavish new casino hotel project in Las Vegas, the Flamingo. After long delays and large cost overruns, the Flamingo Hotel was still not open for business. To discuss the Flamingo problem, the mafia investors attended a secret meeting in Havana, Cuba in 1946. While the other bosses wanted to kill Siegel, Lansky begged them to give his friend a second chance. Despite this reprieve, Siegel continued to lose mafia money on the Flamingo Hotel. A second family meeting was then called. However, by the time this meeting took place, the casino turned a small profit. Lansky again, with Luciano's support, convinced the family to give Siegel some more time.

The Flamingo was soon losing money again. At a third meeting, the family decided that Siegel was finished. He had humiliated the organized crime bosses and never had a chance. It is widely believed that Lansky himself was compelled to give the final okay on eliminating Siegel due to his long relationship with Siegel and his stature in the family.

On June 20, 1947, Siegel was shot and killed in Beverly Hills, California. Twenty minutes after the Siegel hit, Lansky's associates, including Gus Greenbaum and Moe Sedway, walked into the Flamingo Hotel and took control of the property. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Lansky retained a substantial financial interest in the Flamingo for the next twenty years. Lansky said in several interviews later in his life that if it had been up to him, Ben Siegel would be alive today.

This also marked a power transfer in Vegas from the New York to the Chicago crime families. Although his role was considerably more restrained than in previous years, Lansky is believed to have both advised and aided Chicago boss Tony Accardo in initially establishing his hold.

After World War II, Lansky associate Lucky Luciano was paroled from prison on the condition that he permanently return to Sicily. However, Luciano secretly moved to Cuba, where he worked to resume control over American mafia operations. Luciano also ran a number of casinos in Cuba with the sanction of Cuban president General Fulgencio Batista, though the American government succeeded in pressuring the Batista regime to deport Luciano.

Batista's closest friend in the Mafia was Lansky. They formed a renowned friendship and business relationship that lasted for three decades. During a stay at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York in the late 1940s, it was mutually agreed upon that, in exchange for kickbacks, Batista would offer Lansky and the Mafia control of Havana’s racetracks and casinos. Batista would open Havana to large scale gambling, and his government would match, dollar for dollar, any hotel investment over $1 million, which would include a casino license. Lansky, of course, would place himself at the center of Cuba's gambling operations. He immediately called on his "associates" to hold a summit in Havana.

The Havana Conference was held on December 22, 1946 at the Hotel Nacional. This was the first full-scale meeting of American underworld leaders since the Chicago meeting in 1932. Present were such notable figures as Joe Adonis and Albert "The Mad Hatter" Anastasia from New York, Frank Costello, Joseph "Joe Bananas" Bonanno, Vito Genovese, Moe Dalitz, Thomas Luchese, Santo Trafficante Jr. from Tampa, Carlos "The Little Man" Marcello from New Orleans, and Stefano Magaddino, Joe Bonanno's cousin from Buffalo. From Chicago there was Anthony Accardo and the Fischetti brothers, "Trigger-Happy" Charlie and his brother Rocco, and, representing the Jewish interest, Lansky and “Dandy” Phil Kastel from Florida. The first to arrive was Salvatore Charles Lucky Luciano, who had been deported to Italy, and had to travel to Havana with a false passport. Lansky shared with them his vision of a new Havana, profitable for those willing to invest the right sum of money. A city that could be their "Latin Las Vegas," where they would feel right at home since it was a place where drugs, prostitution, labor racketeering, and extortion were already commonplace. According to Luciano’s evidence, and he is the only one who ever recounted details of the events in any detail, he confirmed that he was appointed as kingpin for the mob, to rule from Cuba until such time as he could find a legitimate way back into the U.S. Entertainment at the conference was provided by, among others, Frank Sinatra who flew down to Cuba with their friends, the Fischetti brothers.

