Marthe Marie Hanau (1 January 1886 – 19 July 1935) was a Frenchwoman who successfully defrauded French financial markets in the 1920s and the 1930s.

Early life

Marthe Marie Hanau was born in Lille to the family of a Jewish industrialist.

She married Lazare Bloch in 1908; they later divorced. In 1925, she and Bloch, who remained business partners after their divorce, founded an economic newspaper, La Gazette du Franc et des Nations. She died in Fresnes Prison a few days before the end of her prison term.

Legacy

A French movie, "La Banquière" (The Lady Banker), by Francis Girod, was made in 1980, starring Romy Schneider as "Emma Eckhert", a thinly-fictionalized Hanau.

Season 7, Episode 7 of the Bad Gays podcast covers her life and crimes.

See also

  • 6 February 1934 crisis

References

Sources

  • Janet Flanner, "The Swindling Presidente," The New Yorker, 26 August & 2 September 1939.