Lewin Louis Aronsohn
Lewin Louis Aronsohn (18 October 1850 – 1928) was a German banker and liberal politician, a member of the regional parliament of the Province of Posen (Poznań), the Prussian House of Representatives and the Prussian Constitutional Assembly. Aronsohn was born in Wissek, Prussian Province of Posen (Wysoka, Poland), he moved to Bromberg (Bydgoszcz), where he co-founded the Bromberg Ship Towing Society and the M. Stadthagen Bank. He became a municipal councillor (1878–1890), member of the magistrate of Bromberg (1890–1918) and headed the Jewish community from 1881 on. He initiated the construction of the new Synagogue. Aronsohn was  elected a member of the regional Parliament of the Province of Posen. In 1903 he was elected a member of the Prussian House of Representatives for the Free-minded People’s Party, he later joined the Progressive People's Party. He criticized the policy of the Prussian Settlement Commission, which bought Polish estates in the Provinces of Posen and West Prussia because this, from his point of view, provided Poles the financial means to settle in towns. In April 1914 he unsuccessfully suggested to use a restrictive clause for the government aid of home ownership in order to exclude Poles  from the funding. He was a member and last president (1915-1918) of the Bromberg Chamber of Commerce. In the first decade of the 20th century he supervised a number of important infrastructural projects and controlled the municipal tax administration, gasworks, market, slaughterhouse, water tower, locks, and real estate market. He was responsible for the construction of a modern storage and industrial district at the lower Brahe (Brda). He was a member of the Riflemen’s Association, the Historical Society of the Netze District, and the German Society of Arts and Sciences. Aronsohn financed the Kaiser Wilhelm I monument and  the Archer, a sculpture which he unveiled on his 60th birthday and has become one of the symbols of Bydgoszcz. From 1915 on Aronsohn worked in the administration of German-occupied Poland. Aronsohn moved to Berlin in 1918, he opposed the incorporation of Bromberg into Poland. In 1919, he became a member of the Prussian Constitutional Assembly for the German Democratic Party. Aronsohn died in 1928 in Berlin. Today the Villa Aronsohn is the seat of the Municipal Housing Administration in Bydgoszcz.