In 1952, Lansky even offered then President Carlos Prío Socarrás a bribe of U.S. $250,000 to step down so Batista could return to power. Once Batista snatched control of the government that he had relinquished, he quickly put gambling back on track. The dictator contacted Lansky and offered him an annual salary of U.S. $25,000 to serve as an unofficial gambling minister. By 1955, Batista had changed the gambling laws once again granting a gaming license to anyone who invested $1 million in a hotel or U.S. $200,000 in a new nightclub. And that meant anyone. Unlike the procedure for acquiring gaming licenses in Vegas, this provision exempted venture capitalists from background checks. As long as they made the required investment, they were provided with public matching funds for construction, a 10-year tax exemption and duty-free importation of equipment and furnishings. The government would get U.S. $25,000 for license plus a percentage of the profits from each casino. Cuba’s 10,000 slot machines, even the ones which dispensed small prizes for children at country fairs, were to be the province of Batista's brother-in-law, Roberto Fernandez y Miranda. An Army general and government sports director, Fernandez was also given the parking meters in Havana as a little something extra. Import duties were waived on materials for hotel construction and Cuban contractors with the right "in" made windfalls by importing much more than was needed and selling the surplus to others for hefty profits. It was rumored that besides the U.S. $250,000 to get a license, a fee sometimes more was required under the table. Periodic payoffs were requested and received by corrupt politicians.

Lansky set about reforming the Montmartre Club which soon became the in place in Havana. He also long expressed an interest in putting a casino in the elegant Hotel Nacional, which overlooked El Morro, the ancient fortress guarding Havana harbor. Lansky planned to take a wing of the 10-storey hotel and create luxury suites for high stakes players. Batista endorsed Lansky’s idea over the objections of American expatriates like Ernest Hemingway and the elegant hotel opened for business in 1955 with a show by Eartha Kitt. The casino was an immediate success.

Once all the new hotels, nightclubs and casinos had been built Batista wasted no time collecting his share of the profits. Nightly, the "bagman" for his wife collected 10 percent of the profits at Trafficante's interests; the Sans Souci caberet, and the casinos in the hotels Sevilla-Biltmore, Commodoro, Deauville and Capri (part-owned by the actor George Raft). His take from the Lansky casinos, his prized Habana Riviera, the Nacional, the Montmartre Club and others, was said to be 30 percent. What exactly Batista and his cronies actually received in total in the way of bribes, payoffs and profiteering has never been certified. The slot machines alone contributed approximately U.S. $1 million to the regime's bank account.

However, the 1959 Cuban revolution and the rise of Fidel Castro changed the climate for mob investment in Cuba. On that New Year's Eve of 1958, while Batista was preparing to flee to the Dominican Republic and then on to Spain (where he died in exile in 1973), Lansky was celebrating the $3 million he made in the first year of operations at his 440-room, $18 million palace, the Habana Riviera. Many of the casinos were looted and destroyed that night, including several of Lansky's.

On January 8, 1959, Castro marched into Havana and took over, setting up shop in the Hilton. Lansky had fled the day before for the Bahamas and other Caribbean destinations. The new Cuban president, Manuel Urrutia Lleó closed the casinos. and nationalized all the casino and hotel properties.

In October 1960 Castro nationalized the island's hotel-casinos and outlawed gambling. This action essentially wiped out Lansky's asset base and revenue streams. He lost an estimated $7 million. With the additional crackdown on casinos in Miami, Lansky was forced to depend on his Las Vegas revenues.

In his later years, Lansky lived a low-profile, routine existence in Miami Beach, making life difficult for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Lansky's associates usually met him in malls and other crowded locations. Lansky's chauffeur drove him around town to look for new pay phones almost every day. Lansky was so elusive that the FBI essentially gave up monitoring him by the mid-1970s.

Lansky was rumored to have photographic proof that J. Edgar Hoover was a homosexual; conspiracy theorists believed this was the reason Hoover wasn't aggressive in pursuing organized crime. There is no known direct evidence to support this claim, but there is strong circumstantial evidence suggesting so.

During the 1970s, Lansky fled to Herzliya Pituah, Israel, to escape federal tax evasion charges. Two years later, Israel deported Lansky back to the U.S. However, the government's best shot at convicting Lansky was with the testimony of loan shark Vincent "Fat Vinnie" Teresa, an informant with little or no credibility. The jury was unreceptive, and Lansky was acquitted in 1974.

