"Barthold Suermondt (18 May 1818, Utrecht – 1 March 1887, Aachen) was a German entrepreneur, banker, philanthropist, and art collector, of Dutch-Huguenot heritage.
He was born in 1818 in Utrecht to Dirk Christiaan Suermondt and Elizabeth Twist. In the 1830s he worked with the Cockerill-Sambre steel manufacturers in Seraing, Belgium. He took over management of the company in 1840 following the sudden death of his boss John Cockerill. Coming from French extraction, Suermondt was responsible for attracting French investment into Germany during the 1830s–40s. At that time he founded in Germany a steel company that after a number of name changes in 1870 became known as Rheinische Stahlwerks, where he served as president until 1878." - (en.wikipedia.org 03.02.2021)
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