Baron Louis de Rothschild, member of the Vienna branch of the famed banking house, died at Montego Bay, Jamaica, B.W.L. yesterday at the age of 72, A resident of South Royalton, Vermont, Baron Rothschild was in Jamaica on a vacation.
When the Nazis took over Austria in the Anschluss of 1938, Baron de Rothschild, then head of the Austrian banking operations of the family, was held prisoner by the Nazi secret police. He was released only after lengthy negotiations between the family and the Nazis and upon payment of $21,000,000, believed to have been the largest ransom payment in history for any individual.
After his release by the Nazis, he went to South America. Later he came to the United States and became an American citizen. Beside his commercial activities, the baron was known as an amateur archaeologist and as a sponsor of research projects in the physical sciences.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