Lansky's last years were spent quietly at his home in Miami Beach. He died of lung cancer on January 15, 1983, aged 80, leaving behind a widow and three children. On paper, Lansky was worth almost nothing. At the time, the FBI believed he left behind over $300 million in hidden bank accounts, but they never found any money.

However, his biographer Robert Lacey describes Lansky's financially strained circumstances in the last two decades of his life and his inability to pay for health care for his relatives. For Lacey, there was no evidence "to sustain the notion of Lansky as king of all evil, the brains, the secret mover, the inspirer and controller of American organized crime." He concludes from evidence including interviews with the surviving members of the family that Lansky's wealth and influence had been grossly exaggerated, and that it would be more accurate to think of him as an accountant for gangsters rather than a gangster himself. His granddaughter told author J.T. English that at his death in 1983, Lansky left only $37,000 in cash. When asked in his later years what went wrong in Cuba, the gangster offered no excuses. "I crapped out," he said.

In September 1982, Forbes listed him as one of the 400 wealthiest people in America. His net worth was estimated at $100 million.

Meyer Lansky (eredeti nevén Majer Suchowliński, Grodno, 1902. július 4. - 1982. november 15) amerikai maffiavezér volt, aki Charles "Lucky" Lucianóval együtt alapvető szerepet játszott a gengszterszervezeteket összefogó Bizottság létrehozásában (és talán az Országos Bűnügyi Szindikátuséban is). Bár Lansky zsidó származású volt, tagadhatatlanul központi helyet töltött be az amerikai olasz maffia szervezetében és általában véve is a szervezett alvilág megszilárdításában.

Lansky az oroszországi Grodnóban született (ma Fehéroroszország), zsidó szülők gyermekeként. Apja Max Suchowljansky, anyka Yetta Lansky volt. 1911-ben a család az Egyesült Államokba vándorolt ki és New York Manhattan városrészében telepedett le, a Lower East Side-on (Manhattan délkeleti része).

Lansky állítólag iskolásfiúként találkozott Lucky Lucianóval, aki pénzt követelt tőle, a kisebb fiú ezt bátran visszautasította, ami annyira tetszett Lucianónak, hogy ettől fogva egész életükre barátok lettek.

Lansky tizenévesként találkozott Bugsy Siegellel, akivel szintén szoros barátságot kötött. Lansky a későbbiekben kulcsszerepet játszott Luciano felemelkedésében azzal, hogy 1931-ben megszervezte Salvatore Maranzano maffiavezér meggyilkolását. Ifjúkorukban Siegel többször megmentette Lansky életét, amiért Lansky egész életében hálás maradt. Ők ketten nagyon hatékonyan irányították a hírhedt Lower East Side-i Bug és Meyer banda tevékenységét annak ellenére, hogy ez a társaság az alkoholtilalom legerőszakosabb gengjei közé tartozott.

1936-ra Lansky jelentős pozíciókat épített ki a szerencsejáték üzletben, Floridában, New Orleansban és Kubában. Ebben az időben került társa, Luciano börtönbe. A kaszinók alkalmasak voltak a maffia pénzeinek tisztára mosására. Állítólag az ő nevéhez fűződik, hogy a maffiacsoportok „szabad városnak” nyilvánították Miamit, ami annyit jelenlt, hogy a városra nem alkalmazták a máshol a maffiacsoportokra jellemző szigorú területi felosztást.

Később Lansky elérte, hogy a maffia Siegelt állítsa a Las Vegas-i ügyletek élére. Maga Lansky Flamingo Hotel projektjébe fektette a pénzét.

Miután 1931-ben Al Caponét a hatóságoknak adóelkerülés vádjával sikerült elítéltetniük, Lansky is tudatára ébredt, hogy ez nei is az érzékeny oldala lehet. Ezért a növekvő kaszinóbirodalom feketepénzeit Európába vitte, és miután 1934-ben a svájci banktörvény ezt lehetővé tette, a pénzt számozott bankszámlára helyezte.

