One Grandfather Stayed Too Long. The Other Left 72 Hours Before the War.
The investor Michael Moritz says his family's history taught him to always have somewhere to go.
Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy · Michael Moritz - Lessons From 40 Years of Investing and Writing - [Invest Like the Best, EP.491]Michael Moritz, the longtime Silicon Valley investor who grew up in Wales as the child of Jewish refugees, says his family history taught him to always keep a place to escape to. They made opposite bets on Nazi Germany.
His father's father was a lower level judge in Bavaria, in the south of the country. He had served Germany in World War I, had survived the slaughter at Verdun, and had been awarded the Iron Cross, a German medal for bravery. He believed in the German state, in its security and durability, and believed the storm after Adolf Hitler took power would blow over.
Even after he lost his judgeship in 1933, he stayed. He was conservative and cautious by nature, Moritz said, and he had a pension, the regular payment from the state that was supposed to support him in old age. Moritz said the pension made him more reluctant to leave. Leaving was not simple anyway. A family needed another country willing to take them, and needed to pay heavy exit taxes to the Nazi government to get permission to go.
Moritz said his grandfather was reluctant to leave past the point when leaving was still possible, and he and his wife were eventually shipped east and disappeared from history.
Moritz's other grandfather was cut from different cloth. His mother's father was a cattle trader in a small farming village in Germany's northwest, one of the few livelihoods open to Jews at the time. His eyesight had been failing since youth and was gone entirely by the time Moritz met him, yet he had earned a comfortable living buying and selling cattle.
He had no state pension to protect, and Moritz remembers him as more streetwise and entrepreneurial, a man used to sustaining himself. Moritz said he and his wife "got out by the skin of their teeth," just 72 hours before the war broke out. Had they waited three more days, Moritz said, they too would have perished.
From those two fates, Moritz took a single rule for his own life. Moritz said the lesson was "the necessity for always feeling that you have a bolt hole, that you have some place to go if the fire gets too hot." More glibly, he added, "you can never have enough passports."
Questions people ask
Why was it so hard for German Jews to leave in the 1930s?
Nazi rules imposed a punishing flight tax and other levies that stripped emigrants of much of their wealth in exchange for exit permission. At the same time, most other countries had strict immigration quotas and required proof of sponsorship or employment. Together, money loss and closed doors meant many families delayed until escape was impossible.
What were Verdun and the Iron Cross?
Verdun was one of the longest and deadliest battles of World War I, fought in France in 1916, and became a symbol of endurance under horrific conditions. The Iron Cross was a German military decoration for bravery or service. For a Jewish veteran, it could feel like proof of belonging to Germany.
Can someone legally hold more than one passport?
Yes, many countries allow dual or multiple citizenship, and additional citizenships can be acquired by birth, marriage, descent, or naturalization. Rules vary widely, and some countries restrict or forbid dual nationality. For people who want a bolt hole, a second passport can mean the legal right to live and work elsewhere.