Gangster Biography of Arthur Flegenheimer
Gangster Biography of Arthur Flegenheimer
Arthur Flegenheimer
1902-1935
Born: August 6, 1902 in New York, United States
Died: October 24, 1935
Occupation: Gangster
Flegenheimer, Arthur (Aug. 6, 1902 - Oct. 24, 1935), gangster, better known as Dutch Schultz, was born in the Borough of the Bronx, New York City, and was the only son and elder of two children of Herman and Emma (Neu) Flegenheimer. His parents were German-Jewish immigrants. He grew up in a slum section of the Bronx, and went no further than the sixth grade in school, though he had a keen mind and was an omnivorous reader. In Arthur's early boyhood, his father deserted the family, and his mother did laundering while the boy sold papers on the streets. Later he was for a time an office-boy, and worked in a desultory way as a printer's apprentice and as a roofer. He always thereafter carried his roofer's union card as "proof" that he was an honest laboringman.
At seventeen he was convicted of the burglary of an apartment in the Bronx and served fifteen months in a reformatory. He had become a member of a youthful neighborhood gang before this incident, and his prison term enhanced his reputation among its members. He was now given the nickname of a former bully of the neighborhood, Dutch Schultz, by which he was known ever afterward. Working at his roofer's trade, as a moving-van helper, and at odd jobs for a few years--during which time his record showed arrests for grand larceny, felonious assault, homicide, and carrying weapons, but no convictions--he finally became a partner in an illicit saloon in the Bronx in 1928. This was during the prohibition era, and he now began trading in "bootleg" beer which he brought from New Jersey. Having excellent business ability, he rapidly built up a gang of gunmen, bought political protection, and furnished political backing, and within three years owned seventeen garages and "drops;" or secret storage places, for beer. He controlled the business in upper Manhattan and the Bronx. He continued to be arrested at times on one charge and another, but was always discharged, though upon one occasion, in 1931, the police killed his bodyguard. Oddly enough, he was in terror of the law, and an arrest gave him such a nervous shock that at least once a physician was called to administer a bromide to him. Jack ("Legs") Diamond, Edward ("Fats") McCarthy,...