Az 1930-as években Lansky és bűnszervezete kilépett a „normál” üzletmenetből és náci szimpatizánsok gyűléseit verték szét. Maga Lansky így emlékezett vissza arra, hogyan esett neki 14 társával egy náci gyűlésnek Yorkville-ben, Mahattan németek lakta részében:

„A színpadot szvasztika és Hitler képe díszítette. A szónokok locsogni kezdtek. Csak tizenöten voltunk, de akcióba lendültünk. Párukat az ablakon dobtuk ki… A legtöbb náci korcs pánikba esett és kirohant. Mi utánuk és rokkantra vertük a férgeket… Meg akartuk mutatni nekik, hogy a zsidók nem mindig dőlnek hátra, elfogadva a sértéseket.”

Lansky a második világháború idején a Tengerészeti Hírszerző Iroda Alvilág-operációjának fő segítője volt. Ebben a kormány bűnözők segítségével kutatta fel a német kémeket és szabotőröket.

Az 1940-es években Lansky barátja és szövetségese, Bugsy Siegel rávette a maffiavezéreket, köztük Lanskyt, hogy forgassank be jelentős pénzeket Las Vegasban a Flamingo kaszinó és hotel létrehozásába. A hotel jelentős idő- és költségtúllépés után még mindig nem üzemelt, a maffia-befektetők ezért titkos gyűlést hívtak össze, amely havannai konferencia néven híresült el. A kubai találkozón többen Siegel vérét kívánták, de Lansky meggyőzte őket, hogy barátja kapjon még egy esélyt. Ennek ellenére a projekt veszteséges maradt, ezért újabb ülést hívtak össze. Siegel szerencséjére azonban az ülés idejére a kaszinó már némi profitot kezdett el termelni, így Lansky és Luciano támogatásával Siegel újabb időt nyert.

A kaszinó szerencséje azonban nem tartott sokáig, újra veszteséges lett és egy harmadik találkozón a megalázott főnökök Siegel kivégzését határozták el. Elterjedt nézet, hogy végül magát Lanskyt, aki túl közel állt Siegelhez, szintén kényszerítették, hogy adja hozzájárulását Siegel likvidálásához.

1947. június 20-án Bugsy Siegelt a kaliforniai Beverly Hillsben lelőtték. Húsz perccel később Lansky emberei, köztük Gus Greenbaum és Moe Sedway besétáltak a Flamingó Hotelbe és átvették az irányítást. Az FBI szerint a következő húsz évben Lanskynek jelentős érdekeltsége maradt a Flamingóban.

A második világháború után Lansky szövetségesét, Lucky Lucianót kiengedték a börtönből, azzal a feltétellel, hogy visszaköltözik Szicíliába Luciano azonban ehelyett titokban Kubába utazott, hogy onnan mozgassa az amerikai maffia szálait. Fulgencio Batista tábornok, Kuba elnöke jóváhagyásával Luciano helyben egy sor kaszinót múködtetett. Ahogy kubai vállakozásainak jövedelme nőtt és a szerencsejáték üzlet felvirágzott, úgy jött meg egyre inkább Lansky kedve is, hogy befektessen. Nagy összeget költött a Havana Riviera hotel projektre.

1959-ben azonban Fidel Castro színrelépése és a kubai forradalom egy csapásra megváltoztatta a maffia kubai befektetéseinek kilátásait. Az új kubai elnök bezárta, illetve államosította a kaszinókat és szállodákat. Lansky a Bahamákra távozott.

Walter Benjamin

Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin (15 July 1892 – 27 September 1940) was a German-Jewish Marxist philosopher-sociologist, literary critic, translator and essayist. He was at times associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory. His Marxism was more influenced by Bertolt Brecht, who had developed his own critical aesthetics, which asked for the emotional distancing of the spectator (Verfremdungseffekt). An important earlier influence and friend was Gershom Scholem, who founded the modern, academic study of the Kabbalah and of Jewish mysticism. Over the last half-century the regard for his work and its influence have risen dramatically, making Benjamin one of the most important twentieth century thinkers about literature and about modern aesthetic experience. As a sociological and cultural critic, Benjamin combined ideas drawn from historical materialism, German idealism, and Jewish mysticism in a body of work which was a novel contribution to Western Marxism and aesthetic theory. As a literary scholar, he wrote his most famous essays on Charles Baudelaire, he translated the Tableaux Parisiens edition of Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du mal as well as Proust's In Search of Lost Time. His work is widely cited in academic and literary studies, in particular his essays The Task of the Translator and The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. Influenced by Bachofen, Benjamin gave the name "auratic perception" to the aesthetic faculty through which civilization would recover a lost appreciation of myth.

Walter Benjamin and his younger siblings Georg (1895–1942) and Dora (1901–1946) were born and raised in a wealthy Jewish household in Berlin. The father, Emil, was a banker in Paris and subsequently moved to Berlin where he became an antiques trader and married Pauline Schönflies. In 1902, ten-year-old Walter was enrolled in Kaiser Friedrich school in Charlottenburg, concluding his secondary studies ten years later. The boy's health was fragile and, in 1905, his parents sent him to a country boarding school in Thuringia, where he spent two years. In 1907, upon his return to Berlin, he resumed studies at Kaiser Friedrich.

In 1912, at the age of twenty, he enrolled at the University of Freiburg, but at the end of the summer semester returned again to Berlin and enrolled at the Humboldt University of Berlin to continue his studies of philosophy. Elected president of the students' association, Freie Studentenschaft, he devoted his time to writing essays arguing for the need of educational and general cultural change. Failing to be re-elected, he once again turned his attention to his studies in Freiburg, paying particular attention to the lectures of Heinrich Rickert. During this period, he also visited Paris and parts of Italy.

In 1914, as World War I pitted Germany against France, Benjamin began translating with great care and interest the French poet Charles Baudelaire. The following year he moved to Munich, continuing his studies at the University of Munich (aka LMU), where he met Rainer Maria Rilke and Gershom Scholem, the latter of whom would become a lifelong friend. The same year he wrote a paper on the German poet Friedrich Hölderlin.

In 1917 he transferred to the University of Bern where he met Ernst Bloch and married Dora Sophie Pollak (née Kellner) (1890–1964), with whom he had a son, Stefan Rafael (1918–1972). In 1919 Benjamin earned his Ph.D. cum laude with the essay Begriff der Kunstkritik in der Deutschen Romantik [The Concept of Criticism in German Romanticism]. Beset with financial problems, he returned with his wife to Berlin, to live with his parents and, in 1921, published Kritik der Gewalt ["Critique of Violence"].

In 1923, as the Institute for Social Research (Frankfurt School) was being founded, he published Charles Baudelaire, Tableaux Parisiens. He also became acquainted with Theodor Adorno and befriended Georg Lukács, whose The Theory of the Novel, published in 1920, strongly influenced him. The postwar inflation in the Weimar Republic caused his father to have serious difficulty in continuing to give financial support. At the end of 1923 his best friend, Gershom Scholem, immigrated to what would later become the state of Israel, but was at the time the British Mandate of Palestine and, over the succeeding years, tried to persuade Benjamin to join him.

In 1924, Benjamin's paper, "Goethes Wahlverwandtschaften" "Goethe's Elective Affinities" was published by Hugo von Hoffmansthal in the magazine Neue Deutsche Beiträge. Together with Ernst Bloch, Benjamin spent a few months on the Italian island of Capri, writing his habilitation thesis, on The Origin of German Tragic Drama. There he read, on Bloch's suggestion, Lukacs's History and Class Consciousness, and first met Asja Lācis, a Bolshevik Latvian actress living in Moscow. She would become an important and lasting intellectual and erotic influence on him.

A year later, The Origin of German Tragic Drama was rejected by Frankfurt University, effectively closing the door to an academic career for the 33-year-old scholar. Working with Franz Hessel (1880–1941), he translated the first volumes of Marcel Proust's À la Recherche du Temps Perdu [In Search of Lost Time]. The next year he began writing for the German newspapers Frankfurter Zeitung and Die Literarische Welt, enabling him to afford living several months in Paris. In December 1926, the year of his father's death, he made a trip to Moscow to meet Asja Lācis, and found her in a sanatorium, suffering from an illness.

In 1927, he started work on Das Passagen-Werk [The Arcades Project], his monumental and unfinished study which he continued to work on until his death. The same year in Berlin he saw Gershom Scholem in person for the last time, and considered moving to Palestine. In 1928 he separated from his wife, Dora (they were divorced two years later), and published Einbahnstraße [One-Way Street] and Ursprung des Deutschen Trauerspiels [The Origin of German Tragic Drama]. In Berlin, the following year, Asja Lācis, at the time, Bertolt Brecht's assistant, introduced the two authors. Also that year, he briefly attempted an academic career as an instructor at the University of Heidelberg.

In 1932, during the turmoil preceding Adolf Hitler's election as Chancellor, Walter Benjamin left Germany to spend a few months on the Spanish island of Ibiza. Then he moved to Nice, where he considered committing suicide. With the Reichstag fire, in 1933, as Hitler assumed power and started the persecution of the Jews, Benjamin sought shelter in Svendborg, at Bertold Brecht's, and Sanremo, where his ex-wife lived, before moving to Paris.

As his financial situation deteriorated, he collaborated with Max Horkheimer and received some funds from the Institut für Sozialforschung [Institute for Social Research] which, by this time, had relocated to New York. He met other German artists and intellectuals who became refugees in Paris and befriended Hannah Arendt, Hermann Hesse and Kurt Weill. In 1936, L'Œuvre d'Art à l'Époque de sa Reproductibilité Technique ["The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction"] was first published in French by Max Horkheimer in the Institute for Social Research's journal, Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung.

In 1937 Benjamin worked on Das Paris des Second Empire bei Baudelaire [The Paris of the Second Empire in Baudelaire], met Georges Bataille and joined the College of Sociology. In 1938 he paid a last visit to Bertolt Brecht, now in Danish exile. Within a few months, Hitler stripped Jews of their German citizenship, and Benjamin, now stateless, was incarcerated by the French authorities for three months in a camp near Nevers.

Returning to Paris in January 1940, he wrote his Über den Begriff der Geschichte [Theses on the Philosophy of History]. In June, as the Wehrmacht broke through the French defenses, Benjamin fled to Lourdes with his sister, one day before the Germans entered Paris. In August, he obtained a visa to the United States, which had been negotiated by Max Horkheimer. Attempting to elude the Gestapo, Benjamin planned to depart for America from neutral Portugal, which he had hoped to reach via Spain. Through the nearly seven decades that followed, researchers have been unable to establish a clear timeline of the succeeding events, which culminated in his death. Sketchy and incomplete historical records seem to indicate that he reached Portbou, a French-Spanish border town in the Pyrenees, but the group of Jewish refugees he joined was intercepted by the Spanish Police and Benjamin apparently committed suicide by taking an overdose of a form of morphine.

Walter Benjamin (1892. július 15., Berlin, Németország – 1940. szeptember 26., Portbou, Spanyolország) német filozófus, irodalomkritikus, esszéista. Művei utóélete révén a 20. század egyik legnagyobb hatású művészetteoretikusa.

Jómódú zsidó családban született. Kereskedő apjával folyamatos a konfliktusa. A húszas évek derekán Goethe Vonzások és választások című regényéről készült habilitációs írását a frankfurti irodalomtörténész bizottság „homályosnak” találja és elutasítja, így nem sikerül akadémiai pályára lépnie.

A harmincas évek közepétől barátja, Theodor W. Adorno segítségével több írása megjelenik a Frankfurti Iskola társadalomfilozófiai lapjában, a Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung-ban. Francia írókról, nyelvszociológiáról, a műgyűjtő személyiségről, a műalkotás technikai reprodukálhatóságának kihatásairól ír. Benjamin „szabad kritikus” és „alkalmi fordító”. Ismeretségi körén túl alig élvez figyelmet és megbecsülést. Angelus Novus című lapja nem tud elindulni. 1926-ban a Szovjetunióba látogat, meglátogatja szerelmét, Aszja Lacisz lett kommunista színésznőt. Utazásáról naplót vezet.

Hitler hatalomra jutása után Franciaországba emigrál. Párizsban, a Bibliotheque Nationale-ban írja nagyszabású fő művét, a Passzázsok-at (Passagen-Werk), amely végül töredékes maradt. Többször felkeresi barátját, Bertolt Brechtet dániai száműzetésében. 1940-ben az előrenyomuló német csapatok elől Spanyolországon keresztül próbál Amerikába jutni, de azután a Pireneusokban lévő határátkelőnél tisztázatlan körülmények között öngyilkos lesz.